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When we eat too much sugar, okay, and these days the average American is eating a lot of sugar.
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Like a hundred times more than we were like a hundred years ago in the rest of human history.
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It s like this massive overload of this substrate.
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What that does is it causes...
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Welcome to the School of Greatness.
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My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
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And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
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Thanks for spending some time with me today.
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Now let the class begin.
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Today s episode is a very powerful one because we ve created a top masterclass from the best experts that will break down today s theme to help you improve the quality of your life.
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Are all bodies the same when it comes to how foods, I guess, are consumed and assimilated through the body and the bloodstream and all these different things?
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Or is everybody different where some nutritional foods might impact positively, but negatively in other bodies, what should we be knowing about the body?
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Yeah, it s a great question.
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And first of all, I m a scientist.
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So I will tell you,
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I m a scientist is that real scientists tell you, we don t know everything.
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Okay.
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And it s the kind of humility that we have to start with because so often you think about, you know, scientists being very smart and things, real scientists spend their time talking about what we, what we don t know, not what we do know.
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So, but you re asking me what we do know.
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All right.
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So I ll give you that.
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So I ll give you that answer.
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Look, um, uh,
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Our bodies are hardwired to be healthy.
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So when we re growing in our mom s womb, our body, as we re forming our bones and our heart and our organs and our limbs inside the form of the human that s being created, are these health defenses.
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So you think about the body like a fortress.
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We ve all seen a medieval fortress, a castle, right?
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And basically, it s a happy community that lives inside there.
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You got a king, you got a queen, you got a princess, you got everything else going inside there.
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But that fortress has got to protect itself.
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So it s designed to repel enemies.
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It s got a moat.
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It s got a drawbridge.
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It s got the little slits you fire arrows out of.
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It s got sloping walls.
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So enemies can t crawl up.
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It s got traps.
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And by the way, you know, like a medieval fort.
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The thing that I never realized having been to quite a few castles is that when you go into the entrance, there is a hole right above you.
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And it s called a murder hole.
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And it s basically if the if people breach the the drawbridge, they would just drop rocks boulders down through that hole.
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All right.
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So the body
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is designed better than a medieval castle.
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We ve got our own defense systems, and there s five of them that I know about.
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And I helped to kind of put together this picture, partly because I studied the biotechnology.
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How do you actually treat diseases using these systems?
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And when you forget about the disease part, and you think about the health part, these are the systems, these five systems that maintain our health.
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So I ll tell you what they are.
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Okay.
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First, the health defense system is called NGO Genesis is what I studied blood vessels a 60,000 mile channel that delivers oxygen and nutrients everywhere, got to have enough of them, or your body is in trouble.
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It s called angiogenesis.
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This is the channel of blood vessels?
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This is how the body grows blood vessels.
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It is a whole system of growth.
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When we have just the right amount of blood vessels, our body is healthy.
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Now, when you re going to go to work out, all right,
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You re going to pump some iron.
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Your, your muscles got to grow.
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Now you need a few more blood vessels.
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All right.
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Um, if you skin your knee and fall off a bike, got to heal that wound underneath that scab, you got new blood vessels growing to heal.
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Now the body never lets too many blood vessels to grow or causes problems.
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For example, cancers are forming in all of our bodies.
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because we re filled with these dividing cells and some of them make mistakes, but microscopic cancer is completely harmless.
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because it doesn t have a blood supply.
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And so our body prevents cancers from growing naturally by controlling the angiogenesis.
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So we just got enough for our good cells, not enough for the bad cells.
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So that s one of our health defenses.
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And there are treatments, including ones that I helped to develop that can cut off the blood supply to cancer by cutting off it by starving it.
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So that s called antiandrogenic therapy.
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And the same treat, same approach has been used to prevent blindness.
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All right, so you don t have blood vessels leaking in the eye.
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However, turns out that sometimes your body needs a little help.
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So now you can actually use foods to actually amp up your body s androgenesis defenses.
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So that s just one of the defense.
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Okay, that s the first one.
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What s the second one?
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All right, second one is our stem cells, right?
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So our, when we were kids, Louis, you know, like our grade school teachers told us salamanders can regenerate, starfish can regenerate, but people can t regenerate, right?
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wrong.
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You lose your hand, it s not going to grow back.
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Well, it turns out that people do regenerate, we can regenerate that quickly.
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But we and we regenerate from the inside out, like a lizard can regenerate, like a limb or tail.
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But we regenerate our organs continuously, our lung regenerates, our liver regenerates, okay, the lining of our mouth regenerates, if you ve ever eaten a chip, all right, and scratch the inside of your mouth, and it hurts,
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Next day, all fixed, right?
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Because of regeneration.
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All right.
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Now, here s the thing.
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Turns out that the way we naturally regenerate is through stem cells, not the kind you go to a strip mall to have injected into your knee, but this is the kind that we re born with.
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Cause you know, like when, when we were, when you and I were, were like sperm and egg meeting in our mom s womb and dividing, that s what we were.
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These are stem cells.
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We were all formed from these primitive cells that could be anything.
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It could be an eye, it could be a nose, it could be a heart.
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And they, and they formed our whole body.
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And, and there s always some overage.
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Okay, and so you have more than you need to form your into a person.
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And when we re born about 750 million stem cells are leftover, and they are packed up in a suitcase and stuffed into our bone marrow.
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All right.
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And so when we re born even a little baby inside their bone marrow in this hollow their bones are 750 million stem cells, and they are stored there like a like bullets in a bandolier waiting for when they re needed, so that when we grow up and we need to be regenerated.
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You have too much to drink.
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Now your liver needs to be regenerated.
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You cut yourself.
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Now you need to actually heal that wound.
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These stem cells come flying out of our bone marrow like beans out of a hive to regenerate us, renew us from the inside out.
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There are biotech efforts that I ve been a part of to try to grow new heart, grow new brain, regenerate nerves, not ready for prime time yet.
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But it turns out that foods can coax these stem cells out of our bone marrow.
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So we regenerate faster.
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Huh?
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Which foods?
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This is the second one, but I m curious which foods can help us.
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There are a number of them.
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I ll give you one right from the get go is dark chocolate.
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Oh, you re speaking my language now.
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Okay.
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So dark chocolate.
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Can you eat too much dark chocolate?
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That s the question.
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You know, I have never seen anything about an overdose of cacao, but I will tell you that cacao has been shown to actually double the number of stem cells flowing in your bloodstream just by having two cups of hot chocolate made with 80% high flavanol chocolate.
