David Beckham & A Heart Transplant Survivor's Plan to Stay Strong at 80

When I retired, I thought that my body needed to just recover and I stopped working out. My body fell apart. I'm aging exactly the same as everybody else who's aging. It's really about how I want to feel when I'm 80 years old, not right now.

Let's switch over to you, Don, because your story is quite amazing.

It's more than quite amazing.

It was just a few weeks into medical school that I was diagnosed with stage four cancer. And they said, you have three months to live and you'll never be able to have children. Ultimately, I had a heart transplant.

You were the first one to run a marathon within a year of having a heart transplant.

When I took my first step, I thought, I think I made a big mistake. I was so decompensated, my calf muscles were literally indented. I had a three person assist and a rolling walker.

David Beckham is a global icon whose name is synonymous with elite performance. Over a 20 year career at the highest level of professional football, he redefined what longevity looks like for an athlete. Now, at 50, he is applying that same world class discipline to a new mission. Joining him is Dr. Don Mussolam, previously a Mayo Clinic physician who survived stage four breast cancer and a heart transplant only to run a marathon one year later. Together, they are stripping away the confusion of the wellness industry to reveal what it actually takes to stay elite at any age. So kind of walk us through a day, the life of David Beckham in terms of your health routine.

I still want to live and feel like an athlete. Every part of my life I treat as if I'm still playing.

I think you should have him talk about his time in nature with his farm.

This cockerel is the most handsome cockerel you'll ever see.

So how do you define health now for yourself? Hey, it's Dr. Hyman. I'm so excited to share this episode with you today, but before we dive in, I want to get your help. Please take a minute to hit that subscribe button. Whether you're watching here on YouTube or listening on your favorite podcast platform, it truly means the world to me and it helps my team. And I bring you this podcast every single week. Plus, I don't want you to miss a thing. So thanks so much for being part of this community and I'm glad you're here. David, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you very much.

Well, it's so great to have you both here. You both have health journeys and stories to tell you as an athlete, you as a survivor of breast cancer and heart transplant and also talk about how the average person can learn from the things that you've learned in ways that are remarkable. Both your stories are extraordinary. You know, one, you as an elite athlete who's learned how to take care of his health from the beginning and then continually improving even at this age. I think you look better now than you did in pictures when you were like 20.

Now you sound like my wife. She says the same thing to me all the time and I don't believe her.

So kind of a scrawny little kid though. I saw those pictures.

That's very true. That's very true.

And you know, you, you came back from two impossible things, which is stage four breast cancer and a heart transplant. And you look fabulous and glowing. So everybody's going to want to know what, what have you both done? David, let's start with you. You, obviously, everybody knows who you are. You're an elite athlete. You're football player or as we say here, soccer player. And you, you were chatting earlier, you're saying you've always been sort of paying attention to your health, but you kind of also grew up on crap food like pie and mash and chips and the, you know, east end of London and like it wasn't a thing. And you know, you would go to Cheesecake Factory when you were playing, they get your pregame meals, they give you a few bucks from the team to play. Tell us about how you've kind of thought about your own health as a, as a player. Because, you know, most athletes when we were chatting about this, don't pay much attention to what they're eating. You know, some high performance Olympians obviously do, but the average people in major league sports, you know, football players, basketball players, soccer players, baseball players or other football players, you know, don't really pay attention. They're eating crap. And I've seen it, we were chatting. I've seen you know, what players eat, friends of own basketball teams or football teams. And I'll go in and after the game like they're just eating like fried chicken and pizza and pasta and crap and burgers and hot dogs. And I'm like, if you have a million dollar racehorse, you're not going to feed it McDonald's and Coke and fries and a milkshake for a pre game Kentucky Derby meal.

It's funny you say that though, because, you know, being an owner of a team, you know, I want my players to be healthy. I want them to be doing the right things, eating the right, drinking the same things or the right Things and each player has to be treated differently. I learned that when I was playing in, in A.C. milan. You know, each player was treated differently. After a game, you'd go and get, you know, you go and have a blood test that tell you exactly how you, how much you run what you need to do in the next few games. So, you know, every, every, every player gets treated differently these days. It wasn't the same when I was playing, but I walked into our locker room, you know, last season a couple of times, and players are eating pizza.

