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A new season of Bridgerton is here.
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And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
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I m your host, Gabby Collins.
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And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
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Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
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Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
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Guess what, Will?
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What s up, Mango?
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I ve been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we ve done over 250 episodes, we don t really talk about murders or cults.
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I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy.
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We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money?
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And then, of course, can you game a dog show?
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So what you re saying is everyone should be listening.
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Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You are free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
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I m John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Hey, everyone.
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Welcome back to On Purpose, where you re choosing to listen to become happier, healthier, and more healed.
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That s our mission here, to leave you feeling happier, healthier, and more healed after listening to these conversations, these workshops every single day.
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And I m so grateful to you for your commitment and dedication to yourself, your investment in yourself, and lending your ears and your eyes to me.
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I know some of you are listening every single day, so thank you and keep those reviews coming.
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Keep all of that positive energy coming.
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It means the world to me.
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And today s guest is honestly the person that I ve been waiting to talk to all year.
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Because of scheduling, we kept missing each other.
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I was on a world tour.
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He s busy traveling.
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He s launched an incredible new book this year, Helping People.
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And I m just so happy that we finally have him here at our LA studio.
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I m talking about Peter Atiyah, the founder of Early Medical, a medical practice that applies the principles of Medicine 3.0 to patients with the goal of lengthening their lifespan and simultaneously improving their health span.
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Peter is the host of The Drive.
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If you don t already subscribe, make sure you do.
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A podcast covering the topics of health and medicine.
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Peter is also the author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Outlive, The Science and Art of Longevity.
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This is the book that I recommend.
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If you re gonna read about your health right now, this is the book I want you to go and get.
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Peter is here.
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Welcome to On Purpose, and thank you for being here.
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Thank you so much, Jay.
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I meant everything I said.
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I was, uh, you know, really, really looking forward to this conversation and I want to dive into many aspects of the book, many topics.
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I ve also sourced questions from my team, community, people, real, real life questions that I think people are really struggling with.
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But I actually want to start with your journey and your story because I ve
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gone through similar moments in my life where at a young age, I ve had different health challenges.
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When I started to get the right help and support, I started to realize how detrimental those health challenges could be long-term if I wasn t to shift things.
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And the problem is I ve always been a fairly healthy guy and had healthy habits.
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And so when you get that kind of news, it s kind of alarming and scary and can set fear into you.
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Now, I know that in your journey,
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you were a generally healthy person doing pretty healthy things, only to find out that actually you were prone or open to a terrible disease down the road.
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So could you walk us through what it feels like to think you re healthy, to maybe even feel you re doing okay, but in reality there s something going on behind the scenes?
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Yeah, I mean, I think there were two sort of things that were a wake-up call for me.
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And neither of these things happen immediately.
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I think it s just sometimes the realization that happens immediately.
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So the first one is, I d always been an athlete my whole life, insanely active, potentially even active to an unhealthy level.
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And the focus of that obsession had always shifted.
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But at the point in the story that we re talking about, at this point I was sort of an ultra-distance swimmer.
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So I was probably in the water swimming 24 to 28 hours a week.
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plus, you know, other types of training.
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Yet, you know, I found out this is probably around 15 years ago that, well, actually on top of that, I was sort of insulin resistant.
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I was overweight.
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And again, not that I didn t know I was overweight.
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You sort of can realize that.
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But, but that I was sort of insulin resistant and you know, that s sort of the first step on the way towards type two diabetes.
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It was really at that time that I also, I think, confronted my own family history.
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So just within my genes, the acknowledgement that, you know, basically every man in my family died prematurely of heart disease.
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And in some cases, very prematurely in their forties.
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Those two realizations in my mid thirties, which also happened to coincide with the birth of my daughter, which was my first child, was a real wake up call.
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And the realization that, you know, I needed to figure something out so that I didn t just, you know, march down the footsteps of what seemed to be my destiny.
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And even then, you were in the medical profession, right?
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Yeah, although I had actually left medicine at this point.
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So after 10 years of medical training, including medical school, I became sort of disillusioned with medicine and left.
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So at the time that I m having this realization, I m actually in the world of finance and quite far from medicine.
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What was your biggest fear at the time?
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Like if you could take yourself back to that moment, like what was the fear that you had?
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Yeah, that I wouldn t be around to, you know, be with my grandkids and things of that nature.
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Because I think, you know, prior to my daughter being born, I didn t really think I would be the kind of person that would find any joy in having kids.
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And that changed in an instant the second she was born.
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I m sure there are lots of people who can relate to that, probably more so men than women.
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I think because the switch is a little more binary when we have kids.
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And then the thought of, you know, I m not going to relive this in 30 years with grandkids.
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Um, I think that was probably the thing that was the most motivating factor.
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Wow.
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Yeah, it needs that kind of incentive to get activated.
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And the reason I asked that question is everyone who s listening or watching, I want you to think about what that fear, what that challenge is for you, because often fear isn t a great motivator to keep going, but it s a great place to start.
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And our health almost starts there sometimes.
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Like I remember that.
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I remember feeling like Superman when I was in my early twenties.
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And then all of a sudden, having certain health challenges, I got into chronic fatigue.
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I had polyps in my throat that had to be lasered out.
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I lost my voice for a few months.
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And that wasn t life-threatening, but it was life-altering in the sense that I couldn t communicate in the same way.
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It was different getting my voice back and not feeling like it was as strong or powerful.
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And then having gut issues and inflammation issues and acid issues and all of these things, again, like they weren t,
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it s not that my life was gonna end that year, but it s like you start thinking long-term and you start thinking about living a unhealthier, harder life.
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When is the right time for people to consciously start actually investing in their health?
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And I m gonna caveat that with what is generally happening in the different decades of our life?
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So what s happening between zero to 10, 10 to 20, 20 to 30, 30 to 40, 40 to 50?
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And when is the time when you have a bit more control and ability to shift
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the trajectory of your health, bar any, of course, major complications or surprises.
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I ve never actually been asked it that way, but the way you asked it kind of makes me think about different things.
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The aging process in some ways, there are some aspects of it that are moving in the wrong direction the moment you were born.
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In other words, the moment a fetus comes into this world, there are certain aspects of aging that are only getting worse.
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There are others that are not.
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So you have to imagine now they were talking about different things.
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So I ll give you an example of each.
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Something that s getting worse the second you re born is the damage to your arteries.
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So we call this process atherosclerosis.
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This is what leads to heart attacks and strokes.
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Heart attack and stroke is the leading cause of death in the United States for both men and women and globally for both men and women.
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But it takes an awfully long time.
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That s why you ve never heard of a baby having a heart attack.
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That s why teenagers don t have heart attacks and people in their twenties, it s almost unheard of.
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They would have a heart attack.
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but the disease is starting right away.
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And we know this because when we ve looked at people who have died prematurely from other causes, car accidents, homicide, suicide, and you look at their coronary arteries, you already see evidence of disease.
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So we know that this is happening right away and it s simply a matter of time until it reaches a critical level that results in disease.
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And of course, everybody,
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is accelerating at a different rate based on many factors, genetics, smoking, high blood pressure, metabolic health, all these other things.
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But point being, that s something for which you could technically argue it s never too soon to start prevention.
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Then there are other things in which we re actually getting better and better and better until we reach a certain point and then we start to demise.
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And an example there might be sort of cognitive capacity.
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So we might have our greatest neuroplasticity in the first few years of life, but we re also building on that.
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And if we re in the right environment, we re exposed to the right things.
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We re actually getting, you know, better and better and better at our fluid intelligence.
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And that probably reaches our peak sometime in our third decade.
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So that s something where, you know, you re actually getting better and better and better.
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And then it slowly starts to decline.
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Hmm.
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And then there are all sorts of things that are mixtures of these things.
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So for example, your physical capacity, your muscle mass, strength, power, type two muscle fibers, cardiorespiratory fitness, all of those things are also increasing in capacity.
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Again, depending on which of those things we re talking about, if it s power and explosiveness, that probably peaks early in the third decade.
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If it s strength, that peaks a little bit later.
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Peak cardiorespiratory fitness, again, in your 20s.
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And then those things will start to decline.
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What s undoubtedly clear is for you and I, we re pretty much in decline.
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So most people listening to this are in a state of decline.
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And part of the objective I think ought to be to slow the rate of decline as much as possible.
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But there s another aspect to your question I think is very important, right?
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Which is like, at what point should you start putting effort into this?
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And that s a very difficult question because it encompasses a couple of things.
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When you talk to a person, let s do this as a thought experiment.
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You talk to a person the day before they re going to die.
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I mean, they would give anything and everything they have for more chance at life.
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Despite how high their motivation is, there s no runway left.
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Conversely, if you went into a high school and talked to a bunch of freshmen and said, I ve got the program for you that is going to add 15 years to your life, they couldn t be less interested.
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So there s a sweet spot somewhere where
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I almost think people need to go through a little bit of decline, kind of like what you described.
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It wasn t life threatening, but you just need to realize that you re fallible to sort of say, Hmm, I can project this movie forward a couple of decades.
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I ve now mature enough to maybe see my parents, see my grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends,
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people s health deteriorate and realize that s a bit of a reality check that it s coming for me.
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But yet I still have long enough to bend the arc of my life.
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And so I think those are the two curves that we re trying to intersect.
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Yeah, that s a great answer.
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And I, and I appreciate that.
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I feel the same way.
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It,
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unfortunately always comes through some sort of pain or some sort of reality check or wake up call that gets us going.
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And it s interesting what you were saying about cognitive function and ability as well.
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There were studies that I read that said that the average age of most successful entrepreneurs is 37.
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And it s fascinating because we live in a world right now where everyone wants to be a successful entrepreneur by the time they re 21 or 25.
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And we put these artificial pressures on ourselves when actually there s so much more to it.
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In the genetics versus environment debate, what s the latest in that space?
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You said you dove into your family s history.
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I think most of us are not fully aware of our family s history, even though every time I saw a doctor growing up, they d always ask, is there this in your family s history?
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Is there that?
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First of all, how aware do we need to be of our family s history?
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How important is that for people to figure out?
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And second of all, what is that breakdown between genetics and personal environment and career and work?
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You know, I think actually family history is such an important thing.
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It s one of these things that we stress to the nth degree with our patients so much so that, you know, it takes them weeks sometimes to gather the information that we want to know because we want to know, and we give them 10 questions for each member of the family.
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So your parents, your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, your siblings, like we want to know everything.
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Do they have high blood pressure?
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Do they have high cholesterol?
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Do they take this medication?
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Do they take that medication?
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what was their cognitive function like in the last decade of their life?
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You know, what type of cancers did they have?
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Did they have a low bone density?
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You know, do they have osteoporosis?
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I mean, we really want to understand every detail about it.
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And I think a big part of the reason why is contrary to what,
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maybe people believe a genetic test does not give you that information.