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Dark chocolate.
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Yeah, it s been done in people 60 year olds with heart disease.
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So wait, what happens when you drink or you eat this dark chocolate, what happens?
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Yeah, the polyphenols in this dark chocolate, we know what they are, they re called proanthocyanidins.
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So I m a scientist, so my job is to actually know what the inside chemicals actually are.
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These are natural chemicals, all right?
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Most people don t need to know that, but you drink it and it tastes good, that s all you need to know.
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But I ll tell you, these natural chemicals found in cacao actually trigger
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a reaction in your body so that they call out the stem cells.
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It is literally like bees flying out of a hive, can double the number of stem cells.
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What s the practical impact?
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Well, there was a study done at UCSF in San Francisco that looked at 60-year-old men with heart disease.
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These are people whose blood vessels were already not doing so well, and their blood flow wasn t going so well either, and their blood vessels were sick.
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That s kind of the definition of heart disease by having the stem cells coming out.
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They were able to actually double the resiliency, the function of their blood vessels.
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So they, they got better rebound, the better agility, their, their blood vessels are in better shape because their stem cells are regenerating their circulation.
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Wow.
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So this is human studies, right?
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Like most, most of the time you hear about scientists talking about rats or mice or cells.
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I m talking about human studies.
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And that s kind of where we are with food is medicine.
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It s not the kind of like the guesswork like we can do serious research to get down to exactly what s actually happening at the human level.
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So that s the second health defense systems.
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Okay, third one.
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Third one is our gut microbiome.
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Now, people have been talking about gut health and microbiome it s almost like a buzzword.
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These days, and people are saying well we can actually scoop your poop, and we can actually measure your microbiome and we can tell you what you need to eat what you don t need to eat.
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Again, I m a scientist, so I will tell you that there are 39 trillion bacteria in the typical body.
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That s more stars than in a night sky.
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We barely understand the gut bacteria, but what we do know
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is that this gut bacteria actually controls our metabolism, communicates with our brain, actually can help us heal from the inside out.
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And very importantly, our gut bacteria basically lives, if you think of your gut like a garden hose,
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It s a tube.
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And you were to cut a garden hose in half and you look inside it.
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There s a lining.
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Okay.
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The bacteria is inside the hose, but inside the wall of the garden hose.
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That s where your immune system 70% of our immune system lives inside our gut.
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So our gut bacteria sent.
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So if you re feeding your gut a lot of bad foods, you re poisoning your immune system.
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You re preventing your gut bacteria.
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Now, I ll tell you what s interesting about the gut bacteria.
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Your gut bacteria talks to the immune system right through the walls of your gut immune systems in there.
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70% like a jelly roll, like the jelly in a jelly roll.
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The gut bacteria is inside.
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So think about like a college student.
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in a freshman dorm, they are talking to their roommate by pounding on the wall, right?
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What do you want?
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What kind of pizza do you want?
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All right.
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And they can answer you.
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And that s basically what our gut bacteria says to our, uh, our immune system.
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So we got to keep that gut healthy, by the way, interestingly, uh, and I ve done research on this, um, certain gut bacteria, uh, can actually signal to your brain.
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It s a gut brain access and, uh, cause your brain to release social hormones.
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Wow.
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Okay.
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And can affect your mood.
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So, you know, when you ve got a crappy gut, and you feel crummy in your gut, I guarantee you, like, it s not just because you re irritated.
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It s affecting your brain as well.
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So, yeah, we had, we had Dr. Emron Mayer on who has got the gut, I think it s the gut brain connection or the gut immune connection or something like that.
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So he s, he s got a lot of great research on that.
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Yeah.
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So, well, the key thing though, is that foods can actually help right-size your gut health.
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Think about like an ecosystem, the Great Barrier Reef.
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So, certain foods can support the ecology, the ecosystem, the Great Barrier Reef, and certain ones actually kill the coral.
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All right.
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And so, we continuously want to keep it in good shape all the way through our lives.
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And by the way, even conditions like autism,
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Alzheimer s and schizophrenia are all now seemingly connected to our gut bacteria.
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Really?
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Yeah.
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Now, is there a way if someone has those, are they pretty easy to reverse though?
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Or is that hard?
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We re well, listen, we re just figuring this out.
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Because right now, medically, we prescribe medications to try to treat those things.
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And a lot of times those medications just blunt the symptoms.
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Okay, they cover up the symptoms they don t get at the underlying cause.
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Now we don t know exactly how the gut bacteria communicates with the brain, completely yet but there s one giant nerve.
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called the vagus nerve.
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It s like a giant shoe.
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It s about the thickness of a shoelace and it hangs from our brain all the way down into our gut.
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Okay.
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Goes right near, wraps around our esophagus on the way down.
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And we think the gut bacteria basically sends text messages up to the brain through this big nerve.
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Okay.
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So the key though, is that foods can actually influence our gut bacteria, either good bacteria or bad bacteria.
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So that s important.
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So that s a third health defense system.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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So with the first... Antigenesis, number one.
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Yes.
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Stem cells, number two.
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Gut microbiome, number three.
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Okay.
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The fourth one?
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Number four, our DNA.
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Now, if you watch CSI, DNA is just sort of like a genetic fingerprint, a code that you can find on a crime scene.
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Or if you re actually trying to do ancestry, look for your ancestors, you figure out how much of you is Neanderthal, right?
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I think I was 1% Neanderthal when I did it, yes.
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Uh, so the, the, the key though, is it s DNA is a lot more than our genetic code.
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It actually protects us from the environment.
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Now, what am I, what do I mean by that?
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Well, you know how, if we are exposed to, uh, uh, we get a sunburn, ultraviolet light, you damage your DNA and what happens?
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Cancer, skin cancer.
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right?
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If you inhale lots of fumes from a chemical plant, it s going to actually damage your DNA in your lungs, you get lung cancer, right?
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But think about it.
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If you are in Los Angeles, and you re driving on the I-10, or if you re actually just walking on a beach, you are actually getting ultraviolet radiation.
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So how come we don t get skin cancer all the time?
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Because our DNA is hardwired to fix itself
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from damage.
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And so the DNA is a protective mechanism from the environment.
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I always tell people when you re pumping gas, if you still drive a gas vehicle, as opposed to an EV, I always ask people, do you stand upwind or downwind?
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What do you do?
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Are you upwind or downwind?
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Do you know?
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Well, upwind, right?
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So you re not getting the fumes in.