Yeah.

And I'm like, is this the right thing? And they're like, well, players just want something, something they don't want, something healthy. They don't want something that's that good for you. They just want something. And pizza is the kind of food of choice on most of the players. And that's right after the game. But going back to my upbringing.

Yeah.

You know, I grew up in the East End of London. My mom was an amazing cook. You know, my dad worked from 6am till 9pm every single day. So my mum was the one that was home looking after me and my two sisters. Now my mom, like I said, she, without knowing, prepared me for my career. Yes, we ate fish and chips. Yes, we ate pie and mash. But that was really a kind of a treat at the weekend or a Friday night. I don't know whether you know that, but on a Friday night it's tradition that you have fish and chips.

Yeah.

And I always used to go on a Sunday morning with my grandma and my granddad. Not my granddad, because he was, he was working, but my grandma. And we'd always go to our local pie mash.

But what is pine mash for Americans? I don't.

Okay, so pine pie mash. I'll explain it. So pie mash is. It's like a mince meat pie. It's a very basic mince meat pie with pastry. And then you have a mashed potato, but it's not your whipped, creamy, you know, milky mashed potato. It is a mashed potato that is just mashed. It's just potatoes and salt.

Yeah.

And then here's, here's the part where everyone goes.

That's so bad.

It's called liquor and it's a kind of gravy. But it's made out of stewed eels and parsley and it's mixed together and it's this green sauce that is.

Yeah, like the, like the lizard. I mean, yeah, like, like a snake thing.

And then you. And then you Pile like pepper and salt and like chili vinegar, which is. It's my favorite meal. That was. That. That would be my last meal to me. So. So in all honesty, you know, those were treats. We understood that those, those are treats. But during the week actually, and the night before I would play on a Sunday morning, my mum would always make me like a piece of steak or a piece of grilled chicken and pasta. So that really prepared me for, you know, probably gave me the longevity in my career. You know, from a. From a really early age, I was eating good things. You know, I might have the odd pie, mash, fish and chips, but majority of the time I was eating good things. So that really has completely changed now, you know, in the world of football or soccer. Completely change. You know, the scientific part of, you know, eating and looking after yourself and wellness now is completely gone, you know, full circle, in all honesty, because like I said when I was, when I first joined Manchester United, we, at lunchtimes we used to have steak and chips or pie and chips, baked beans, and for dessert we'd have a chocolate pudding and chocolate custard. Every. Every single day? Yeah, every single day.

There are no vegetables in there.

No vegetables. No vegetables. I mean, when you've got beans on your plate and chips, you know, we were like, not worried about the vegetables and the fact that I continued, I went on and played Till I was 38 years old. So my. I had a long career.

What's the average football players at that time?

It was probably 32, 34, if you were lucky.

Yeah.

But nowadays, obviously, with all the science that's in with the teams now and the players, players, the longevity of their careers now is going. Some players are playing till 38, 40, 41, 40. So players are longing their careers because of what they're doing to their bodies now.

And did you, did you change over time in terms of what you were doing to maintain your health as you're playing?

No, I was pretty. I was honestly pretty consistent. You know, a lot of players obviously had to change because, you know, I've not talked about, you know, going for a pint, you know, on a Wednesday or a Thursday afternoon. You know, players. I didn't used to do that, but players used to do that, you know, before a game on a Saturday. They would go and have 10 pints in. In the pub on a Wednesday or a Thursday before a game.

Wow.

You know, so, but that, I mean, I'm talking. I'm talking about 30, 40 years ago. I'm not talking about 10 years ago. I'm talking about that time. So it was a different. And. And players were still performing.

Five quarts of beer. I'd be like on the floor.