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So if, if you and I went out and got a genetic test and I don t just mean an op, you know, over the counter genetic test like 23andme, but I m saying if we went out and got the best whole genome sequence money could buy, we spent thousands and thousands of dollars and literally looked at every one of our, you know, 20 to 30,000 genes,
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we still wouldn t be able to impute from a risk standpoint what you can gather from a very well collected family history.
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And the reason for that is most genes by themselves are not deterministic, which really gets to your second question.
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So if most genes are not deterministic, they need something in the environment to sort of trigger them.
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Furthermore, most conditions that we care about are polygenic.
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It s easy to think of the sort of Mendelian monogene type conditions.
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They get a lot of attention and they re important to be sure, but the vast majority of things that people care about, cancer, heart disease, dementia, they are not really just related to a single gene.
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And in many cases, we don t even know what the collection of genes look like.
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So genes matter, but I think we re going to get the majority of our information by understanding our family history in terms of susceptibility and the environment matters greatly.
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And the extension of that is of course you have great agency over that.
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Yeah.
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And what is the best methodology for getting the family history in a complete comprehensive way?
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That s actually going to be hard if members of the family are deceased.
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So for people your age and my age, you know, our grandparents, I mean, at least for me, my grandparents are long gone.
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Yes.
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So it s, you know, do your parents really remember?
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And part of it, it just comes down to, are they being prompted by the right questions?
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Now, again, to be honest, in my family history, I have very limited understanding of grandparents because you know, they just died long enough ago.
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And frankly, I don t think my parents were necessarily great historians of this.
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In my case, where the bulk of my understanding came from was that my dad came from a very large family.
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You know, there were 10 kids, two that died young.
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So eight that survived to adulthood.
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And there I was able to elucidate really good information and really understand that there s something very bad going on with respect to heart disease.
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On my mom s side, I could also see some issues with her two siblings as well.
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That also gave me a sense of, you know, what some predispositions might be.
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Where can people find those questions or how can they connect with that approach?
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That s a good question.
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I don t, we, we have a program that we ve developed called early, which is like a digital product that is our practice.
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I know that it is within there.
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Got it.
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Yeah.
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So if people like look for early, I don t know if you, I should know how to do this.
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If you go to like early medical.com there s a way to find it.
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Got it, got it.
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Okay, perfect.
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Yeah, no, I think that that kind of practical step is so needed because one of the biggest things when I was talking to my team and talking to the community about health, one of the biggest things that came out is, Jay, we re just stuck on where to start.
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Like, I don t know where to start.
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I don t, there s just too much information out there.
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It s oversaturated.
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Everyone s telling me to do this and that.
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And it s almost like,
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Well, let s figure out your genetic history.
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Like, that s a great place to start because that s where we came from.
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Yeah, this program early is divided into 12 modules.
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We think each module would take you about a month to get through.
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And that s the first or second module.
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I think the first module is setting your goals and going through kind of this type of exercise.
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And then the second module is, okay, how do you get your family history?
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How do you take that information and extract what the implications are for you?
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And then go from there.
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What s your take on like full body scans and that kind of testing and how often should it be done?
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Because I think again, what s happening, I was talking to, uh,
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some younger people in our audiences, Gen Z, and it was just like going to see a doctor has become like not even a thought.
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And I could see that in my generation, but I remember in my parents  generation, like my mom will still call me up and be like, have you seen the dentist every six months?
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Like, have you been to the doctor every 12 months?
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Like, you know, my mom will still do that with me.
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But I find that that kind of culture is diminishing day by day because of a lack of trust, because of a lack of transparency.
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So many different things could just be laziness and complacency.
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What is your take on getting checks, which checks, how often?
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And I guess the question is, how do people know how healthy they are?
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And early is a great plan, but from the other point of view?
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It depends on the type of scan.
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So, for example, there are certain scans that are going to be very helpful at predicting risk from heart disease.
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So, for example, a coronary calcium scan for the heart or a CT angiogram for the heart.
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Those are tests that I don t think are absolutely essential, but they can be very helpful if you re trying to further stratify risk.
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You referred to a whole body scan.
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So for the best example of a whole body scan that I think provides value is an MRI.
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The reason being is an MRI doesn t have radiation, whereas a whole body CT scan or a pet scan.
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would have staggering amounts of radiation.
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We would never want to do that just from a screening perspective.
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But of course not all MRIs are created equal.
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And anytime you re doing a screening test, you have to be aware of something called sensitivity and specificity.
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And these are really important parameters.
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We ve put out a lot of content on this because I think it s very confusing for people.
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So sensitivity is the capacity of a test to detect something if the something is present.
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So if you re looking at a sensitivity of an MRI scanner for cancer, the sensitivity is how likely is this to detect cancer if cancer is present.
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So on the topic of whole body scanners, MRIs are very sensitive.
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And again, not all MRIs are created equal, but I m assuming we re talking about the best of the best.
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Yeah.
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That s good news.
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Means if you go into an MRI scanner and you have a cancer, the MRI is quite likely to pick it up.
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Now it does have some blind spots and every screening test has a blind spot.
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So a blind spot that s worth acknowledging for an MRI is a small calcified breast cancer.
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That s easily going to get missed by an MRI and that s why it s not a substitute for mammography.
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A woman would need to do both.
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The next parameter of a screening test is the specificity.
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This says, how likely is this test to give you a negative result if indeed the condition is not present?
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So it s the mirror opposite of sensitivity.
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Here is where those whole body scanners are abysmal.
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They have very low specificity.
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SPEAKER_01
What that translates to in English is they have a lot of false positives.
2
SPEAKER_01
I always tell patients, look, if you re going to go and get these scans and we advocate that our patients do, but they, we, we do it in a much more kind of robust way where it s part of a multiple system of screening tests so that we re covering the bases of everything and trying to attach to the strength and weakness of each study.
2
SPEAKER_01
But when it comes to that MRI, we say, look, there s a really good chance you re going to come out of this test and there s going to be some false positives we re going to need to chase down.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I always feel bad when people sign up to do these scans and they aren t aware of that because it generates sometimes more stress on the backend.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
I went through that.
2
SPEAKER_00
We had an MRI done and they found like almost like a group or a cluster of things in an area and they re like, oh, that could be cancer.
2
SPEAKER_00
Then I had to go and do a endoscopy as well.
2
SPEAKER_00
And luckily they found it was nothing.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I remember for that week before I was like, that s it.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s all over here.
2
SPEAKER_00
It is like, you know, I need to.
2
SPEAKER_01
Whereas I think sometimes if you re told upfront, Hey Jay, there s like a 15% chance.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I didn t, I was not told about that.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we want to make sure our patients understand that.
2
SPEAKER_01
And by the way,
2
SPEAKER_01
A subset of our patients, probably 10% decide, I don t want to have the scan because I don t want to cope with that.
2
SPEAKER_00
The stress.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it was real.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was like, all right, I m going to have to get focused on figuring this out because it sounds bad.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t have that layout, as you said.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s, it s really interesting.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s what I find so fascinating today.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like,
2
SPEAKER_00
There s managing your health, and then there s the stress and the pain that comes with figuring your health out, whether it s the overexposure to too much information, whether it s bad information in the past.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then we re like, oh, well, just forget it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to do any of it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s what I feel your book does, and that s what your work does, is trying to help people figure out, well,
2
SPEAKER_00
Let me give you all the information.
2
SPEAKER_00
Here s how you can know what s good for you and tested for you and right for you.
2
SPEAKER_00
One of the things that I love that you talk about is you talk about the need to get rid of, you know, just focusing on a random diet or following a random diet and actually looking at like eating habits and patterns that work for you.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so just putting a little footnote for everyone who s listening, the book will walk you through how to make sense of
2
SPEAKER_00
how to know what is right for you, what is wrong for you, whether you should do something, which I think is like the biggest anxiety driver for so many people when it comes to their health.
2
SPEAKER_00
When it comes to food, I think fasting has become trendy.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s become a big thing that everyone s talking about.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, we hear so much about every single diet in the world.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s always a new one that s coming on the surface.
2
SPEAKER_00
How have you helped people one-on-one actually discover what s right for them?
2
SPEAKER_00
Because I found that my eating patterns are very different to the trending
2
SPEAKER_00
habits of how to eat food and even fasting.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I think the first thing is, as you said, it s just letting people understand that the less you can pay attention to social media fads and your newsfeed on Google or whatever, the better.
2
SPEAKER_01
Acknowledge that there is surprisingly little known about the relationship between nutrition and health.
2
SPEAKER_01
And people are going to be shocked to hear that because I think most people think the exact opposite.
2
SPEAKER_01
Most people think that nutrition is the most important pillar of health.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the reality of it is outside of very extreme States, that s, that s really not true.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the very little bit we know about nutrition just frankly speaks to the challenge of scientific inquiry into something as difficult as nutrition to study.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the reason for that is,
2
SPEAKER_01
you can t study us as humans very well.
2
SPEAKER_01
We re very messy subjects.
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SPEAKER_01
So we re not like mice where, you know, you can put us in a cage and control what we re eating and follow us through the duration of our lives.
2
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t work that way.
2
SPEAKER_01
So when you re trying to make inferences about nutrition and humans, you have to rely on poorly controlled studies called epidemiologic studies, which are fraught with all sorts of limitations that I talk about in the book.
2
SPEAKER_01
Or, if you re going to control the study, you can only do it for a very short period of time.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s only a short period of time in which I can control exactly what you re eating.
2
SPEAKER_01
So as a result of that, we don t know a lot.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I always want to start with what do we know?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, we know that protein is a very important macronutrient.
2
SPEAKER_01
There are four macronutrients, carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and alcohol.
2
SPEAKER_01
People kind of forget alcohol, but it s important to understand it s very caloric.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so it constitutes a source of energy.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s the worst macronutrient.
2
SPEAKER_01
But nevertheless, it s, you know, you d be amazed.
2
SPEAKER_01
Sometimes people are getting like 15 to 20% of their calories from alcohol if they drink enough.
2
SPEAKER_01
So protein is really important and it s not a source of energy the way carbohydrates and fat is, but it s a structural macronutrient.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so I always start with that and say, look, rule number one is you have to make sure you re getting enough protein.
2
SPEAKER_01
And this is especially true if you re over 50.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because if you re over 50, you start to become resistant to the effects of protein.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s called anabolic resistance.
2
SPEAKER_01
And loss of muscle mass in people over 50 is a significant driver of mortality and a significant driver of poor quality of life.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you really start to think about it,
2
SPEAKER_01
Even if a person is of sound mind and they re not suffering from some intractable disease later in life, a great source of misery is simply being physically unable to do things.
2
SPEAKER_01
After that, it really comes down to what do we understand about energy balance?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, we understand that too much nutrition, I call this over nutrition, is bad.
2
SPEAKER_01
and that the body historically developed lots of tools to store energy because that s what allowed us to evolve the way we did.
2
SPEAKER_01
And up until, I don t know, a hundred years ago or so, that was a great skill to have.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s now thwarting us in an, in an environment of too much food.