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Is that what you mean?
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Right, right, right.
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Well, if you re standing downwind, you can smell the fumes, right?
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And if you re smelling the fumes, you are poisoning the DNA in your lung.
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So how come we don t develop lung cancer after pumping gas?
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Because our DNA is hardwired to fix itself.
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And so our DNA is sort of like a self-defense mechanism against the environment, radon from your basement, okay?
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Off-gassing from the new car you just got, or the Uber that you re riding in, you know, or the furniture that you got.
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Right?
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So like, this is this is this incredible defense mechanism against our environment.
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And then and foods can actually speed up the repair, help fix holes that are in our DNA.
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And then the other kind of PS the resistance for our DNA is defense is that there s something called a telomere.
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I don t know if you ve ever had anybody your show talk about telomeres.
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Yeah.
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Yes.
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These are... You can actually see if you re at the longer the telomere, the longer you can live or something.
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Right.
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Well, I ll tell you basically what the... To remind your listeners and viewers, basically, if your DNA is like a shoelace,
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the telomere is like the little plastic cap at the end of the shoelace.
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And over time, that little cap kind of wears down, just like on a shoelace.
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And you know, when they when that cap is gone, man, that your shoelace just falls apart.
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And that s what happens to our DNA.
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So we need that cap.
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That s called a telomere.
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And it burns down like a life fuse.
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So you know, like Mission Impossible, like the fuse, right?
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So this thing is burning down.
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And when it burns down, that s it, your cells done.
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So what you want to do is to slow down your cellular aging.
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And harsh things that you do to your body, smoking cigarettes, being in a couch potato, being exposed to damaging oxidative stress, actually just being stressed out, like we are now with this friggin pandemic.
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Those things all shorten our telomeres.
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They burn the fuse faster.
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Stress.
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Yeah.
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But foods can slow it down and some foods can reverse it and lengthen the telomere.
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which is really cool from an aging perspective, right?
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What are those top three foods that help lengthen the telomeres?
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Green tea is one of them.
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coffee.
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I got it.
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I got a, yeah, it s amazing.
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I got, I got a little, I used to live in Italy and I just got into this habit of drinking espresso.
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Uh, so I got a little cup here.
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Amazingly coffee actually lengthens your telomere.
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Come on.
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I kid you not.
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It s, it s quite amazing.
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Um, uh, and, uh, leafy greens, some of the polyphenols and leafy greens can also, um, slow down as some of them actually look like they can lengthen the telomeres as well.
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So,
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The key thing is that we are not just hapless pawns of aging.
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We can actually
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And we can also fight against our environment because look, the, the tax that we pay for being on planet earth is you re exposed to stuff all the time.
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And we need to, we count on our body s health defenses to fix it.
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So that s a.
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fourth defense.
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And our fifth defense is our immune system, which, you know, after two years, over the last two years, we all know how important our immune system is.
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But what have I told you that your immune system is so powerful that when it s in its best shape,
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even when you re 80 years old, it is strong enough to fight cancer.
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In fact, it can even wipe out metastatic cancer that s spread all over your body.
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That s how strong your immune system is if you give it the chance.
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And so here s what the immune system does.
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It s like an army of super soldiers.
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So, rangers seals, as you know, Marines, special forces, they re all they ve all got these are all parts of the immune system all cells of the immune system, and like the special forces that got their own weapons or own training their own tactics but they all work together.
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for the collective good.
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And what happens is that when you ve got good, strong defenses, you can fight off invaders from the outside, bacteria and viruses, for example.
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But it s not just outside invaders.
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You ve got inside invaders as well.
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And those little microscopic cancers are inside invaders.
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And so our immune system patrols our body, okay?
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Cops on a beat.
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And they re looking for things that don t look right.
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And you see that microscopic cancer that is it can t grow because it doesn t have a blood vessel, but blood vessels feeding it and your Genesis, basically, it the immune system goes there and takes them right out.
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Okay, and takes a sniper shot and is gone.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so that s why we got to protect our immune system.
2
SPEAKER_01
And there are lots of foods that can actually boost our immunity as well.
2
SPEAKER_02
What would you be those?
2
SPEAKER_02
What would be those top three that boost the immune system?
2
SPEAKER_01
Blueberries are a food that definitely boosts the immune system.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s in young people as well as older people.
2
SPEAKER_01
They boost the natural killer cells, which is really cool.
2
SPEAKER_01
Broccoli sprouts can boost our immune system.
2
SPEAKER_01
Now, these are the three-day old sprouts, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
Here s something most people don t know.
2
SPEAKER_01
The big broccoli that when we eat broccoli, we really, you know, our moms told us to eat the treetops, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Those, they re all the same.
2
SPEAKER_01
You go to the freezer section of a grocery store and you buy some frozen broccoli and they all look the same.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re all the same size.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s not really what broccoli looks like.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you go to the farmer s market and you see a real broccoli, it s this gigantic stem.
2
SPEAKER_01
with a little bit of treetop, okay?
2
SPEAKER_01
So what s in a broccoli?
2
SPEAKER_01
It s called sulforaphane.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that s what gives broccoli that unique taste of broccoli.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s a little sulfurous, okay?
2
SPEAKER_01
So you gotta put a little olive oil, a little bit of garlic, you know, and you can saute it up.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so the sulforaphanes.
2
SPEAKER_01
We ve done research now looking at what s in the treetops.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it turns out that these sulforaphanes can starve cancer
2
SPEAKER_01
anti-angiogenic, help your body cut off the blood supply to cancer.
2
SPEAKER_01
Broccoli treetops have it.
2
SPEAKER_01
But guess what?
2
SPEAKER_01
The stalk of the broccoli has twice as much of the good stuff than the treetops.
2
SPEAKER_01
Eat the stalks.
2
SPEAKER_01
Eat the stalks.
2
SPEAKER_01
So man, like if you don t want to eat, if you don t want to saute the stalks, like a lot of cultures will just cut the stalks and saute them, stick it in a blender.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can make it into a smoothie or make a soup out of it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so there s a lot of good things you can do.
2
SPEAKER_01
Put a little broccoli stem, a little oregano powder.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can light it right up with a little turmeric.
2
SPEAKER_01
It ll be a really good smoothie or a soup.
2
SPEAKER_01
However, here s the thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
Imagine this adult broccoli having these sulforaphanes.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, it turns out that these big broccoli plants used to be sprouts.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the sprouts pretty much were born or sprouted from the seed with all the sulforaphane it s ever going to have.