I know, but that's really how I was able to, you know, I, I did adjust, of course, I adjusted because I had to, but I was pretty consistent through my whole career. You know, players used to go away after the end of the season, come back and they heavy, you know, and. And I was never like that, you know, throughout the summer. I always looked after myself. I never overate, I never drank. I was never a big drinker in all honesty, anyway, so I was able to go away for four or five weeks in the summer, eat what I wanted, but I always looked after myself. You know, the, the coach would always turn around to us and say, take four weeks or just take two weeks and do nothing. I never did any nothing. I always did my training throughout those four weeks.

And that's. That's how you stayed so long in the game.

I think so. I think so, yeah.

And how do you sort of navigate this now? You know, being 50 and you're like, you're.

Yeah, 50. 50. Last year.

That's a big year, right?

It was a big year. A lot happened last year for me, so it was a special year last year. Yeah. Turning 50 was a big milestone. But to be honest, everyone made, you know, I think my mate, my wife made a little bit more fuss about it than me turning 50. She turned 50 the year before me, which I always remind her about, obviously, but she turned 50 the year before me. But I was excited about, you know, I just treated it like any other birthday. I don't feel any different. I don't. I don't think I look any different, but. Few more gray hairs, but apart from that. No, it's.

That hasn't made you think differently about your health because, you know, we're going to talk about a minute, but you created a new company, I am eight, which is about helping people create health on a simple daily regimen. And you recently launched the longevity product, which we're going to talk about, which I love. What made you sort of want to think differently about your own health? That led to kind of this, like

I said earlier, that, you know, early on in my career, no one talked about the scientific part of looking after yourself or the wellness part or the supplement part or the vitamins part. No, no, no one talked about it. It wasn't really a thing that really got talked about. We didn't. We weren't sat down and said and, and told to take certain things. But I always looked at the market as something really interesting, you know, and I always looked at what was out there, you know, and even before the end of my career, I started looking at things and what I could do to make my performance better, you know, on more on the holistic side than, Than any other. So I was always looking for things. I was always looking for supplements. I was always looking for different vitamins and things and, and different smoothies and what I could do to kind of keep myself as healthy and keep, you know, on that, that level of, of play and also level of professionalism. So when I started coming towards the end and after my career, I then started to focus, okay, I've been an elite athlete for 22 years now. I'm not an elite athlete. I still want to live and feel like an athlete. I still, you know, every part of my life, I treat as if I'm still playing. Yeah, you know, I wake up, I have a schedule. I'm very regimented on what I do every single day, what I take every single day, how I look after myself. If I've got. If I've got an important day, you know, one day I'll still go to bed at the same time as I. As I did when I played football. So I continued to treat myself and treat my body like when I was playing. But I looked at what was out there and, you know, I had so many people come up to me and say, it's just so confusing. What do you take? What do you do? What do you put in your body? And I'm like, well, I want to be able to turn around to someone and say, okay, this is what I take, and I want it simple. And it's one of the things that I spoke to Danny Yung about when, you know, when we first started the conversations, I said, all I want is simplicity. I don't want to be taking 17 to 20 tablets every single morning. I want to put it in one drink and I want to put it in water, and I'll mix it up and I want to take it and I want it easy. And I wanted to taste it, to taste good. And that, funnily enough, that was one of my things.

Well, it does, actually. I'm having some right now.

It's got to taste good. And I want to feel. I want to feel an instant, like, impact. And I must admit, it's the one thing that people say to us every single day. Like, the day after that week, they feel an instant Impact.

So when you turn 50, do you think about your health differently or you just. Like, I'm on the same regimen. I'm going to act like I'm 20 and keep.

I don't think.

What's your, like, daily regimen that you.

I don't think of my time at 50. I want to think of my time at 80.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

And that's really why I'm doing the things that I'm doing now. It's why I'm looking to the future rather than looking at 50, because I've done what I've done. I'm aging exactly the same as everybody else is aging. You know, I might have been an athlete for, you know, a long time, but I'm still aging the same as what you're aging, what everyone else is aging. So, you know, it's really about how I want to feel when I'm 80 years old. Not. Not right now. Because I've done what I've done to get myself to this point. I feel good, and that's what I want to continue.