2
SPEAKER_01
So now this ability that we had, this superpower basically, to store excess energy has become a liability.
2
SPEAKER_01
In the United States, certainly, the vast majority of people, probably over 70% of people, are overnourished.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s the thing that s driving a lot of their poor health.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you re overnourished, you have to correct that problem.
2
SPEAKER_01
The way to correct that problem is to eat less.
2
SPEAKER_01
And there are three strategies to do that.
2
SPEAKER_01
One of them is to deliberately go about cutting calories.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s called calorie restriction, or CR.
2
SPEAKER_01
The other one is called dietary restriction.
2
SPEAKER_01
That means limit certain things within the diet.
2
SPEAKER_01
And if you are restrictive enough, that will indirectly also reduce total intake.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then the third is fasting or time restricted eating, where you create a narrower and narrower window each day in which to eat.
2
SPEAKER_01
All of these things can work and all of those things have significant limitations that you as an individual practicing this need to know.
2
SPEAKER_00
I couldn t be more excited to share something truly special with all you tea lovers out there.
2
SPEAKER_00
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2
SPEAKER_00
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2
SPEAKER_00
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2
SPEAKER_00
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2
SPEAKER_00
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2
SPEAKER_00
Even better, Juni has zero sugar and only 5 calories per can.
2
SPEAKER_00
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2
SPEAKER_00
So visit www.drinkjunie.com today to elevate your wellness journey and use code ONPURPOSE to receive 50% off.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it was incredible.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was looking at the just history of the design of plates and cups randomly.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t even know how I got there.
3
SPEAKER_01
How much bigger they re getting.
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SPEAKER_00
Just how much bigger they re getting.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it was insane for me to think that the way plates are designed, the way cups are designed, the way anything s designed,
3
SPEAKER_00
transforms how we consume.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s fascinating to think that just because of a larger plate size, we re now eating larger amounts and we think it s normal in our time, whereas someone else would have think we were feasting.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m sure you still get back to Europe all the time, but like, look at the difference in portion sizes when you re in, you know, Italy versus the United States.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s comical what a difference it is.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
I remember as a kid coming to the States and obviously when you re a kid, everything that s big is better.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I remember like pulling over at the gas station and I d see like this massive like, you know, jumbo thing to fill your drink up in and like, you know, forever refills or whatever it is.
3
SPEAKER_00
And just as a kid, I was like, this is the coolest thing in the world.
3
SPEAKER_00
And now you look at it and you re like, wow, there s no need for that.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s fascinating also how these cultural shifts and cultural changes have made some of these things harder for us today.
3
SPEAKER_00
So you said CR, DR, and TR.
3
SPEAKER_00
Those are the three that people need to experiment with each of those.
3
SPEAKER_01
Basically, if you are in that overnourished camp,
3
SPEAKER_01
you need to employ some combination of CRDR and or TR.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if you re adequately muscled,
3
SPEAKER_01
That s you just, you can just focus on that.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you re inadequately muscled, you have the added challenge of needing to boost protein intake to match strength training while engaging in CRDRTR.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
But the raw of it is that s it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, the rest of it, the alphabet soup of diets is just, it s all noise.
3
SPEAKER_01
I just encourage people to not fixate on,
3
SPEAKER_01
the trend and just think about those different things because you know, look, each of the alphabet soup diets fits into some form of DR. I mean, and that s true whether you re talking carnivore or vegan or everything in between, those are just forms of DR and they can all be effective, but you have to be aware of the limitations of each and make sure you re circumventing them.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that one of the things that there s a lot of question marks around as well from the community that they were asking was nutrition, which you ve beautifully clarified there, but nutrition versus supplements and the need for supplements.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think I would love to hear your takes on supplements that are working, types of supplements, types of ingredients, types of...
3
SPEAKER_00
chemicals that are making a difference, natural supplements too.
3
SPEAKER_00
I d love to hear your thoughts on nootropics because I m just hearing about nootropics everywhere right now.
3
SPEAKER_00
Adaptogens, as you just tried as well, we ve been focusing on adaptogens.
3
SPEAKER_00
I d love to...
3
SPEAKER_00
Let s talk about your take on great supplements that everyone needs to take.
3
SPEAKER_00
Not, not a brand, but I mean like, and then your take on nootropics and adaptogens, that would be fantastic.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I definitely do take some supplements.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m always careful to kind of make disclosures.
3
SPEAKER_01
So one thing I do supplement, I take something called AG.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I m an investor in AG, but I d been taking it long before I invested in it.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I know the founder very well.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m very under the hood of exactly how their products are made and sourced.
3
SPEAKER_01
And for folks who aren t aware, AG is like a green that you just mix in with water.
3
SPEAKER_01
I drink it every morning.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, do they?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
And my approach to that is if you buy the thesis that we need to be having X amount of vegetables a day, and let s be clear and be transparent, I can t guarantee that that is true.
3
SPEAKER_01
because we don t know.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s another example of something that the epidemiology tells us is true, but there are many confounders there.
3
SPEAKER_01
But my view is that it s better to err on the side of that s probably true than the counter.
3
SPEAKER_01
So if you buy the thesis that you need X amount of vegetable a day,
3
SPEAKER_01
I actually find it very difficult to do that without exception.
3
SPEAKER_01
There are lots of days I can, but there are enough days that I can t.
3
SPEAKER_01
So my view of a supplement like AG is it s my belt and suspenders approach.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s, it s, it s basically my way of guaranteeing that by seven o clock in the morning I ve met my needs.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then if I have a salad for lunch and dinner as well, perfect.
3
SPEAKER_01
I went a little overboard, but that s better than the reverse to me.
3
SPEAKER_01
So that s one.
3
SPEAKER_00
And AG is specifically talking about that kind of a supplement.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s a vegetable focused supplement.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
3
SPEAKER_00
Not all supplements are specifically focused on that.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s specific to AG.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s another supplement I take, which is a probiotic.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now, no one has been a more
3
SPEAKER_01
vocal critic of the probiotic space than me.
3
SPEAKER_01
I have generally viewed it as a space that has demonstrated no efficacy despite all the intentions in the world.
3
SPEAKER_01
In the past year, I have sort of changed my take.
3
SPEAKER_01
So there was this study that came out that looked at a certain type of probiotic and noted that a certain type of bacteria in it would help with the production of something called butyrate.
3
SPEAKER_01
And this was actually helping with glucose disposal.
3
SPEAKER_01
The results of the study actually were pretty impressive.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was a relatively short study, a three month study, but it demonstrated in the group that was actually taking this probiotic, and this was in a blinded randomized trial, that these patients with type two diabetes had a significant reduction in blood glucose.
3
SPEAKER_01
Even though I don t have type two diabetes, I sort of subscribe to the idea that everybody benefits from lower blood glucose, including those without diabetes.
3
SPEAKER_01
So that s a probiotic that I take.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t have any involvement with the company.
3
SPEAKER_01
The company is called Pendulum, but I take their glucose control probiotic.
3
SPEAKER_00
Can you walk us through a bit on glucose control?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because I think that s still an area that for people who are not as well informed, that s an area that I learned about probably in the last year and a half that has changed what I eat first thing in the morning.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s changed what I m eating at different times.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like to me, I was just like, oh, if I need a boost of something, as long as it s a healthy sugar, it s fine.
3
SPEAKER_00
Not only to realize that, you know, causing spikes in my blood glucose level.
3
SPEAKER_00
So could you walk us through that a little bit?
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, glucose is this essential, very simple carbohydrate.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of the final common pathway of most carbohydrates.
3
SPEAKER_01
There are other simple carbohydrates as well, fructose being one of them.
3
SPEAKER_01
So sugar, for example, table sugar is a, is a molecule of fructose and a molecule of glucose.
3
SPEAKER_01
But glucose is the, is the most abundant carbohydrate final breakdown product.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s very highly regulated.
3
SPEAKER_01
At any point in time you re walking around with, you know, if you haven t eaten that day, somewhere between four and five grams of glucose in your blood, maybe say four to six grams of glucose in your blood, which is just over a tablespoon or a teaspoon rather.
3
SPEAKER_01
So tiny, tiny amount, but you re using it constantly.
3
SPEAKER_01
and therefore your liver is constantly putting more out into your circulation ever so delicately.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the balance of that is so fine that if that level were to be just twice as much, if you were to go from one teaspoon to two teaspoons, that would be consistent with having type 2 diabetes.
3
SPEAKER_01
So type 2 diabetes is a condition where an individual can t control the amount of glucose in their blood.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is very problematic because glucose, when it becomes too high, starts sticking to proteins and it starts causing damage all over the place, but primarily to small blood vessels.
3
SPEAKER_01
So blood vessels in the heart, blood vessels in the kidney, in the brain, if you re in the extremities of the toes, that s why people with type two diabetes are more susceptible to amputations, kidney disease, heart disease, strokes, Alzheimer s disease, all of these things, anything that compromises blood flow and oxygen.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it turns out that even if you don t have type 2 diabetes, and that today is just defined by a threshold of average blood glucose above 140 milligrams per deciliter, even if you are not in that category, it still appears that your mortality goes down the lower your average blood glucose.
3
SPEAKER_01
So meaning within the normal range of glucose, lower is still better.
3
SPEAKER_01
People sometimes say,
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, does that just mean, you know, you should never eat a food that raises blood glucose?
3
SPEAKER_01
No, that doesn t necessarily mean that at all.
3
SPEAKER_01
What it means is you need to be mindful of matching your glucose consumption to your capacity to dispose of glucose.
3
SPEAKER_01
And those are factors that are of course, highly impacted by how much you sleep.
3
SPEAKER_01
So sleep, interruptions in sleep dramatically reduce your capacity to put glucose into your muscles, which means glucose levels get higher.
3
SPEAKER_01
It also has to do significantly with how much you exercise and how much muscle mass you have.
3
SPEAKER_01
So people can have completely different tolerances for glucose.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think I write quite a bit about this, which is, you know, basically trying to understand your, your glucose tolerance level comes down to matching it with your insulin sensitivity, muscle mass, activity levels, sleep, stress, et cetera.
3
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_00
Thank you so much.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I cut you off from moving forward.
3
SPEAKER_01
Just to go back to this other point quickly.
3
SPEAKER_01
So there are lots of other supplements that I think can be really valuable.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think B vitamins are very important, especially methylated B vitamins.
3
SPEAKER_01
Vitamin D is very important.
3
SPEAKER_01
Many people I think don t have sufficient levels of vitamin D. I think the data on vitamin D, we could do an entire podcast on that.
3
SPEAKER_01
The clinical trials looking at vitamin D levels are really poorly done clinical trials.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so I think if a person looks out at the literature and the literature says there s no
4
SPEAKER_02
evidence that vitamin D really helps.
4
SPEAKER_02
I would argue pretty strongly that those trials haven t asked the right question and weren t designed correctly.