2
SPEAKER_01
All right.
2
SPEAKER_01
So when it gets bigger, it just gets distributed with the stock closer to the ground, having more of it, of course.
2
SPEAKER_01
But the broccoli sprouts have 100 times more of the sulforaphane.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s a good stuff as a grownup broccoli.
2
SPEAKER_01
So sprouts, broccoli sprouts.
2
SPEAKER_01
Now, studies have been done to show that if you give people a flu shot, people in the winter should get a flu shot, so you don t get the flu, all right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Just go to your drug store to get one.
2
SPEAKER_01
It turns out that if you, people, they did a study looking at people getting the flu shot, and they gave half the people a little shake made with broccoli sprouts,
2
SPEAKER_01
And the other group just got a placebo.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the people who got the broccoli sprout shake and the flu shot, their beneficial response of their immune system is 22 times higher.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like it totally rocked if they actually had a broccoli sprout shake.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that s not food versus medicine.
2
SPEAKER_01
That is food and medicine, which is really cool.
2
SPEAKER_02
blood sugar management or control is one of the key factors of either being healthy or potentially linking to one of these other, I guess, diseases.
2
SPEAKER_02
Is that right?
2
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
And, and what it really comes down to, which kind of gets at your question of what is metabolism, um, metabolism is fundamentally the way that we make energy in the body.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we eat food and, you know, food has, um, you know, fat and glucose in it and either fat or glucose, glucose is sugar.
2
SPEAKER_00
can be used to convert into a type of energy that our cells can use, which is called ATP.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we take in this substrate, but we have to convert it through our mitochondria in our cells to a form of energy we can use, a currency that our body understands and can use.
2
SPEAKER_00
That process of conversion is metabolism, and this is happening in every single one of the 37 trillion cells in our body, and it has to work properly.
2
SPEAKER_02
So break it down for me then.
2
SPEAKER_02
Fat or glucose?
2
SPEAKER_02
or I guess carbohydrates, enters the body through the foods we re eating, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
What happens after that?
2
SPEAKER_02
How is it processed in the body, through the cells, through the mitochondria?
2
SPEAKER_02
How is it processed?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so looking at carbohydrates, for instance, they go into our digestive tract, they re broken down and absorbed into the bloodstream, broken down into simple sugars.
2
SPEAKER_00
like glucose and fructose.
2
SPEAKER_00
These go into the bloodstream, and let s say we re talking about glucose, which is blood sugar.
2
SPEAKER_00
This signals to the body, particularly an organ called the pancreas, to release insulin, which is a hormone.
2
SPEAKER_00
That hormone allows you to take that sugar out of the bloodstream through the cell membrane into the cell.
2
SPEAKER_00
Once it s inside the cell, it s broken down even further and then goes into the mitochondria to be
2
SPEAKER_00
go through a chemical processing that then creates ATP, which is this molecule that can be then used to essentially power all the millions of cellular processes that are happening every second.
2
SPEAKER_02
So ATP is the power, is the fuel?
2
SPEAKER_00
It s the fuel.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s the battery in our body.
2
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_02
And so the way it s processed is it s based on the foods we eat, whether it be fat or sugar that comes through, does that determine how the quality of the energy or what does that mean within?
2
SPEAKER_02
Is it all equally the same when it converts an ATP or?
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, I think the way to think about it is to really focus on the mitochondria.
2
SPEAKER_00
This is the energy factory of the cell.
2
SPEAKER_00
This is the powerhouse of the cell.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the thing that people really need to understand is that our diet and our lifestyle in the modern Western world, so past 50 to a hundred years, so much of it is actually damaging the mitochondria of our cell and creating problems in that conversion process.
2
SPEAKER_00
So for instance,
2
SPEAKER_00
When we eat too much sugar, okay, and these days the average American is eating a lot of sugar, like a hundred times more than we were like a hundred years ago in the rest of human history.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s like this massive overload of this substrate.
2
SPEAKER_00
What that does is it causes stress on the mitochondria and creates damage.
2
SPEAKER_00
One analogy I sometimes use is, imagine you had a factory that was making something like cheese, and all of a sudden you get 100 times more of the raw product, like milk, delivered to the factory.
2
SPEAKER_00
The workers would be like, we don t know where to put this.
2
SPEAKER_00
We can t work.
2
SPEAKER_00
They go on strike.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s nowhere to store it.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s no refrigerators.
2
SPEAKER_00
It would all go bad.
2
SPEAKER_00
All of a sudden, you actually
2
SPEAKER_00
produce less cheese even though you have more substrate.
2
SPEAKER_00
We are giving so much of the substrate to the body that it s gumming up the system, it s breaking down the factory and creating problems.
2
SPEAKER_00
The molecular way this is happening is that each time you have these glucose spikes from eating these refined
2
SPEAKER_00
Products or added sugars your body s releasing more of that insulin.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s saying okay more glucose in the bloodstream So we have to produce more insulin to get it out of the bloodstream and over time the body sees all this insulin Circulating and it s like we can t bring more of this into the cell.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s too much And so it actually puts up a block which is called insulin resistance Which is that cellular process that leads you towards problems like diabetes?
2
SPEAKER_00
And so what s happening now is the body that s why you re storing
3
SPEAKER_00
you re storing fat or you re storing other dead cells that you don t need to keep in the body, I guess, right?
3
SPEAKER_02
Right, because insulin is the signal saying tons of glucose around for energy, so we don t need to burn fat for energy.
3
SPEAKER_02
So insulin is also a block on fat burning.
3
SPEAKER_02
So it s this chemical signal saying too much glucose around, blocking it from getting into the cell, and also telling the body not to burn fat.
3
SPEAKER_02
So of course, for people who are dealing with trouble losing weight, insulin is the hormone we really, really need to be
3
SPEAKER_02
Thinking about and so we we reduce our insulin sensitivity now we have lots of glucose circulating in the bloodstream, but it s not able to efficiently get into that cell and And then you ve got all these other things that can hurt our mitochondria and and really a mitochondria Energy-centric view of health can really help us some other things that can hurt the mitochondria are oxidative stress so, you know, you talked about this a little bit on the podcast with David Perlmutter, but I
3
SPEAKER_02
aside from glucose, eating too much fructose.
3
SPEAKER_02
So this comes with like sodas or fruit juice or things that have really high concentration of fructose.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s not going to actually stimulate insulin in the way that glucose does, but what it does is it goes into the cell and it s converted into something called uric acid.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that uric acid creates oxidative stress, which is sort of this sort of damaging reactive molecule in the mitochondria and creates mitochondrial damage.