Amazing. Let's switch over you, Don, because your story is quite amazing.

It's more than quite amazing.

Yeah. It's kind of like I don't think I've ever met anybody who's had your story. And I also don't think I've ever really met anybody who looks as good as you, who's had a heart transplant. You're a physician. You trained in sort of integrative medicine. You work at Mayo Clinic in teaching women who are going through breast cancer how to do that in a holistic way. You have been a patient, and that's led you on a health journey for yourself and made you so passionate about bringing this to so many people. And I think a lot of us who are in this field are like that. We've had some horrible thing happened to us. Regular medicine. Didn't figure it out. And then we had to figure it out for ourselves. So maybe you could share a little bit about, as a patient, survivor, like, what was. What was it about your health journey that helped lead you to where you are now and this mission that you're on to bring health to so many and. And tell us a little bit about, like, what you went through.

So thanks, Mark, and thank you, David. I know you're having to listen to this again, but it's powerful. And, you know, so often I almost, in the beginning, was embarrassed and a little quiet about sharing my story, but then I was getting so much Feedback about how inspiring it was and giving individuals hope. And I really want to help move individuals beyond hope to knowing that they too can attain their vitality without pause and flourish beyond massive healthcare adversity, which is what I did. And much like you, David, I lived a very healthy lifestyle growing up because my mom was at home. She cooked these healthy meals. And that's a big part of it. When you have, I think, a solid foundation of health and wellness, you have much better outcomes. And so this is a big shout out because when I work with women, a lot of times they're very inspired to want to make change within themselves. But then quickly, the next thing they say is, yes, but my husband's not going to want to do this. What about my kids? And this is really a big shout out that the earlier we start, the more likely you're going to have a flourishing life, regardless of whatever may come to you. Because we don't have total control over health adversity. Even if you're living a healthy lifestyle and it's not to blame yourself, these things sometimes just happen.

Yeah, you didn't get breast cancer because you're eating crap or something. We live in a toxic environment. And who knows, you know, I have

so many women that come in and they ask that question, why me? And that was one thing I never did. I never felt like I was in a battle or I was fighting this. I just trusted, you know, I looked for lessons and I really felt it's like amor fatih. Like this was really happening, you know, for me, not to me. But it was just a few weeks into medical school that I was diagnosed with stage four cancer. And it just.

You were held.

I was 26.

That's crazy.

So it was just really quite surprising that this was the diagnosis that had happened. And you know, they came into the room, this was the year 2000, Thanksgiving weekend, and they came in, I had actually collapsed. They had to take me to urgent surgery. I was in cardiogenic shock. 16 centimeter mass wrapped around my chest because I was misdiagnosed. Misdiagnosed, Misdiagnosed. Doctors really didn't think anything was wrong with me. But with the fast paced medicine that people don't just pause. And this was starting back in the 2000s when healthcare was really starting to shift. Even back then, no one ever listened to my lungs. So I ended up getting diagnosed at a very late stage. And so I had this massive tumor wrapped around my heart that was compressing the great vessels and that resulted in cardiogenic shock. They did a thoracotomy the next day.

That's when they crack open your chest.

Yeah, just big, massive surgery. And, you know, the next day they came in my room and they said, you have three months to live without chemotherapy, 20 months to live with chemotherapy. You have stage four cancer, and you're gonna need to drop out of medical school, and you'll never be able to have children. It was like all these absolutes, and

I thought, wow, you know, that's a lot to hold.

It was interesting, you know, And I remember just feeling very sturdy, though, and steady. I'd always had faith in God and believed in something bigger than myself, and I just trusted. You know, I was in medical school, so there was this element of curiosity, which was kind of an interesting psychology, but I. I never fought it. You know, I knew I needed to do the conventional therapy. So when I do chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant, radiation therapy, stayed in school the whole time. But when I had my knowing. The great question you asked is, how did you know you wanted to do what you did? Is. I remember during my bone marrow transplant, my oncologist was very special. I had a bicycle in my room. I sat.