4
SPEAKER_02
So my view is it s better to probably err on the side of caution and make sure your vitamin D is probably somewhere between about 40 and 60.
4
SPEAKER_02
And if you re not achieving that through natural exposure to sunlight, which many people are not, then you re probably better off supplementing
4
SPEAKER_02
There are a couple of other supplements I really believe in and I think magnesium is a very important one.
4
SPEAKER_02
And I think you have to be thoughtful about the form in which you take magnesium.
4
SPEAKER_02
So you can take magnesium in a slow absorbing form or a fast absorbing form that s poorly absorbed technically.
4
SPEAKER_02
And I think we need both, right?
4
SPEAKER_02
So I think that like a poorly absorbed magnesium would be like a citrate, glycinate or oxide.
4
SPEAKER_02
And those actually really help with bowel regularity.
4
SPEAKER_02
So for anybody who s a little bit constipated or just, you know, kind of needs to be a little bit more regular, we always want to have in anywhere from two to 500 milligrams of one of those forms.
4
SPEAKER_02
Conversely, I think virtually everybody also benefits from a slow absorbing form of magnesium.
4
SPEAKER_02
The brand that I like is called Slow Mag.
4
SPEAKER_02
Again, I don t have any affiliation with any of these companies unless I m disclosing it as I did with AG.
4
SPEAKER_02
that actually, you know, so most people, if they notice, Oh, I have a little bit of cramping sometimes, or, you know, I m getting little palpitations called PVC.
4
SPEAKER_02
Sometimes those get a lot better with magnesium supplementation.
4
SPEAKER_02
So, so I think most people benefit from that.
4
SPEAKER_02
There s another type of magnesium that I m a fan of called magnesium L three and eight, which is magnesium paired to a transporter that gets the magnesium into the brain.
4
SPEAKER_02
I think there s reasonable evidence.
4
SPEAKER_02
I wouldn t say it s incredible, but I think it s quite good that magnesium L3 and 8 is beneficial to the brain and might even have some capacity to reduce the risk of dementia.
4
SPEAKER_02
Before bed, I tend to rely on ashwagandha, which I believe you said is in there.
4
SPEAKER_02
So I take a big dose of ashwagandha and glycine.
4
SPEAKER_02
And again, I take that magnesium L3 and eight, and those are kind of things that I think help with reducing cortisol and making it a little easier to sleep.
4
SPEAKER_02
Then the final supplement that I do think most people benefit from, and there are probably many others, but I m just sort of going through a few that I can think of, would be fish oil.
4
SPEAKER_02
So most people probably don t consume enough marine fat.
4
SPEAKER_02
to get what I think are ideal amounts of EPA and DHA, which are two very special types of fats called omega-3 fatty acids.
4
SPEAKER_02
And EPA and DHA,
4
SPEAKER_02
I think the balance of evidence is, is quite strong that they re both beneficial to the heart and the brain.
4
SPEAKER_02
EPA probably a little bit more for the heart.
4
SPEAKER_02
DHA probably a little bit more for the brain.
4
SPEAKER_02
I take a brand that I ve had tested because you always want to be careful about contaminants here.
4
SPEAKER_02
And it s, so it s a, it s made by a company called Carlson s.
4
SPEAKER_02
Again, I have no affiliation with them, but I take their EPA and DHA daily as well.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s a fantastic summary for anyone who s looking.
4
SPEAKER_00
I take all those things.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, I think that s a brilliant summary and I really hope everyone who s listening and watching, you know, get those checks and tests done and grab those supplements.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because again, I like what you re saying that it s all about erring on the side of caution, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
It s almost like protecting yourself, being safe, rather than assuming that A, you get this, or B, it doesn t really matter.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, is it that we used to find these
4
SPEAKER_00
supplements in other forms before, or as humans, have we always ignored this and now we ve suddenly figured it out or has our lifestyle just got so stressful and intense that we re needing more of all of this to support the pace at which we re moving?
4
SPEAKER_02
That s a great question.
4
SPEAKER_02
I do think that the supplement world is such a slippery, dirty world that I always want to throw out a disclaimer, which is when I talk about these things, I m also very diligent about the brands that I buy.
4
SPEAKER_02
So again, I have no affiliation with any of these entities, but having looked at third party testing, I find the brand Jero, J A R R O W.
4
SPEAKER_02
the brand Pure Encapsulations to be two of the most reputable companies out there.
4
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So I m basically always going to try to buy from them if I can, even if I m paying a little bit of a premium.
4
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Your question is a very good one and I don t know how much you ve paid attention to kind of the field of regenerative agriculture, but it s a topic that interests me quite a bit.
4
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And the more I ve read about it, the more I ve come to realize that I actually think part of the problem is our food today is far less nutrient dense than it once was.
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And so I do think that many of us don t get the same quantity and density of nutrients
4
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today that we did for the same caloric intake, say 50 years ago.
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And the proponents of regenerative agriculture would argue that a big part of that has to do with soil health.
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So as the health of the soil has deteriorated with more tillage, more fertilizers, less crop rotation, all of these things, the net result of that is the plants themselves are less healthy.
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So when you re eating a plant, you re getting less nutrient density.
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And of course, when you re eating meat, if you re an omnivore, the meat is also less healthy and less nutrient dense because it s eating a less nutrient dense plant, which is growing in a less nutrient dense soil.
4
SPEAKER_02
And so the old adage that, you know, it s hard to be healthier than the animal you eat, which can t be much healthier than the plant it eats, which can t be much healthier than the soil it grows in brings this whole thing full circle.
4
SPEAKER_02
And so I suspect that that plays a pretty significant role in it coupled with the changes in our lifestyle, right?
4
SPEAKER_02
So many of us would have got sufficient vitamin D for example, in the past because we would have been outside more and we would have been active more.
4
SPEAKER_02
And you know, today we aren t as one example.
4
SPEAKER_00
Are you seeing the rise of more regenerative farming and places to buy regenerative vegetables?
4
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Or is that even a thing yet?
4
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No, it absolutely is.
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And there are some great places.
4
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Certainly one of my sincere hopes is that we see a greater and greater movement to scale this.
4
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Because I do think regenerative agriculture is
4
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not only what I think of as one of the most important ways in which we can improve human health through nutrition.
4
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Um, but, but for folks who are also concerned with, with climate change and the effects of anthropogenic CO2, regenerative agriculture probably has more potential to attenuate that than anything else.
4
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Inclusive of electrifying the entire transportation grid.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s a pretty bold statement.
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It is, it s very bold and that s why I want to dive into it too.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like what gives you confidence to make that bold statement?
4
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Like what have you seen that has given you that conviction?
4
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It really comes down to understanding the capacity for plants to fixate carbon.
4
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I m sure everybody understands, you know, the basics of how, how CO2 works, right?
4
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So why, why is there a concern with the combustion of fossil fuels?
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Because when you re combusting a fossil fuel, whether it be coal or natural gas, you re taking carbon that was sequestered billions of years ago in the form of fossilized, you know, organic matter.
4
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And you re now liberating that carbon dioxide out.
4
SPEAKER_02
So how do we get carbon dioxide back in the system?
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, plants do that.
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SPEAKER_02
So plants have a capacity to do something that no animal does, which is they fixate carbon.
4
SPEAKER_02
So they, fixing carbon literally is just the chemical process of taking a carbon out of the, out of CO2 and attaching it to another hydrocarbon.
4
SPEAKER_02
The way that regenerative agriculture works is by storing more and more CO2 and carbon specifically in the soil.
4
SPEAKER_02
So right now, the way conventional agriculture works, when you re constantly tilling the soil, you re leaching carbon out of the soil.
4
SPEAKER_02
And so, you know, when you look at the mathematical models that look at how much carbon could be brought back into the ground and sequestered, i.e.
4
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brought out of the atmosphere, it s more significant than the carbon that s being put out through the combustion of fossil fuels.
4
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The reason I m particularly excited about that is you re basically getting two wins for the price of one, right?
4
SPEAKER_02
So you re reducing atmospheric CO2, but doing so in a manner that s also very positive for our health, because in doing that, you re increasing the soil health, and by extension, then the nutrient density of plants and ultimately animals and ourselves.
4
SPEAKER_01
When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence.
4
SPEAKER_01
Radios were smashed.
4
SPEAKER_01
Cassettes burned.
4
SPEAKER_01
You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules.
4
SPEAKER_01
And yet, Afghans did it anyway.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
4
SPEAKER_01
The danger they endured.
4
SPEAKER_00
They said my head should be cut off.
4
SPEAKER_01
the joy they brought to the nation.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re free completely.
4
SPEAKER_00
No one is there to destroy you.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m John Legend.
5
SPEAKER_00
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
5
SPEAKER_00
A new season of Bridgerton is here.
5
SPEAKER_00
And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m your host, Gabrielle Collins.
5
SPEAKER_00
And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
5
SPEAKER_00
Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
5
SPEAKER_00
Is Betrothal written in the stars for the eligible bachelor?
5
SPEAKER_00
Meanwhile, the ton is reverberating with speculation of who holds Lady Whistledown s pen.
5
SPEAKER_00
We re discussing it all.
5
SPEAKER_00
I sit down with Nicola Coughlin, Luke Newton, Shonda Rhimes, and more to offer an exclusive peek behind the scenes of each episode of the new season.
5
SPEAKER_00
Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
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SPEAKER_00
Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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SPEAKER_00
Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
5
SPEAKER_01
Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we re the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
5
SPEAKER_01
like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more.
5
SPEAKER_02
We re back with season two of the podcast, which means more opportunities to glow up and become a more responsible and better adult, one life lesson at a time.
5
SPEAKER_01
And let me just tell you, this show is just as much for us as it is for you.
5
SPEAKER_01
So let s figure this stuff out together.
5
SPEAKER_01
This season, we re going to talk about whether or not we re financially and emotionally ready for dog ownership.
5
SPEAKER_02
We re going to figure out the benefits of a high yield savings account.
5
SPEAKER_01
And what exactly are the duties of being a member of the wedding party?
5
SPEAKER_02
All that plus so much more.
5
SPEAKER_01
Let s learn about all of it and then some.
5
SPEAKER_01
Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
5
SPEAKER_04
What s your take on regenerative agriculture versus lab-produced vegetables and meats?
5
SPEAKER_03
I have yet to see any evidence that laboratory-produced meats and vegetables can be done really well at scale or that they are particularly
5
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certainly any more viable in terms of, of the nutrient density.
5
SPEAKER_03
I think in part it comes down to the complexity of soil.
5
SPEAKER_03
There s a great book I would recommend for people who want to go really deep on this.
5
SPEAKER_03
I believe the book is called what your food ate and it s, it s a wonderful book.
5
SPEAKER_03
It s a, it s a bit of a deep dive.
5
SPEAKER_03
It s a nerdy book.
5
SPEAKER_03
It s not light reading and they go into incredible detail.
5
SPEAKER_04
David Montgomery.
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SPEAKER_03
Yes.
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SPEAKER_03
And there s another author as well.