3
SPEAKER_02
So now, again, you ve got more trouble processing energy than mitochondria.
3
SPEAKER_02
Environmental toxins are actually a huge problem as well.
3
SPEAKER_02
They can directly damage the machinery of the mitochondria.
3
SPEAKER_02
So we re thinking about things like
3
SPEAKER_02
pesticides and a lot of the fragrances in our personal care products and a lot of the fragrances and chemicals in our home care products, these things actually go into our bodies, damage our mitochondria, make it difficult to produce energy effectively.
3
SPEAKER_02
Chronic stress can damage our mitochondria through cortisol and through our stress hormones.
3
SPEAKER_02
So it s interesting to think about how all these different aspects of modern life fundamentally feed down into damaging this precious
3
SPEAKER_02
part of our cell that creates energy and when we have the mitochondria and when we have problems creating energy in our body
3
SPEAKER_02
This can happen in any cell type.
3
SPEAKER_02
Again, 37 trillion cells, dozens of organs in the body.
3
SPEAKER_02
Where this is showing up most prominently in the body is where you re gonna see symptoms.
3
SPEAKER_02
And this is why metabolic dysfunction and blood sugar dysregulation can look like so many different things.
3
SPEAKER_02
It can masquerade as so many different symptoms.
3
SPEAKER_02
And in the conventional system, we see those all as separate.
3
SPEAKER_02
But when we think about it as, this is actually just where a fundamental core problem is showing up in different
3
SPEAKER_02
Cell types and so if you can address that you can potentially kind of melt a lot of things away So just as some concrete examples if metabolic dysfunction is showing up in the blood vessels Well, if it s sort of most prominently showing up in the penis that could look like erectile dysfunction if it s happening in the heart it could look like you know heart disease and
3
SPEAKER_02
If it s happening in the liver, it could look like fatty liver disease.
3
SPEAKER_02
If it s happening in the ovaries, it could look like polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is the leading cause of infertility in the United States, which is a metabolic problem.
3
SPEAKER_02
And if it s happening in the brain, it could look like Alzheimer s dementia.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so it s got all these different faces, but fundamentally is rooted in a core dysfunction in how our body is converting food,
3
SPEAKER_02
to energy, and a lot of that has to do with this chronic overnutrition, overloading our cells with too much to process, gumming up these systems, and then the many other lifestyle factors like toxins, stress, sleep deprivation, and sedentary behavior that can also hurt the mitochondria.
3
SPEAKER_00
So blood sugar management and metabolism management, is that right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Is that the main things we should be thinking about?
3
SPEAKER_00
How does blood sugar and metabolism work together?
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, so the way that those sort of things link up is that if your blood sugar is quite erratic, like let s say it s going up and down in big spikes and valleys.
3
SPEAKER_00
Every day, yeah, you re having lots of sugar, you re just eating poorly, you re stressed, you re overwhelmed.
3
SPEAKER_02
The majority of foods on the shelves in our grocery stores now have added sugar, like well over 60%.
3
SPEAKER_02
So it s not unusual for an American to be on that blood sugar rollercoaster up, down, up, down, up, down.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that s called glycemic variability.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that process of glycemic variability is very damaging to our metabolism through the, through the mechanisms, you know, we spoke about of causing insulin resistance by stressing the body to make
3
SPEAKER_02
too much insulin over and over.
3
SPEAKER_02
But those high blood sugar spikes in their own right can cause damage as well.
3
SPEAKER_02
When your blood sugar acutely goes really high, like after eating a Pop-Tart or eating a pastry or something like that, or a big bowl of pasta, that spike can lead to inflammation.
3
SPEAKER_02
it can lead to oxidative stress because of the way that it s overwhelming our systems and creating free radicals.
3
SPEAKER_02
It can also cause a process called glycation, which is where sugar sticks to things in the body.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so if you can imagine, if your concentration of blood sugar is really high, it s kind of gonna just stick to things more, like your blood vessels and proteins, and that s not good.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s like a signal for the body that something s wrong.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so all of these things kind of
3
SPEAKER_02
coalesce to just creating problems.
3
SPEAKER_02
So the more that we can minimize our glycemic variability and go from spikes and valleys to more gentle rolling hills, the better we are, the better we re going to basically be treating our cells and
3
SPEAKER_02
It s not just the cellular optimization we re trying to do.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s also the way you feel.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think a lot of us have had that experience where we have a really high-carb meal, a big dessert, and we feel like we kind of have a crash afterwards.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s like that post-meal crash.
3
SPEAKER_02
We feel lethargic.
3
SPEAKER_02
We may need to have another cup of coffee or even feel jittery after a big high-carb meal.
3
SPEAKER_02
We really understand how that works.
3
SPEAKER_02
The body sees a huge load of glucose from a high-carb meal.
3
SPEAKER_02
The body then surges out that insulin, overcompensates, soaks up all that glucose, and you crash.
3
SPEAKER_02
And in that crash state is when we feel fatigue, potentially some anxiety, and it s when people usually feel cravings.
3
SPEAKER_02
So by learning- You want more when you crash.
3
SPEAKER_02
You want more to bring yourself back
3
SPEAKER_02
because you ve kind of crashed, and then you re on the vicious cycle.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I think the majority of American bodies are on that cycle, because you think about what we eat, it s like breakfast, it s cereal, juice, toast, Pop-Tarts, pastries, sweetened coffee beverages, that s all refined sugar and refined grains.
3
SPEAKER_02
Then you go to lunch, and it s bread, tortillas, wraps, chips, all of that stuff.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then you go to dinner, pasta, potatoes, whatever, and then it s dessert, and it s like,
3
SPEAKER_02
If you re just going along the normal American cultural treadmill of what s normal to eat, you re on a glucose roller coaster.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that means that your day might be highly labile in terms of the energy, mood, performance, cravings.
3
SPEAKER_02
Learning just simple ways to balance out that glucose roller coaster can be an amazing life hack and really a superpower for essentially getting your day under better control, making you feel better in the moment.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
How much does alcohol, smoking, or marijuana, or psychedelics actually affect lifespan?
3
SPEAKER_00
Do we have enough research on this?
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, we do on tobacco smoking.
3
SPEAKER_01
Obviously, it s very clear.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s a decade off your life.