You had surgery, you had chemo, you had radiation.

Yeah.

And then you had a bone marrow

transplant and a bone marrow transplant. This is in 2000. So this was back when they just really gave you high doses of treatment to just totally deplete the immune system, and then they gave it back to you. So it was pretty powerful.

Just for people listening, don't understand what a bone marrow transplant is. Essentially, they. They destroy your own immune system. They. They kill your bone marrow, and then they give you somebody else's bone marrow, which rebuilds your immune system and then hopefully will help you survive. But it's a lot.

That's exactly right. You know, and this was with the City of Hope. This was in a research study because they knew that, you know, otherwise, there's no way really to cure this cancer. And so that's what they did.

The Hail Mary.

It's exactly. It's a Hail Mary. And so it was so fascinating, though I kept my life the way it always. I always wake up at 4am I would ride the bike that was in my room. There was also a bicycle that my oncologist had at the nurses station so I could sneak out. And it was in that. Sneaking out to watch the sunrise, to go ride my bike at the nurse's station and everyone in the other room.

Wait, wait, you brought a bike into the nurse's station?

That the oncologist did. He was so cool.

Like a stationary bike.

Two stationary bikes. I had two bikes, one in my room for on the days that he really didn't want me to leave. And he said, most mornings, everyone's tucked in the rooms. You're fine to come out. And I'd ride my bike and watch the sunrise every day for about an hour. I mean, this is when my hemoglobins were like six. You know, it was crazy. It was really nice.

Okay, wait a minute. You have to understand what she's talking about, because I recently had surgery and my hemoglobin went to 7, and I could barely sit up in a chair. And here you're saying you're riding your bike. That's when you have no blood in your body. It's like a third of the blood that you're supposed to have in your body.

It is true. But, you know, I'm a smaller stature individual. I was very much into cardiovascular exercise. But you are too. We each have our different reserves. But I was very fit prior to my cancer diagnosis. I would do Camelback Mountain in Arizona twice. I'd go up, come down, go up, come down, and then I'd even run after that. So I was very fit. I had a high VO2, so I had a lot of reserve. So when my hemoglobin was low, I would even climb Camelback with, like, hemoglobins of seven. It was crazy. I just was very blessed to. To have this high vitality. But you know why? It's because I showed up for myself. I ate right, I exercised regularly. And we know exercise during chemotherapy is incredibly powerful. We know it improves outcomes in recent colorectal cancer studies, like on par with the benefits of chemo. It's really important exercise, you know, exercise medicine. Yeah, exercise is just so, so important that we move our body. But I just remember looking out and seeing everyone else in the rooms, and they were dying in an effort to stay alive, you know? But I describe it as, I attained my fatality without pause. And it was the lifestyle that made the difference. And I really do attribute that to why I'm here today. And unfortunately, those treatments were, you know, ones that we really didn't know what they would do to someone. They cured the cancer. What a blessing, right? Because otherwise I wouldn't be here. But they caused advanced heart failure.

So we cure the disease, but the patient died.

Exactly. It's another testament to the importance of exercise. Because when I was found to have advanced heart failure, my ejection fraction I don't think I've ever heard of one lower. It was 8%.

And you were walking around?

No, I was actually ready to collapse. I was in cardiogenic shock again. And this was in the year 2003, so it was about three years after my omer.

That's like, for people, in plain English, it's like basically about a seventh of what your heart should be pumping if it could only beat and pump a seventh of the blood. That's what she had.

It was really hard. And I had lived with heart failure for 18 years.

That's insane.

You know, And I remained in. I finished residency, did a hospital fellowship, and heart failure. You get better, you know, you get worse, because you overdo it. You get better, you get worse. There was a lot of procedures along the way and different interventions that they kind of would patch me up. You know, I'd work a little better for a while, then I'd kind of decompensate.

And the chemo is what destroyed your heart?