5
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Yep.
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SPEAKER_03
Once you get under the hood of how complex soil is.
5
SPEAKER_03
So, for example, many people talk about the human gut biome.
5
SPEAKER_03
And, you know, we talked a minute ago about probiotics, right?
5
SPEAKER_03
Well, the human gut biome is really complicated and we haven t figured out a way to perfectly model it.
5
SPEAKER_03
I mean,
5
SPEAKER_03
maybe we re just getting to the point where we can figure out if we add a little bit more of one bacteria, can it make a difference in the direction that this thing goes?
5
SPEAKER_03
Well, it turns out that soil is probably even more biodiverse and complicated than the bacteria in our gut.
5
SPEAKER_03
And so again, I just think it s very difficult for us to sort of play super farmer and think that we can kind of replicate what nature has figured out for, you know, literally a billion years.
5
SPEAKER_04
Well, so yeah, so your understanding is actually that we don t know enough.
5
SPEAKER_04
about the complexity of the soil, which is actually what is impacting the quality of the vegetable, or hence the meat.
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SPEAKER_03
And all the way up the chain.
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SPEAKER_03
And all the way up the chain.
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SPEAKER_04
Hence, even if we can produce a vegetable or meat in a lab, it won t have that same.
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SPEAKER_03
That s my take on it, which says nothing about, which says nothing by the way about the scale factor.
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SPEAKER_03
I think at the end of the day, scale matters.
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SPEAKER_03
Like, I mean, food,
5
SPEAKER_03
I think it s safe to say agriculture is the second largest industry in the world.
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SPEAKER_03
Just in terms of like the magnitude of what it takes, you have to have solutions that work broadly.
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SPEAKER_03
And by the way, I think that s still, there are certainly proponents of regenerative ag who say it can be scaled, but I think that s an open question still.
5
SPEAKER_04
Regenerative agriculture being scaled.
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SPEAKER_03
Can it be scaled to meet the needs of the entire world?
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SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
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What are the challenges with scaling that?
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It s a totally different infrastructure, truthfully.
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It s not going to rely on as much automation.
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So for example, you re not going to be able to rely.
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So one of the hallmarks of regenerative ag is you re not using fertilizer.
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So you re not using the nitrogen of a fertilizer.
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You re actually using the nitrogen of the animals.
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Another one is you re not using pesticides.
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So your crop rotating instead of using pesticides and allowing, you know, the crops themselves to generate resistance by cycling them and not letting the pests get used to the same crop.
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SPEAKER_03
Not to, you know, belabor the point, but all of a sudden the industry that is now dominated by the pioneers, the Cargills, the Monsantos of the world, it s going to have to look very different.
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SPEAKER_03
So I think that s a big challenge is going from big to little and then scaling little if that makes sense.
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SPEAKER_04
Where are the places, like, if people are fascinated to, have you been out to any regenerative agriculture farms or anything like that?
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Yeah.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
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There s, there s one outside of Austin.
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There s actually one here in California.
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So there s not that many.
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SPEAKER_04
There s like.
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SPEAKER_03
I mean, there s, so the one out in California is called, there s a documentary made about it called, I think the documentary was called Biggest Little Farm.
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SPEAKER_03
It s not too far from here, by the way.
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SPEAKER_03
And my kids were obsessed with this.
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So we like watched this documentary, like,
5
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I don t know, 15 times, but you ll get a sense of what it looks like.
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But yes, no, I mean you, I think everybody can find regenerative farms near them.
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SPEAKER_03
So really it s just a question of helping farmers understand why ultimately it is in their best interest to do this.
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SPEAKER_03
So economically it makes more sense, but look, it s going to require the government completely changing incentive structures and changing the way they subsidize certain crops today.
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SPEAKER_03
It s a big shift.
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SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
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What s your take on people trying to create little farms in their home?
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Like they re, they re like mini growing.
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Yeah.
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SPEAKER_03
I mean, look, I think it s wonderful.
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I think if you can grow your own vegetables, I mean, we have a vegetable garden and there s no question that the, the, the, the vegetables we grow taste infinitely better than anything we re going to buy at the grocery store.
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SPEAKER_04
And how do you take care of the soil in your area?
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Or you re saying because it s untouched, it naturally has.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
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I mean, we use, we compost our own stuff.
5
SPEAKER_03
So, but it s, you know, look at, it s not even big enough to completely feed us.
5
SPEAKER_03
Right.
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So, you know, it s, it s, there s work that goes into this and I, and I have friends that, that do have the time and effort to at least, you know, support themselves fully.
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That s beautiful.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
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I love that.
5
SPEAKER_04
You know, my wife s really, my wife s really big on that.
5
SPEAKER_04
She wants to build a little vegetable garden in the back right now in the same way because that s one of her core beliefs as well.
5
SPEAKER_03
So just this past weekend I was, I had to put all this chicken wire around the fence where our garden is because these squirrels are figuring out a way to get under the fence and they re like eating all the tomatoes and the peppers and stuff.
5
SPEAKER_03
And it s like my son who s eight, this is his project.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_03
And it just drives him nuts when the squirrels are getting them.
5
SPEAKER_04
So what a great age to like get connected.
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SPEAKER_03
So great.
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SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_04
It s the land into the soil and to growing.
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SPEAKER_04
That s so beautiful.
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SPEAKER_04
I love that.
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SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_04
We ve had a gopher problem for, for years here.
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SPEAKER_04
And it s like, it s always ruining the lawn.
5
SPEAKER_04
And I m like, well, if I plant vegetables here, those vegetables are going to be gone.
5
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, you have to be smart about it.
5
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, incredible.
5
SPEAKER_04
I want to make sure that everyone knows the book dives into cancer, Alzheimer s.
5
SPEAKER_04
We re going to dive into exercise in a second.
5
SPEAKER_04
We talked about diet, eating less, eating patterns.
5
SPEAKER_04
I want to make sure because I don t want to either repeat things that are already in the book or repeat things you ve talked about in other interviews.
5
SPEAKER_04
And so I just want everyone who s listening to know that.
5
SPEAKER_04
You know it does into multiple key diseases that were all struggling with today and the biggest challenges one thing i wanted to talk about which i think you really wonderfully highlighted was this.
5
SPEAKER_04
Challenge between physical health and emotional health and you talk about the need for prioritizing emotional health as well and i found that so much of my.
5
SPEAKER_04
subtle emotional health was so based on physical health.
5
SPEAKER_04
So what I mean by that is I found at one point in doing all of my checks and tests that, and by the way, I was doing, I was functioning at like a really optimal level.
5
SPEAKER_04
I was just feeling tired.
5
SPEAKER_04
And when we did my tests, we found that my vitamin D was at a 10.
5
SPEAKER_04
This was around two, three years ago.
5
SPEAKER_04
And I realized the majority of the challenges I was having was because I was sleeping.
5
SPEAKER_04
We rented a home during COVID.
5
SPEAKER_04
we moved from our apartment and when we rented this space, I never slept well in that space because it was just the most noisy, loud area because it was in the middle of too many animals, too many things
6
SPEAKER_01
at night, like going through the floorboards, like it was an old, old space.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so there was like, I was waking up multiple times, which I don t usually go through.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so I started to find that a lot of my emotional challenges, whether it s fatigue, irritability, you know, stress, because of that environment was causing emotional challenges, but it was actually all coming from a physical space, if that makes sense.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think so often these days, I find a lot of us are just trying to solve everything in our mind.
6
SPEAKER_01
rather than recognizing that often it s a chemical, it s biological, it s physical.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I want to just point that out to people because I think a lot of us are like, I could have done anything to change.
6
SPEAKER_01
I was working out.
6
SPEAKER_01
I was trying to sleep right.
6
SPEAKER_01
I was doing everything I possibly could, but because my vitamin D was at a level 10,
6
SPEAKER_01
There s not much you can do apart from taking vitamin D supplements.
6
SPEAKER_01
Where are you seeing this relationship between emotional health and physical health?
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, they re absolutely linked.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I think that one of the things that I ve observed, my therapists will always ask me at the beginning of a session is, how are you doing physically?
6
SPEAKER_00
So are you in pain?
6
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right?
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SPEAKER_00
Is, you know, is your shoulder bugging you?
6
SPEAKER_00
Is your back bugging you?
6
SPEAKER_00
Do you have like an ulcer in your mouth or something like, like literally something like that.
6
SPEAKER_00
How are you rested and how much stress are you under?
6
SPEAKER_00
And the reason I think is those things exacerbate vulnerabilities that we have.
6
SPEAKER_00
on the emotional side, on the mental side.
6
SPEAKER_00
So if you take an individual in two parallel, the same individual in two parallel universes, but in one situation they have lots of issues going on physically, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
So they re not well rested, their vitamin D is low, they re in pain and you have another individual for which everything is physically firing on all cylinders and you present them with the same emotional distress
6
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you re going to see a completely different response.
6
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That s a big part of why I think it does matter to keep your physical health in order to optimize your emotional health.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I would also argue that you could still have your physical health in perfect order and you know, not becoming close to addressing your emotional health.
6
SPEAKER_01
When you use the term emotional health, what,
6
SPEAKER_01
does that constitute for you?
6
SPEAKER_00
I try to distinguish it from mental health, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
I think mental health is a subset of emotional health, but it s the perhaps the more medicalized piece of it.
6
SPEAKER_00
So in medicine we use something called the DSM, the diagnostic and statistical manual.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think we re on version five.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s the one that codifies psychiatric illnesses, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
Everything from depression, anxiety, different personality disorders, and all sorts of things like that.
6
SPEAKER_00
And those things clearly matter.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I m talking about something that is applicable to everyone, whereas those things might only be applicable to people who would meet diagnostic criteria.
6
SPEAKER_00
So emotional health in the sense, the way I think about it kind of encompasses your relationships with other people, your sense of purpose, fulfillment, happiness, joy, spontaneity, all of these things that every human should be thinking about because every human is a part of those things.
6
SPEAKER_00
In my case, you know, so the, so the book is written basically at 17 chapters, 16 of the chapters are me,
6
SPEAKER_00
you know, writing about it as the doctor, the scientist.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then the last chapter, which is about emotional health is me actually just writing about my personal experience and my own, well, transformation I think would be an understatement.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, I think that the most important lesson for me in the past decade has been that all the health stuff that makes up most of that book, how do you reduce your odds of getting cancer?
6
SPEAKER_00
How do you reduce your odds of getting heart disease, Alzheimer s disease?
6
SPEAKER_00
How do you make sure your muscles work better in the last decade of their life?
6
SPEAKER_00
All those things, they re very important.
6
SPEAKER_00
But if you re miserable, none of it matters.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
SPEAKER_00
If your relationships suck, none of it matters.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I can t state that enough, but I, I couldn t have understood that a decade ago.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, I had to personally experience things going really wrong.
6
SPEAKER_00
I had to nearly lose everything to realize I ve really missed the plot here.