3
SPEAKER_01
And what s interesting is that what we re learning about these various things that you can do to hurt yourself or to protect yourself is that what s happening is that your body is aging at a different rate.
3
SPEAKER_01
So smokers, you can measure it, are older biologically than people who ve never smoked.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s why they look older, too.
3
SPEAKER_01
We can measure that now.
3
SPEAKER_01
In my lab, if I took your blood, I could tell you how old you are biologically, not just your chronological years.
3
SPEAKER_00
I wanna do that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I saw you post this on Instagram, that you re like 46, is that right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Or you re 42, or what is it?
3
SPEAKER_01
I went down there, what was it, 44, I think, or 42.
3
SPEAKER_01
It bounces around, but it s usually a decade younger than that.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s cool.
3
SPEAKER_00
So what do you do, you take a blood sample,
3
SPEAKER_00
And then you what, measure the blood?
3
SPEAKER_01
There s two ways of doing it.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s one company that I advise called Inside Tracker, and that s what I use often.
3
SPEAKER_00
I ve had that too, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
You ve done that?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
So they come to your home, or you donate, and then you get this readout of, I think it s 40 different parameters, and they use an algorithm and tell you how old you are.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I m 42 or something like that.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m in the top 2% of people my age for youthfulness.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I m happy with that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Just dust it off, a little brag over there, I like it, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
You better be if you re researching this and the top scientists in the world on this.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh yeah, I don t like to brag.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s not what Australians and scientists do.
3
SPEAKER_01
But what I do want to say is I use my body as an experiment and try to be a role model.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I ve been optimizing my lifestyle for 20 years now based on this feedback from InsideTracker for the last 12, 13 years.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you can see the graphs of things going out of the optimal zone
3
SPEAKER_01
and then I make a change based on science and it comes back or even better.
4
SPEAKER_01
that their biological age is older when they smoke, is what you re saying, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, well that s one test.
4
SPEAKER_01
The InsightTracker test is what I do routinely every few months.
4
SPEAKER_01
But there s a new type of test that my colleagues and in my lab we ve developed.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s called the DNA methylation test.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s also known as the Horvath test, named after my friend Stephen Horvath at UCLA.
4
SPEAKER_01
The way to think of this is, if you ve ever heard of the epigenome.
4
SPEAKER_01
These are the control systems that control our DNA.
4
SPEAKER_01
It turns out that that system you can measure.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s chemicals on your DNA that change over time, predictably.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we ve just developed a way to measure that 100 times cheaper than it was before.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I m gonna bring this test to the public so that people can test their biological age.
4
SPEAKER_00
It should be a cheek swab, that s what we re developing.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you don t have to prick or take blood or anything.
4
SPEAKER_00
You do a cheek swab.
4
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then you ship it in or something?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you ll post it in.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then you get, hopefully just a week later or less, here s your credit score for your body.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s cool.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then even better, here s how you slow it down or reverse it based on everything we know about you.
4
SPEAKER_01
Wow, that s cool.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we ll take you on that journey.
4
SPEAKER_01
So do this, eat this, swallow this.
4
SPEAKER_01
That is cool.
4
SPEAKER_01
I got to take that test.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, you can get on the waitlist if you want.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a website because we are taking names right now.
4
SPEAKER_01
We may do some studies with early adopters too.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s cool.
4
SPEAKER_00
Where s the waitlist for that?
4
SPEAKER_01
It s called Tally.
4
SPEAKER_01
T-A-L-L-Y.
4
SPEAKER_01
Tallyhealth.com.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the reason I m excited about it is it s very hard to focus on what works, because we have no idea.
4
SPEAKER_01
You exercise, you hope that it s good.
4
SPEAKER_01
Is it too much, too little?
4
SPEAKER_01
If I eat this, does it help me?
4
SPEAKER_01
We need a dashboard for our bodies, and that s what these give you.
4
SPEAKER_00
That is really cool.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so we know that smoking makes you age, biologically.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s why it makes you look older, smoking.
4
SPEAKER_00
What about drinking alcohol?
4
SPEAKER_00
We re talking about wine and the substance in wine that could be supportive, but alcohol in general, does that affect biological age and aging?
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, it all depends on quantity.
4
SPEAKER_01
Gotcha.
4
SPEAKER_01
One glass a day, most doctors would say, especially if it s red wine, it s fine.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the alcohol actually can help with the cardiovascular system, reduces bad cholesterol, and more importantly, raises the good cholesterol HDL.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is for red wine.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the alcohol in white wine does a little bit of good too.
4
SPEAKER_01
But beer?
4
SPEAKER_01
So beer will raise the levels of uric acid, which is a protein breakdown product that you can pee out.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if you have too much beer and other types of food that contain a lot of this type of protein, you will raise your uric acid level.
4
SPEAKER_01
So why does that matter?
4
SPEAKER_01
It s becoming very clear that if you have high uric acid levels, your body will age faster.
4
SPEAKER_00
We just had Dr. David Perlmutter on.
4
SPEAKER_00
He has a book about uric acid, talking about this is one of the root causes of
4
SPEAKER_00
poor health and aging faster and things like that.
4
SPEAKER_00
So alcohol, you talked to him a lot?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, I actually was one of the first people to read his book before it came out.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s really good.
4
SPEAKER_01
It blew my mind.
4
SPEAKER_01
I now measure my uric acid levels.
4
SPEAKER_01
You can get little test strips.
4
SPEAKER_01
You can just buy the usual.
4
SPEAKER_01
You just pee on it?
4
SPEAKER_01
No, you spit on it and 10 seconds later you see your acid levels.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so the lower the level, the better.
4
SPEAKER_00
The higher the level means there s risk for what?
4
SPEAKER_01
Everything, according to David.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s really bad for cancers and heart disease mainly.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I think he s right, that it s a sign of accelerated aging.
4
SPEAKER_00
The higher the uric level, the faster you re gonna be aging.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And a larger amount of consumption of alcohol, specifically beer, I m hearing, raises that level.
4
SPEAKER_01
Beer in particular has a lot of the chemicals in it that will raise uric acid, unfortunately.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that s from David Polnareff.
4
SPEAKER_01
He gave me a list of foods.
4
SPEAKER_01
I saw beer on there.
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SPEAKER_01
I was like, oh, that sucks.
4
SPEAKER_00
Now, is there any benefit to beer in biology, in science?
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SPEAKER_00
Does it help you improve the quality of your health?
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SPEAKER_00
Does your brain get better?
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SPEAKER_00
Does your body, your system get better?