You know, it's really fascinating. Well, this is super cool science. So, you know, ultimately I had a heart transplant. And they are investigating the heart and the genes in the heart and how this could have happened. And they identified something called the Titan gene. And this Titan gene is a gene that makes the myocytes, the heart cells, very sensitive to chemo and radiation and childbirth. And I was actually able to have a baby. And so I went into this end stage heart failure right after I delivered my child. So it's kind of like a triple hit. So most individuals, you know, if they have chemo, they're okay.

Well, you had a baby and a heart failure. That's.

That's been all three now.

You're still smiling.

Well, it's such a blessing. And, you know, that's the beauty of post traumatic growth, right? When if you have adversity and you rise above, you know how hard life can be. And now it's like I live this seamless, just truly blissful, glorious life. Just a life without resistance is so easy. Life is so easy now.

But you had a heart transplant in 2021, right?

It's the ultimate longevity hack, I must say, because I have a very young heart in my body, so I'm not recommending anyone else to do it.

But I were the first one to run a marathon within a year of having a heart transplant. Or were you the only one who's had a heart transplant who's run a marathon?

No, there's been. There's been other men, actually. I don't believe that there's been a woman that's actually run it. I think there was one woman that walked one, but it was many years after her heart transplant. So this is exactly one year after my heart transplant. And after I said I was going to do that, I thought, oh, when I took my first step, I thought, I think I made a big mistake. I was so decomposated. My, my calf muscles were literally indented. I had a three person assist and a rolling walker. And I was just thinking, oh, I may not be able to do this. I was like, I've got to try. So I applied all those pillars, lifestyle medicine.

After the surgery, you're on a walker.

Yeah, after the surgery, on a walker. I was on life support.

But not during the marathon. You were not on walker?

No. I ran that hard, man, I shined. That was pretty cool.

Yeah.

But yeah, we have a cardio sports medicine specialist who's a cardiologist at Mayo and they ran races with me leading up to the marathon. I trained very smart. The truth is I actually ran a marathon at the 11 month because we wanted to run one marathon just to make sure I would be safe in terms of public because we didn't want the cameras on me and she like dies.

Well, well, this sort of speaks to the really next question for you, which is you went through all this, which almost killed you. And these are serious diseases, you know, stage four breast cancer, heart failure. They're not really lifestyle diseases. I mean, heart failure was from chemo. How did it change how you think about your own health and investing in your health and your own sort of regimen for creating health and then how did it affect, you know, you're thinking about what you're doing in the world.

It's been so inspiring to be able to figure out how important lifestyle is. And I always was really fascinated with food. So I've always really invested in eating healthy. But sometimes it was a little too restrictive and it wasn't balanced and it wasn't with harmony. There was a little bit of turbulence. Maybe I was doing it out of fear where now I really, you know, eat to live. And I embrace that in a way that it's, it's enjoyable and it's something that individuals should really try to do the same. I don't think that we should use fear tactics to inspire others to eat healthy. This is just what fuels our body. You know, you don't put, we've heard these analogies. You don't put junk in a car. You shouldn't put Junk in your body. I mean, getting rid of the ultra processed food. And David, that's what you said was so important is your mom was there cooking dinner for you. You didn't eat fake food.

I was lucky.

That's the most important thing.

Maybe fish and chips and pine mash actually sounds pretty healthy to me compared to what most people eat today.

But I'm talking about fish and chips and pie mash. And then we've got dawn telling her inspiring story.

It's okay.

We'll just really bless. In exercise and movement, I always move my whole, you know, life. And I continued to do that. So I think I was really blessed that I had this very healthy childhood that my parents really believed in. And it just set the stage for this to be just very natural for me in this entire transition. The one thing that I would say I really have to work on is sleep. I'm not very good with sleep.

Me too.

I'd rather be alive. Sleep is really hard. I sleep good, but I don't want to sleep. I want to live. So that's my goal, is I could replace sleep. There is a gene, and maybe we all have this, that you just don't require as much sleep. We think that these individuals can get restorative.

I definitely have that gene.

Do you? I think I do too.

I must have that gene.

Yeah, I'm happy with four.

I feel like I'm missing out when I'm sleeping. I feel like I'm missing something. Yeah, I know something's going on that I want to be part of.