6
SPEAKER_00
And if I don t get this stuff addressed, then the rest of this outliving doesn t mean anything.
6
SPEAKER_01
what was the wake up call for you or what was the?
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I think it was essentially almost losing my family, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
It was just being so, so selfish and so such an awful person that, you know, I, I finally woke up and realized how much I was hurting everybody around me.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I was confronted with that and confronted with the reality that I had no choice but to go away and get help to, to sort of address my own reasons for why my coping mechanisms were so negative.
6
SPEAKER_01
What made you so selfish and awful?
6
SPEAKER_01
Where did that come from?
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, I mean, again, at the time, I had no clue.
6
SPEAKER_00
But also at the time, I don t think I was even privy to understanding what I was doing.
6
SPEAKER_00
But obviously, as I talk about in the chapter,
6
SPEAKER_00
What I basically learned is I think a lot of my adaptations had to do with, you know, certain things in my childhood, some of which were, you know, I described as kind of big T trauma and some of which are frankly just little T trauma, but, but collectively they just produced a response and adaptation.
6
SPEAKER_00
I talked about this sort of model of trauma where wounded children become adaptive children.
6
SPEAKER_00
And adaptive children are there to protect the wounded children.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s a remarkable trait of us as humans, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
We are very resilient.
6
SPEAKER_00
The problem is that a lot of those adaptations become maladaptive in adult life.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s really what I was dealing with was so many of my adaptations, you know, for example, control, drive, perfection, anger, all of those things served me quite well as a child.
6
SPEAKER_00
But as a husband and as a father, they were not serving me well anymore.
6
SPEAKER_00
And all of the good that came from those adaptations, for example, a strong work ethic, a desire to do good, was more being done for the wrong reasons.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was, I ll show them.
6
SPEAKER_00
I will matter.
6
SPEAKER_00
My self-esteem will be based on performance, et cetera.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I think all of that had to be turned on its head.
6
SPEAKER_00
For me, that was sort of my journey was learning how to undo all of the maladaptive behaviors to try to keep the good parts of the adaptation and then shed the harmful ones.
6
SPEAKER_01
Why do you think it takes us, thank you for sharing by the way, and I know you go into more depth in the book, and I find this fascinating and I think people, I m so happy that you address it because I think people find it especially fascinating from coming from you because often they re just seen as such separate things and separate pursuits, but for you to unify in them is really, really interesting.
6
SPEAKER_01
Why do you think it takes so many of us so long to address the very root cause of so much of our problems?
6
SPEAKER_01
And you partly covered it there, that some of these things become superpowers in the material world.
6
SPEAKER_01
They re phenomenal at manipulating the outside world through control and perfectionism, et cetera, but then in the inner world and the family tends to suffer from that.
6
SPEAKER_01
Why does it take us
6
SPEAKER_01
so long to look backwards almost to look forwards in both our genetic background and our also genetic trauma in that sense.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t think we want to uncover painful things unless the pain that we re confronting is greater than the pain we re going to encounter by doing so.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s probably my simplest thought as to why.
6
SPEAKER_00
I just think that,
6
SPEAKER_00
Like how many people without ever having experienced dental pain would go to the dentist?
6
SPEAKER_00
Right?
6
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Like you do as a kid cause you re sort of told.
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But, but when I think about now, like why do I put so much effort into taking care of my teeth?
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It s because I ve learned how miserable it is when, um, when I don t, I think until you experience enough discomfort in the present,
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And in my case, that came through the circumstances I write about the pain of turning around and going back and exploring what happened and why and, and then embarking on the corrective steps and learning a whole new language and a whole new set of skills.
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I mean,
6
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There s we in chemistry, we call that the activation energy of a chemical reaction, right?
6
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So, you know, every chemical reaction has to overcome source of some sort of activation energy and the higher that activation energy, the less likely that reaction is to take place.
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So enzymes,
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which people have heard what s an enzyme do an enzyme or a catalyst will make that reaction more likely it lowers that barrier to activation so i think what we need in our life are catalysts we need something and unfortunately i think sometimes it often has to be painful a loss to to force us to do
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that.
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I make a point when I showed up in the first rehab place I went to, there was this, there s a woman that I met there who could sort of see from the look on my face that I wasn t happy to be there.
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She just said to me in a manner that was just so perfect.
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She said, Hey, nobody shows up here on a winning streak.
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It s just a hundred percent true.
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How did you help the people around you that you cared about be patient as you went through your own journey?
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Because I feel like it s really interesting when we re trying to solve our own wounds and pain, it s already so hard.
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But because we ve taken on responsibilities or commitments, whether that be in a marriage or as a parent or even as a CEO or a boss or whatever it may be, it s like,
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all of a sudden you have so many other commitments that you had taken on even before you realized you had to work on yourself.
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Did you find yourself helping them while you helped yourself to be around and be supportive as opposed to like tap out and say, you know what, we don t want to be around?
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Because I think we often look at like, how are people helping us in our time of struggle?
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But sometimes it s like, we already committed to them and then we realize that.
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Does that make any sense?
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It makes a ton of sense.
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And I will tell you, I think it just speaks to how fortunate I am and perhaps why I feel I have an obligation to talk about it, which is, I just think I was really lucky.
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And that the people around me stood by me and let me go through this and, and gave me the chance to do it and stood by me because I don t, I don t think many people would have.
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I really, you know, I ve said this to my wife many times.
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I describe her as like, you know, sort of hall of fame wife who didn t really need to stick by me.
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I think she had enough reasons to leave and take my kids away and just say to hell with that guy.
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and that she didn t, I will forever pay that forward.
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And I think the same is true of people that I worked with who knew I was struggling.
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I think deep down believed that I was not a bad person.
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I was a good person who did very bad things and that I deserved another chance.
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I wish I could say I was supporting them on that journey, but I don t think I was.
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I think I was just reeling in pain and lucky that they stood by me.
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Wow.
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Thank you for sharing that.
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That s, that really hit me.
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There s,
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You know, don t expect people to catch you when you re falling, but if they stand by you, never let them leave your side because I think most of us could probably...
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The fortunate ones attest to that.
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I would say that about my wife too.
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I d say that about my parents.
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I d say that about the people that I m surrounded by, that sometimes I haven t had the capacity to help them as I help myself, even though I intend to.
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But the problem sometimes is we do the other extreme where we demand them to help us.
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That s the balance.
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It s like the gratitude that you re displaying right now is actually like the right, I think, a wonderful balance because we do either or.
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We either go, I m going to solve this myself and I don t need anyone, or I want my family to solve my problems for me.
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And we live in one of those extremes.
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And you re actually saying, well, I had to help myself.
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I had to admit I didn t have the capacity to help
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them at the time, but now I m just grateful and I m humbled by the fact that they stayed here.
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Like there s some, there s some beauty to that.
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And, uh, that, that really resonates.
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It s probably four years after one of the events that I write about in this book, which was when my son almost died, I was talking to Esther Perel and I was just saying, I don t think I could ever forgive myself.
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for what I did.
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And she said, that s okay.
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I think it s okay that you remember this for the rest of your life.
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I think there s a degree of humility you need to carry with you forever.
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And I think that was really wise thing to say, right?
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Like I think it would have been easy to have said, no, no, no, no, no.
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You should just forget about this and move on.
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But she s like, no, you should remember this forever.
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This is the humility you need to remember.
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And she described it in a very eloquent way, which was, you need to understand that there s a monster in you.
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And he s never going to go away.
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I m confident you will keep him in the corner for the rest of his life, but don t ever take an eye off him.
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Yeah.
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And don t ever think that just because you re better now, you re better for life.
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This is a constant process.
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Yeah.
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And, and remembering that there s a monster in you, but you are not that monster.
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That s right.
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Yeah.
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He s over in the corner and you have the, you are the one in charge of whether he stays in that corner.
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Yeah, it reminds me, I remember in my early experience of living as a monk, I said to one of my monk teachers, I said, I just feel like I ll never overcome my ego.
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Like it just is too big.
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Like there s too much to deal with.
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And it s not that it s coming out in an externally gross way that it s manifesting, but I know it s there.
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You know, we ve trained in self-awareness and I can see it.
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And he said to me, yeah, it s always gonna be there.
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He goes, it s not going anywhere.
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And he said, it will always act as your anchor and ground you and humble you, even when you soar to new heights or whatever else your life brings to you, that you knowing that it s there is actually what will help you, you know, stay grounded, which is such a beautiful reminder, as opposed to like ego death and we re going to crush it.
7
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And it s interesting with the health too, right?
7
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With emotional health and physical health, that from what you said, the first thing you said today was,
7
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You know, there are certain things from the moment you re born that that s it, it s already going in the wrong direction.
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And we often think of like, how do I end this?
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Or how do I start this?
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How do I finish this?
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And it s like, well, most things are just in motion.
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They re not beginning or ending.
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They re just already happening.
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And as you said earlier, we re trying to slow it down, or we re trying to be aware of it.
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We re trying to monitor it.
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When you were speaking about your family there and you were talking about that emotional well-being, there was something that came to mind.
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There were these two beautiful words you used, which one of them is used a lot, but one of them not so much.
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But you talked about joy and spontaneity, and I love the word spontaneity.
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I think it s not used enough when we talk about emotional health.
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Joy is used, but the challenge I find today when I m talking to people is that
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we re so overexposed to whether chemically we re talking about dopamine or whether we re just talking about like fun, pleasure, instant gratification, which we ve talked about for such a long time, that everything feels boring almost.
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It s hard for people to get to a state of joy or spontaneity.
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I find that a lot of people have a sense of like,
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what s there to look forward to or like, oh, well, nothing s that great.
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It s okay.
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Like, you know, whereas before, and now it s like, it feels like you ve got to up the results so hard.
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And the problem is even when you up it, like you re thinking that happiness is in Europe on that yacht.
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Right.
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And it s like, even if you got there, it won t actually even live up to that experience that you put in your mind.
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Right.
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because it was never about the physical manifestation of it.
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It was, it was the idea that you ve overexposed yourself to so much pleasure that now even the highest pleasures don t satisfy or suffice.
7
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How do we work on that?
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Like what is the health and emotional version of approaching that problem?
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I wish I knew.
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And I think you re addressing one of the most important questions.
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And this is something I really struggle with because, you know, for me, I, and I was just talking about this with someone earlier today, I think about the next decade of my life, this amazing time where I get to be with my kids the most.
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Because, you know, as you re probably aware, the data are pretty clear that once your kids leave for college, the amount of time you will get to spend with them is quite small.
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I think it works out to basically you have a total of 19 years with your kids, 18 of which occur
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until they leave for college.
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And then one year is the sum total of time you will spend with your kids the rest of your life on average.
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So I look at that and I think, I regret the time I ve wasted so far.
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Right.
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But so, so that s the stuff I talk about.
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And now I m here in the future.
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I think, wow, the greatest source of joy I really experienced is with my family.
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That to me is what spontaneity is, right?