4
SPEAKER_00
Does it make you younger at all?
4
SPEAKER_00
Are there no benefits to beer biologically and in your brain?
4
SPEAKER_01
There are benefits because there s alcohol in there, and a little bit of alcohol is good for your cardiovascular system, but.
4
SPEAKER_01
But there s other things that s good for your cardiovascular system too, right?
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SPEAKER_01
That you don t need.
4
SPEAKER_01
So beer on the list of alcohols is at the bottom for health, mostly.
4
SPEAKER_01
Unless it s full of sugar, like there s very sweet wines I think would be a problem.
4
SPEAKER_01
But beer does have a lot of vitamin B, B group vitamins, B3, tons of it.
4
SPEAKER_01
But you can get that in other ways too.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can.
4
SPEAKER_01
What can you do?
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SPEAKER_01
I mean, you ve got to live as well.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t prescribe a life that s prolonging and feels longer.
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SPEAKER_01
You ve got to live a little.
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SPEAKER_01
Right, right.
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SPEAKER_01
Enjoyment.
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SPEAKER_00
The enjoyment of the richness of life, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
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SPEAKER_00
Though I am trying not to drink alcohol these days.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve never been drunk in my life.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, amazing.
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SPEAKER_00
Never been drunk.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t find it amazing because I just never found the...
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SPEAKER_00
I never had the desire to do it.
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SPEAKER_00
I tasted some when I was 16 and I was like, I don t understand why I would ever drink this.
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SPEAKER_00
Plus it was also for me, maybe that s one of the reasons in your mind I look younger, I look like I haven t aged more.
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SPEAKER_00
is because I found it as an advantage in sports, when everyone else was drinking, I was like, oh, it s weakening their immune system, it s making them slower.
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SPEAKER_00
Mentally, this will give me an edge in athletics.
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SPEAKER_00
They were hungover after games, in practice, and I was like, I m gonna be sharp.
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SPEAKER_00
And so I just kept on with it.
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SPEAKER_00
I was like, this is just gonna make me sharper.
4
SPEAKER_00
Now, I have my other vice, I use sugar in other ways, is my vice, so I m not perfect, but...
4
SPEAKER_00
Does alcohol make you look older too?
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SPEAKER_00
In excess.
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SPEAKER_00
In excess, gotcha.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
So a little bit every day is okay, a little bit.
4
SPEAKER_01
But most doctors, like physicians, would say if you overdo it, you will age.
4
SPEAKER_01
And actually what you do as a researcher is you look at people who live a long time and compare them to either their twin, which has been done, or family members.
4
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and actually how you live your life has a massive impact on how long you live.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a twin study.
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SPEAKER_01
They took identical twins, genetically identical, in Denmark, and they said, OK, let s look at them through their life.
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SPEAKER_01
And there were massive differences in how they looked and how long they lived.
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SPEAKER_01
And when they went back to see what the causes were, they could figure out, first of all, that 80% of their lifespan was determined by how they lived, not their genetics.
4
SPEAKER_00
You mean the way they felt about themselves, the people they hung out with, their environment, the activities they took on, or what do you mean?
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, mostly their lifestyle, what they ate, did they smoke, did they drink, did they exercise?
4
SPEAKER_00
Did they sleep well, all that stuff?
4
SPEAKER_01
Right, and those that did all the good things, the same genetics, twins, born the same day, one could live 10 years longer than the other.
4
SPEAKER_00
Now, this is what I m curious about.
4
SPEAKER_00
Were these twins hanging out all the time?
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SPEAKER_00
Or because usually when you re hanging out with someone all the time, you pick up the similar habits, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
You pick up a similar lifestyle habit as your parents, as your partner, and you kind of eat the same things.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s really hard to be like, I m gonna drink every day and I m not gonna drink every day if you re living together and in the same room, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
So I wonder how that is.
4
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
4
SPEAKER_01
But it does tell you a lot.
4
SPEAKER_01
The fact that 80% of our future health is in our own hands is liberating.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because often we think, ah, it s not gonna make a big difference.
4
SPEAKER_01
It really makes a big difference how you live your life every day.
4
SPEAKER_01
Focus on that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And one thing that I do is I look at my future self and I ask myself, what s that guy saying to me today if he could speak to me?
4
SPEAKER_01
What s he saying?
4
SPEAKER_00
Please don t eat that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_00
Please don t drink that anymore.
4
SPEAKER_00
You had enough, you re gonna hurt me in 10 years.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes, that s how you need to think about it.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s coaching yourself 10, 20, 30 years out.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s interesting, I asked David Pearlmutter, I said, what are some things you wish you would have done sooner to improve the quality of your health?
4
SPEAKER_00
And he was like.
4
SPEAKER_00
flossing he was like he s like I and I didn t go deeper into that but I remember him saying that I was like there s wisdom and whatever it is maybe had some gum issues or something he had to deal with at one point that was really affecting him for a year or two I don t know I m just making this up but if he can go back he d be like I wish you d have done this better so I didn t have to suffer later
4
SPEAKER_00
What are the things you ve done or you re doing now that your 10-year-old self will be so happy for?
4
SPEAKER_00
Like if he was in front of you right now he d just be hugging you and high-fiving you non-stop.
4
SPEAKER_00
The things you re doing that he will appreciate in 10 years.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then what are a few things that he s gonna say, man, I really wish you wouldn t do that right now?
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, okay.
4
SPEAKER_01
All right, so let s see.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I measure myself so I can speak scientifically, not just that it makes me feel good.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s the one meal, one main meal a day.
4
SPEAKER_01
He would be grateful for.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m sure of it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And as a result, I m leaner and more ripped.
4
SPEAKER_01
I hate to say that word.
4
SPEAKER_00
You look lean.
5
SPEAKER_01
I ve gone over the last two years from 150 pounds to 133.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you look leaner even from the first time I had you on.
5
SPEAKER_01
Your face is leaner and chiseled.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I don t think I want to lose any more.
5
SPEAKER_00
I need to go back to the gym and do a little bit more.
5
SPEAKER_01
So the one meal a day, but you weren t doing one meal a day, what, five, 10 years ago?
5
SPEAKER_00
No, I only started during the pandemic.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, this is new for me too.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s hard actually, when you begin, you feel hungry because you ve got those crashes that make you really hungry and you ve got this hormone called ghrelin that makes you hungry.
5
SPEAKER_00
But once you get through that, it takes about three weeks.
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SPEAKER_00
So anyone who tries it, make sure that you don t give up early.