So the idea of you sleep when you're dead, Life's too fun.

Yeah, you're right.

But you do. But you do need to sleep.

You do need to sleep. It's important.

You do need to sleep for metabolic health. And, you know, so I think that this is actually a very important thing that we had to focus on. And when I was running that marathon, and that was one thing I really was mindful of and you said another really important thing, David, is that you're very regular with your sleep and you have sleep consistency because there's research now that says, yeah, that's important. 10pm to 2am you need that sleep. That's like the critical hours if you can be really regular, especially over a lifetime. So. But, you know, there's no magic bullet. But, you know, we all know in my background was in exercise physiology. And so I did a lot of research early on and we called it ergogenic AIDS at the time, and that was Nutraceuticals. Just support sports performance or peak performance, human existence. And so I really do believe in supplements as an adjunct to a healthy lifestyle. It's never going to replace a healthy lifestyle, but even the healthiest of lifestyles just isn't enough anymore. You know, there's a lot of nutrient gaps. You know, the NHANES data, You know, you talk about this often. It's hard to get what you need even if you're eating what you think may be an ideal diet.

You know, the, what she's talking about, don't talk about in English is this study that the government puts on called the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Essentially it's a big study that's been going on for decades that tracks everybody in America and what they're eating and their health and their blood tests, their nutrition levels. And this studies find that over 90% are deficient or insufficient in one or more nutrients at the level not that's optimal for health, but at the level that you wouldn't get a deficiency disease. So how much vitamin C do you need to not get scurvy? I think 10% of Americans are deficient in vitamin C at the level that would give them scurvy. Or 80% are deficient in sufficient vitamin D. Or 93% are low in omega 3s and you know, 50% are low in magnesium and zinc. And you know, it's like, it's a lot. And we're seeing this, you know, at Function Health, which is the company that I co founded to help people track their own personal health data. It's shocking. 70% are low in the Quest reference range, which is the standard reference lab we use in 70 are low in one or more nutrients at the level that's not the level I think is good or you would think it's good. Like vitamin D of 30 is not good. It should be 50. Or a ferret in their iron stores is 16 is not good. It should be 45. Just between, you know, lower than 45, you'll get hair loss and fatigue and all kinds of sleep issues and other things and, you know, omega 3 fats and vitamin D. And it just, it's amazing to see the, the problems in a, in a population that actually is pretty health forward because they're actually going to do proactive things about their health. So what about the rest of the population? You know, so I think, I think providing basic nutrients is so important, but I, I kind of, I want to kind of loop activity because what you said kind of struck me was, you know, you're not doing what you're doing now to stay healthy at 50. You're doing what you're doing now to stay healthy at 80. So kind of walk us through a day, the life of David Beckham in terms of your health routine and what are the foundational things?

Not that interesting, but I will tell you. But I will tell you, Obviously, I have four children, so I have one, my daughter, who's 14 years old. She's still obviously at school every single day. So my mornings really revolve around getting her out of bed, downstairs, breakfast inside her. I wake up at probably 6:15, 6:30 every morning, because I like to go downstairs, make sure everything's set up. Breakfast, the fire's on, lights are on, music's on, you know, radio's on, the radio station that she loves. So. And then she comes down around 7:30. Victoria's up by then as well. So she's a kind of an early riser as well. So she comes down around the same time as me. And then we wait for Harper to come down. She comes down, she has breakfast. Most of the time she has scrambled eggs or some cereal or some fruit. And then I drive her to school.

You're the chauffeur. Do you wear a hat?

I should get a hat, because I am. She likes to sit in the back sometimes when she's got her friend. But no, most of the time, my

daughter was like, don't talk to me. You don't know me. Just drop me off like 100 yards from the door. School.