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Spontaneity for me is an important, the reason I brought it up is,
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I m a very rigid person by nature.
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Like part of control for me is rigidity.
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Deviating from my plan is a very hard thing to do, but I also realize it s a very important thing to do.
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So like I m the kind of guy who makes lists on weekends, right?
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Like there s just like, there s a list of 12 things that have to be done on Saturday and eight things that have to be done on Sunday.
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And you can imagine that that, that rigidity takes any spontaneity out of life.
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And one of the great things I ve learned is how to screw the list.
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Sometimes the other day when I went to get, you know, had to go to Home Depot to get all the chicken wire to do the thing like that wasn t on the list that day, but I could see that my son was upset that the squirrels were eating his tomatoes.
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And I was like, you know what, I m, I m supposed to be doing X, Y, and Z. Let s go to Home Depot.
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Yeah.
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I think interestingly, anyone who does that, which I m sure is everybody listening to this at some point can experience that those are probably the things that bring me
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more joy than the yacht in Ibiza.
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It doesn t mean that you should never go on the yacht in Ibiza.
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Yeah.
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I think it just means, yeah, I think it just means that don t dismiss the stuff that s right in front of you.
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And again, for most people, I really do believe connection is that thing.
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Like just having intimate connection with friends and family probably provides more of that than any of these other kind of material things.
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Yeah.
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Guess what, Mango?
8
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What s that, Will?
8
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So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
8
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I know, that s why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
8
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It s about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it s called Earthquake House.
8
SPEAKER_02
Mango, I m going to cut you off right there.
8
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Why don t we just tell people about our show instead?
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s a better idea.
8
SPEAKER_01
So every week on Part-Time Genius, we feed our curiosity by answering the world s most important questions.
8
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Things like, when did America start dialing 911?
8
SPEAKER_01
is William Shatner s best acting work in Esperanto.
8
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Also, what happened to Esperanto?
8
SPEAKER_02
Plus, we cover questions like how Chinese is your Chinese food?
8
SPEAKER_02
How do dollar stores stay in business?
8
SPEAKER_02
And of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese?
8
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There absolutely is.
8
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And we are risking our lives by talking about it.
8
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But if you love mind blowing facts, incredible history and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part Time Genius.
8
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Listen to Part Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
8
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And I think what you re saying is actually true.
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And I want to clarify that point too, that I actually think that when you are not missing the simple things that are right in front of you, then when the big material thing is right in front of you, you won t miss that either.
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That s, that s the point I believe.
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Like, I think that if someone is grateful,
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for where they re at and what they see and what they experience and are able to immerse themselves in it, then the same happens on vacation, the same happens on the yacht as our thought experiment.
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The idea is that the ability to experience a flower as a thought experiment in the most
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immersive way allows you to experience a garden which allows you to experience a forest which allows you know it s it s that you can t really fully experience the forest if you didn t know how to experience a leaf that idea of that much immersed and i ve and i ve personally experienced both the presence and absence of those experiences where
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sometimes i m walking up and down here or doing my morning hike and you completely missed the view.
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Because you re on your phone or even if your phone s not there you re thinking about something and then and then second you look up and you wait a minute like this was right there and see i think we all experience presence and absence and i found that.
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Beautiful we think beautiful things will make us more presence.
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but actually will be absent even in beautiful things if they re not present for the small things.
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And I ve seen that again and again and again.
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And in your example, and I m only picking at this because I think there s so much lived experience in what you re saying, and the scientific backbone helps too, it s like,
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How have you also not ended up, because it sounds like your kids and your family is just so important to you, which is beautiful, and I think that s true for so many people, but again, I find that a lot of the people that I m talking to are living at the other extreme where they re like, Jay, I am so giving in to everything my kids wanna do and my family wants to do that I don t even have any of my own habits and disciplines, right?
8
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Like, for you, going to get chicken wire was a spontaneous moment of love for your son, who s worried about this project that he loves,
8
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Whereas for some people, all they re living in is not spontaneity, but in urgency, and then they re not getting.
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I was speaking to a friend the other day, and they were telling me, Jay, I wake up at 6 a.m., and then I was kind of walking through their schedule with them for the day and helping them map habits.
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And they were like, I don t know why.
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And I was like, well, when do you start cooking lunch, for example, that they, as part of their day they have to do?
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And they were like 12.
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And I was like, so what happens between 6am and 12 noon?
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They re like, I don t know.
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And I was like, what do you mean?
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Like, you don t know?
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Like that s six hours of time.
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Like, where does it go?
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And then they were like, emails, phone calls, random people call, random things happen.
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It s all like, I m like, wow, you re waking up pretty early, which is amazing.
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But now all of that six hours is just lost in kind of moving.
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How have you found that balance between like, I love my children.
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I want to be there, but I also need to do everything I say in this book, which takes time and energy.
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I don t want to necessarily use myself as an example because I also realize like I have some really good things going for me, which is I have like,
8
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An amazing spouse and I have an amazing team and all of these things.
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But what everyone around me has figured out is if you want to get the best out of me as a husband, as a father, as a friend, as a boss, as a colleague, whatever it is, if you want the best version of Peter,
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He also has to be well rested.
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He has to be eating well.
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He has to be exercising.
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He has to be doing the things that he has to do every day for his mental health.
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I am actually quite structured when it comes to that stuff.
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So I m very routine with how I do things.
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So I do not take a single call or meeting with very rare exceptions.
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Once a month, there s an exception to this rule before 11 a.m.
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I am scheduled without a break from 11 to five every single day.
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So I have six hours of pure scheduled that I consider that not my time.
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That s my patient s time.
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That s my team s time.
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That s me giving 30 hours a week to everybody.
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I get up at about six from six to 11 is really sacred time.
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So six to seven is just,
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coffee with my wife and playing with the kids.
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So my daughter, of course, no, she s still sleeping, but the boys were playing board games, doing puzzles, having coffee, doing whatever from seven to eight is work.
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Just get the emails done, read whatever I need to read, et cetera, et cetera.
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From eight to 11 is hobby plus exercise.
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So every day I m either in the simulator driving or shooting my bow and arrow.
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And then I m exercising from five till about seven is family time.
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So I m usually cooking dinner, playing with the kids, going to, you know, jujitsu, whatever it is.
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And then seven till 10 is some combination of
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family time plus work.
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And that s where there s has to be some flexibility.
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Like how much more work do I need to do?
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And the price I pay for that is I have to work on weekends too.
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Right.
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Why?
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Because like I m forcing the time to be spread out.
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And so that means like, yeah, there s just, you know, there s other things I m going to have to make sacrifices around.
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But I guess my point of that is you have to kind of try to take hold of the schedule a little bit and sort of say like there are certain things that are non-negotiable.
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So not exercising,
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is a non-negotiable.
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Not having some time with my family is a non-negotiable.
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I rarely travel anymore.
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I used to travel 20 days a month.
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I travel two to three days a month now.
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Just very deliberate and conscious decisions about how I want to spend my time and the importance of, you know, taking care of my body in an effort to take care of everything else.
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Absolutely.
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No, and I definitely, I agree.
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I don t think,
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We want to use ourselves as examples or, you know, as, as the way to do it because everyone s so personal.
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I think it s just useful understanding that that structure is needed for that spontaneity.
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What might be more helpful for people to understand how I communicate this with my wife.
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So my wife is that person who will put everybody ahead of herself.
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So what I have to help my wife do is realize, Hey,
8
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like you need to go for a run too because that matters a lot to you and you need to go out with your friends and have drinks once every two weeks because that matters.
8
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Or you need to go and get a mani pedi with your daughter and actually relax.
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I ll pitch in and do this other thing because I really feel strongly about you doing that.
8
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And that s not something I would have done before.
8
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Before I would have just sort of said,
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Hey, it s awesome.
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You re doing everything great.
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So I think as a spouse, you want to sort of really understand that as true as that is for me, it s just as true for her.
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I think that s the key thing in a, and I, we don t have kids, but I can definitely say on a relationship level, it s like just because your partner can do something and is doing something doesn t mean that you should just accept that.
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as reality for the rest of time and i see that that s one of the biggest challenges in relationships is people feel like their role is assumed because of what they ve done in the past but no one checked with them as to whether they were okay continuing to do it or whether they felt good doing it.
8
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and we think well they should tell us if they don t like it they would they would tell us like i would tell them but often you find that someone s so ingrained in playing a role that they ve even forgotten that they have needs or or who they could be or can be or they feel this overbearing burden or urgency and
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their role that they just can t disconnect from it so yeah i think that s a great point to highlight peter i mean there s so many i really do want to talk to you if you still have the time i really do want to talk to you about.
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Cancer maybe also as well because we went on a different direction which i wanted.
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to go into and which I loved but I want to talk to you about cancer just because I lost, I ve lost three people in my life to cancer.
9
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I lost my uncle who was my mother s brother when I was around, gosh maybe I was around,
9
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maybe just about to be 18 or something like that.
9
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He had throat cancer, and it was tough to see him go through that.
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It was the first time someone in my direct circle had witnessed the journey of someone struggling, going through pain, and then dying at a young age.
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He was 57 years old.
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And then I saw one of my, probably my closest friend who I lived as a monk with, and he was still a monk when he passed away, and he had colon cancer.
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How old?
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He was like my age, like he died.
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two years ago now, so like he was a couple years older, so like 35, around thereabouts.
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I believe some of that was genetic, which we found out afterwards, or like during the process, and he went through tons of cycles of chemo and like, he tried everything, like that guy had spirit and resilience and everything in it, you know, it was tough.
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And then I lost my spiritual mentor to brain cancer in the same time frame during the year of COVID.
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So I also missed both of these people s funerals because I couldn t go back to London because you couldn t fly at the time.
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So anyway, all of that to say, I ve just lost so many people to cancer.
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And I think that s just not uncommon, which is even worse in one sense.
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Like I think everyone who s listening is like, yeah, Jamie too.
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And so I think it s so important to talk about because I don t know, is it one in three, one in two?
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I don t know what the stats are, but because it s so common, because it s so,
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normal now and just someone having cancer but at the same time it s the most painful news in the world because you kind of feel like you know where it s going to go.
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What have we seen as proven ways of preventing and confronting cancer both holistic and traditional medicine?
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You know, the way I sort of think about it is there are three things to be thinking about three, three categories.
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So the first, as you said, is what steps can you take to prevent cancer?
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The second question is if you get cancer, how can you catch it as early as possible?
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One thing we really do know is that
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If you treat a cancer earlier, your chances of beating it go up.
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And the longer you wait to treat it, meaning the later you catch it, the worse your odds.
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And then the third question is, if you do find cancer, what are the ideal treatment strategies?
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Let s start with the first question.
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And this is the least satisfying because we don t know a whole lot about what s causing cancer.
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So we know two things for sure.
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We know that smoking is a big driver of cancer and we know that obesity is a big driver of cancer.