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SPEAKER_00
Just power through and then your liver will wake up.
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SPEAKER_00
One main meal a day.
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SPEAKER_00
So that s one.
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SPEAKER_00
The other thing I think that he will be happy is don t eat sugary foods.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, don t eat that cake.
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SPEAKER_00
So at a restaurant when they said you want dessert, I always say no, but then I m hoping that someone at the table orders what I want.
5
SPEAKER_00
But that s all I need, I need to taste it.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t need to fill myself with cake.
5
SPEAKER_00
Gotcha.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because you still want to enjoy your life and live a full life, but you don t want to in 10 years be like, why do they eat cake every day?
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not worth it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Really.
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SPEAKER_00
Your future self will thank you for it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Lifting weights.
5
SPEAKER_00
I know you do that.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I need to do more of that.
5
SPEAKER_00
I got a standing desk.
5
SPEAKER_00
So most of the day I m standing, which is great.
5
SPEAKER_00
Again, you have to get used to it.
5
SPEAKER_00
You ll feel tired for the first few weeks.
5
SPEAKER_00
Your legs will.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m now mostly focused on eating plants.
5
SPEAKER_01
When did you start that?
5
SPEAKER_00
That s recently.
5
SPEAKER_00
Eating mostly plants.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I ve switched.
5
SPEAKER_00
I love meat.
5
SPEAKER_00
I wish that I could eat more.
5
SPEAKER_00
But you just got to look at the science.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s some really good studies of thousands of people.
5
SPEAKER_00
You just look at how long people live and what they eat.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I mean, it s not even an argument.
5
SPEAKER_01
But there s so many people that bring in the argument, well, all these people have cured these diseases or whatever, gotten rid of these things from meat only.
5
SPEAKER_01
But people make the argument, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
You see it online, people making the argument for meat, meat, meat.
5
SPEAKER_01
So where are they finding these research studies of people living longer on an only meat diet?
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
5
SPEAKER_01
But you re not seeing them.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re not seeing studies of anyone that lives over 100 that all they do is eat meat.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, they might be one person or two, but when you look at 10,000 people, what they eat, it s the vegan and the pescatarian that win out.
5
SPEAKER_00
In the blue zones, right.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and the numbers are something like that.
5
SPEAKER_00
You drop it down to, you got 88% less chance, or actually it s 12% chance for most diseases.
5
SPEAKER_00
So most diseases are protected by these diets.
5
SPEAKER_00
Really?
5
SPEAKER_00
Wait a minute, 80% less chance of what?
5
SPEAKER_00
Of dying at any one point in the age range of the study.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
By being a pescatarian.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
So it s vegan, pescatarian, those are the best.
5
SPEAKER_00
Then above that would be, actually, pescatarian was better than vegetarian.
5
SPEAKER_00
A little bit of meat seemed to help, but it has to be fish.
5
SPEAKER_00
With the omega-3s in there, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and particularly oleic acid s good.
5
SPEAKER_00
which is found in avocados and olive oil.
5
SPEAKER_00
That activates one of the protective enzymes that we study in the lab.
5
SPEAKER_00
Which acid?
5
SPEAKER_00
Oleic.
5
SPEAKER_00
O-L-E-I-C.
5
SPEAKER_00
What is some of that, but not a lot of that?
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a monounsaturated fatty acid, or MUFA.
5
SPEAKER_00
If you have a bit of olive oil, there s a supplement online that I get that has high levels of oleic acid in it that I take every day with the DHA and EPA, all that good stuff.
5
SPEAKER_00
So that s my fish intake as a pill.
5
SPEAKER_00
You don t eat fish.
5
SPEAKER_00
You eat very little.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, you know, I m evolving my diet.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I ve gone from a Mediterranean diet over the last 10 years to the last two, three months to all plant-based, no dairy and no meat.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m just seeing what happens to my body.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m measuring things.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s an experiment.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not a philosophy.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if things don t work out biologically, I ll go back.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I d love to go back to a state.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m Australian after all.
5
SPEAKER_00
But you know, I m driven by science and that s all it is.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so you got these four.
5
SPEAKER_01
Was there another thing that your future self would thank you for?
5
SPEAKER_01
One meal a day, don t eat sugary foods.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s gotta be one of the most challenging for me.
5
SPEAKER_01
Lifting weights, eating mostly plants.
5
SPEAKER_01
Was there anything else?
5
SPEAKER_01
get control over psychological stress.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Why is this so important?
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, the main problem is you have high levels of cortisol when you re stressed out psychologically.
5
SPEAKER_00
and it s clear that people who have really high levels of stress are chronically ill, and even it accelerates gray hair.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s actually a fact.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not just a myth.
5
SPEAKER_00
You really are getting older if you have stress.
5
SPEAKER_01
Really, this is scientifically proven that if you re stressed out all the time, or more frequently, you re gonna get older, biologically.
5
SPEAKER_01
Correct.
5
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
Can you reverse gray hair?
5
SPEAKER_00
Without dyes?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_00
Really?
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, not routinely.
5
SPEAKER_00
But there are examples of that.
5
SPEAKER_00
There are some drugs that have shown in the clinic that make hair go from gray to brown.
5
SPEAKER_00
The best example I can tell you is that when people are stressed out, let s say they re in the banking world and they re losing their minds, you can find hairs that start to turn gray.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so you look at them and they re a little bit gray at the bottom.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh good, turning gray, okay.
5
SPEAKER_00
Then they get given a vacation and they go away for a couple of weeks.
5
SPEAKER_00
And guess what happens to the hair shaft?
5
SPEAKER_00
It gets brown.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s brown again.
5
SPEAKER_00
Come on.
5
SPEAKER_00
You can find these gray-brown segments of hair.
5
SPEAKER_00
in people.
5
SPEAKER_00
And what they tracked it down to was that the cells that make the hair pigment start to shut down, but they can be reinvigorated.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I suspect once you ve been gray for a number of years, it s really hard to get back again.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I m the first person to say aging is not unidirectional.
5
SPEAKER_00
In my lab, we re driving it forwards and backwards at will.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not really difficult anymore once you figure it out.
5
SPEAKER_01
I hope today s episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
5
SPEAKER_01
Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today s show with all the important links.
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SPEAKER_01
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SPEAKER_01
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SPEAKER_01
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SPEAKER_01
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SPEAKER_01
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SPEAKER_01
And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
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SPEAKER_01
And now it s time to go out there and do something great.