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Now, obesity is a bit of a misleading term because it s just kind of a overly simplistic way to think about what s actually happening.
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The data say obesity, but really what it means is insulin resistance and inflammation.
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Those are two hallmarks of obesity that are present in 70, 80% of cases of obesity.
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And if you look at the data more closely, that s what s actually driving cancer.
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So it s not actually how much fat you have on your body.
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It s more how much fat is in certain parts of your body that are metabolically problematic.
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But after those two things,
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smoking and instead of obesity, I just prefer to say poor metabolic health.
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We have some one-off examples.
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We know that there are certain types of exposures, pesticide, you know, certain types of pesticides, for example, certain type of toxins, but those don t account for the significant majority of them.
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So for many people, cancer is still a mystery.
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In other words, whatever it caused, whatever caused the initiation of the genetic mutations that ultimately led to a cancer that the body was not able to on its own remedy,
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is still a bit of a black box.
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And some very prominent cancer biologists actually just argue that it s bad luck.
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In other words, it s a stochastic process.
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So our genes are constantly replicating, but when mistakes are made, mutations occur.
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And some of these mutations drive cancer.
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And there s, broadly speaking, two types of mutations.
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There are mutations in tumor suppressor genes.
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So these are mutations in genes that are there to stop cancers when cancers appear.
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And then there are mutations in what are called oncogenes.
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These are genes that propagate cancer.
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So mutations in any of these things can actually lead to cancer.
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So once you sort of accept that you re going to do everything in your power to not get cancer, which is to say you re not going to smoke, you re going to be as metabolically healthy as possible, you re going to exercise, sleep, do all those things right.
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The next most important thing is thinking about your strategy for cancer screening.
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you know, this is where I probably differ significantly from the mainstream, you know, establishment view, which is, is actually kind of, you know, not that aggressive on cancer screening.
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I would argue that we have to be very aggressive on cancer screening provided we can get our minds around the problem we discussed a little while ago, which is we understand that there s going to be
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The harder you look for something, the more likely you are to find something that isn t relevant.
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But if you understand that going in and you re willing to accept that risk and evaluate each finding in a thoughtful way, I think that for most people psychologically and physically, the benefit is, is a net positive one.
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Got it.
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And so that means looking at things that are, for example, with a colonoscopy, doing it earlier and more frequently than is the standard recommendation.
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The standard recommendation is not to begin until you re 45.
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We would recommend that everybody, even without a family history, begin at least five years before that.
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It also means repeating colonoscopies more frequently, especially in the finding of certain types of polyps, whole body screening you talked about with certain types of MRIs.
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We also use something called the liquid biopsy.
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So it s a blood test that looks for really, really small fragments of DNA in the blood and can identify the presence of cancer and the tissue of origin.
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Now, again, none of these tests are perfect.
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So each of these tests have things that they re going to miss.
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But the idea is that the more you re layering these tests, the better your odds are of finding something earlier.
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And then the final point is, okay, well, what are the strategies?
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You know, if, should you have cancer?
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And this is where I think we just have a little bit more promise now than we did a decade ago.
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So a decade ago, cause this was the first time I did this analysis in the previous 50 years.
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So from, you know, 60 years ago until 10 years ago, the overall survival improvement in cancer was about 3%.
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Wow.
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It was abysmal.
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But in the past 10 years, it s been about another 8%.
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And while that doesn t sound remarkable and the implication of that is half the people who are diagnosed with cancer today will still die from cancer.
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It s the biologic insights and the trajectory that we re on right now that gives me much more hope.
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And that is,
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Primarily based on a couple of things.
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The first is the field of immunology has really taken off the tools that we have to harness the immune system to attack cancer have become so dramatic immunotherapy.
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That s right.
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That it really is.
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I think within the next decade, which I know seems like an infinite amount of time for someone who s got cancer right now, we re really seeing changes that I think are going to allow immunotherapies to go from the niche place that they occupy in only working for certain types of cancers like melanoma and kidney cancer,
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to being able to go after the holy grail of cancers, which are what we call the solid organ epithelial tumors.
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Breast, pancreatic, colon, lung.
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These are the big cancers that do the majority of the killing.
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50% of cancer deaths are just five cancers.
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Lung, colon, breast, prostate, pancreatic.
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That s more than 50% of all cancer deaths.
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Until you have a solution for those, we don t have a solution for cancer.
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And I do believe that we are really moving in that direction.
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We ve touched on this point a few times of almost the stress about stress for health.
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And that s a really interesting way of thinking about it.
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It s like the stress of, oh, I need to work out today.
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The stress of, I need to have my supplements.
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The stress of, I can t sleep.
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Why am I not sleeping?
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We stress about the things that are good for us.
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How have you helped your patients?
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How have you coached them through that?
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How do you guide people through that?
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Because I think a lot of people go, well, then I m just not gonna do anything because at least then I m not stressed.
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I don t think that s the wisdom in what you re saying.
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I don t think you re saying, well, yeah, it s better not to have any stress at all.
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How do you help people to engage and use that stress in a healthy way?
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Or how do you guide patients through that stress?
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I mean, I think every patient s different.
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And I think you have to sort of get to know the person a little bit and figure out what, what s the underlying issue.
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So I do think that there are a lot of people who frankly self-sabotage.
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Going back to kind of like where I was, I mean, my self-destructive behaviors weren t coming directly at the expense of my physical health.
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at the expense of my emotional health.
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But I actually think there are a lot of people who have very similar stories to mine, but their manifestation is it s coming at the expense of their physical health.
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They are sabotaging their ability.
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They are coming up with a million excuses why they can t eat well, they can t exercise, they can t do this, they can t do that.
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And so you have to be able to get to the root of the problem.
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And so there are many patients where we just think, look, you re not going to get better without trauma-based therapy.
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until you come up with a way to care enough about yourself to stop punishing yourself in this way.
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Because I do, I think people punish themselves in different ways.
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You could almost argue, I used to punish myself by overdoing all of those healthy things.
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Like some of the exercise I was doing was actually a form of punishment.
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So on the surface you d say, boy, that guy s really healthy, but no, he wasn t.
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Another thing I always think about is,
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When we re in the spirit of trying to build new habits, sometimes perfect is the enemy of good.
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Typically what I want is a win.
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And I think that what people just need is a win and it doesn t have to be the biggest win.
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It just has to be a win.
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So if you re looking at a person,
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for whom nothing is optimal, don t try to fix all things at once.
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Pick the one thing that you think they have the greatest odds of being able to make a difference on and just work on that.
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And accept the fact that the other things will continue to be suboptimal, but you develop their confidence in that one thing.
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How about for 20 minutes a day, you do something active.
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You go and walk for 20 minutes a day.
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If you re talking about a person who s never lifted a finger,
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that would be a huge win.
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And you might do that before you get into the details of this type of training or that type of training, or we re going to tweak your nutrition and optimize your protein intake.
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I mean, that s just overwhelming and you re probably just more likely to fail at everything and create kind of a compensatory negative reaction.
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But again, I don t think there s a paint by numbers approach.
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I think you, in the way we do it with patients, I think you just have to treat everybody individually.
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And by the way, when something s not working, you have to accept it and pivot and try something that is.
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I think that s the key word, pivot.
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That s the key word.
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Everyone, Peter Attia, the book is called Outlive, the Science and Art of Longevity.
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If you don t already have it, please go and grab a copy.
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I highly recommend it.
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Of course, today s conversation has been fantastic.
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I ve tried to touch on topics that Peter may not have been asked about in a million different interviews.
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He s got fantastic interviews out there on so many awesome podcasts as well.
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So if you re more interested in the parts we didn t cover, please do go and watch those and get informed.
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Peter, it s been such a joy sitting down with you today.
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Honestly, there s been moments where I ve been mind blown and moments where I ve been taken aback and felt really in my body and really present where my feet are.
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And I m just really grateful that we got to have this conversation.
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We got to share so much incredible insights with our community today.
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And I want you to make sure
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that you tag me and Peter on Instagram, on TikTok, on threads, with what you re learning, what you ve taken away, what are the things you re gonna apply and practice with, what s something you re gonna experiment with this week?
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That would make me really happy is that you just take one thing away from this and you re like, I m gonna try that out, I m gonna figure this out for myself, that would be an awesome place to start.
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Peter, we end every episode with a final five, a fast five, so these questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence max.
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So Peter, these are your final five or your fast five.
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The first question is, what is the best health advice you ve ever heard or received?
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Exercise every day.
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Second question, what is the worst health advice you ve ever heard or received?
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Do a cleanse.
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Oh, interesting.
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Why?
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That s interesting.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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Oh, I just think that, you know, I ve seen, I ve seen some of those things go really bad where people, you know, get really mucked up and dehydrated.
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And I ve, I ve seen people actually take in some chemicals and compounds that dramatically alter liver function tests and things like that.
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Wow.
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Okay.
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All right.
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Question number three, what s something you re currently trying to unlearn?
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continuing to work on perfectionism, you know, unlearning or, or detuning it.
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Question number four, what s something that you re a very big proponent of, but a lot of people may disagree with you and you re like, they re like, I m not sure about it.
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Maybe the importance of very heavy strength training in postmenopausal women.
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Interesting, let s dive into that, because that s fascinating.
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I m really glad how specific you went, that s great.
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Women post-menopause are so unbelievably susceptible to osteoporosis and osteopenia with the loss of estrogen.
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Unfortunately, many women in that situation are not getting hormone replacement therapy, and so they re doubly susceptible to it.
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I think there s just a cultural belief that, you know, women don t need to lift weights.
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And if they do, it s very light.
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But the truth of it is you really need to lift heavy things to make your bones stronger.
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And that doesn t mean it has to be complicated stuff like squats or deadlifts or things like that.
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But you know, one of the most important things is carrying, doing a farmer s carry.
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So holding very heavy dumbbells in your hands and walking.
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So important.
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And it doesn t matter how old you are.
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Got it, great.
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Fifth and final question.
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If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?
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You must go into nature for at least an hour a day with no electronics.
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And just be?
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Just be outside, be in nature, but be untethered to electronics or obvious distractions.
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Beautiful.
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Peter, that s fantastic.
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Thank you so much again for your time, your energy, your presence today.
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I hope this is the first of many times that you ll come back on Purpose.
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And again, if you don t already follow Peter, Peter, where s the best place you d like people to find you?
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I know you re on Instagram and YouTube and everywhere.
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Yeah, I think everything is Peter Atiyah MD is all the handles everywhere.
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So thank you very much.
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I really appreciate this.
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Thank you.
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If you love this episode, you ll enjoy my interview with Dr. Daniel Amen on how to change your life by changing your brain.
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If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with a healthy brain.
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You know, I ve had the blessing or the curse to scan over a thousand convicted felons and over a hundred murderers, and their brains are very damaged.
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Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we re the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
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It s a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
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Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more.
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Let s learn about all of it and then some.
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Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on America s number one podcast network, iHeart.
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Open your free iHeart app and search Grown Up Stuff.