I'm actually not there yet. She's, like, embarrassed of me at the moment. So. Yeah. And even if she shows any of those kind of sides, I'm all over her. Like, I'll walk in, I'm kissing her, I'm telling her that I love her in front of her friends, her teachers. No, but. So I. But I love that time in the morning. I love. You know, Victoria goes into the gym. She starts her session quite early. So she does like 45 minutes before me. And then we go in and we work out together. But I'll get to that. So I take her to school, I drop her off, and then obviously, I drive back to the house, I go into the gym. And that's like my time with Victoria to. To work out and laugh. I love to work out and laugh. And that's why I actually work out with my wife, because she makes me laugh. And I make her laugh, apparently. But she's laughing at me rather than anything else. So we do about she does about 30 to 40 minutes on the stair climber first before I get there. And then we work out with one of my close friends who's actually an ambassador for ima, Bobby Rich. So he works us out and, I mean, he loses his mind working out with me in Victoria because I'm very. I. Victoria always says that I. Procrastinator. Yeah, she. She says I'm always trying to, like, talk to him about something to slow the session down, but I'm always taking the right, like, time in between each, each. Each set. But she's like, okay, let's go, let's go, let's go. So she's always jumping onto. So we work out together for an hour. We laugh a lot at each other. And that's part of the routine, in all honesty.

Family connection.

Exactly.

Laughter exercise. You're already like. You already got like five really big health points.

Yeah. And then obviously before you even have breakfast, before. Before we've had breakfast. So then we're working out and actually there's one exercise which she actually cried once through this exercise because she found it so difficult. And every time I try and get Bobby to do it at least once a week because it makes me laugh. It makes me laugh to watch her go through this painful, like, exercise. But she does the same. There's exercises that I'm not very good at as well.

So what is that exercise that makes you cry?

Just. It's a, it's a pull up, but, like, you have to slowly let yourself down. And I don't know what. She was having a moment during, during that session, and all of a sudden I was like, you're not crying, are you? You're crying. And I made a big thing of it. So. But we laugh about it. So we work out together, we have a lot of fun. And then I go up to. She goes up to shower, and then I go up to make us a smoothie. We both have like a smoothie, each with iron mate in it. And she's obsessed with it. And, and she's not easy to like, change, supplement whatever she's taken. She's like, very loyal to that.

Yeah.

But then when we started the IMA, you know, I think it was 20, 24 that I started taking it. She was, she was very curious, but she was like, well, I've got my thing. It can't be as good as my thing.

Yeah.

And I was like, well, you're gonna have to change at some point to show some loyalty to me. So. Yeah. So she changed finally. But but then, so we have a smoothie, I go up and shower and then I head into the office. I, I always eat at 1:30 every day. I have grilled salmon, brown rice, vegetables. Then I have full day in the office. I go and pick my daughter up every day at 4 o', clock, which I feel very blessed to be able to do that because not every parent gets that opportunity. I drive her home and then we prepare dinner and then, you know, put her in bed and then do exactly the same the next day.

Amazing.

So that's it, that's, that's good.

You're eating healthy, you're with family, you're laughing, you're connected. I mean that, that's it really. I mean, I think, you know, people don't understand that, that it's not that hard. It's just, it's just a consistency. It's their daily habits. It's building your routine and, and, and your sleep stuff is also important. So tell us.

Sleep stuff is really important because I think like me and dawn just said, you know, I, I've not really been, I'm not great at sleeping, you know, like, I always, I just want to be awake, to be honest. But throughout my career, I was pretty good. You know, I always went to bed, like 10 o' clock was the latest. I went to bed night before a game and the games would always be at like either 3 o' clock in the afternoon or 4 o' clock or sometimes in the evening. But I would always go asleep at the same time every single night. And I always slept pretty well unless it was a big game where I was a little bit nervous. Not nervous or anxious, just excited. You know, I was, I was not one of those nervous players. I was kind of excited about the game. So, you know, my, my, my sleep these days is a lot better than what it was when I was playing. And that's down to Victoria. Victoria is always like, you were in bed early, we're sleeping early because we're up tomorrow early. So I always try and get, you know, at least seven, seven hours at least every night. And I know you need a little bit more than that, but that's, that, that's pretty good for me. So that has really been, you know, part of my kind of thing that I've really worked hard on because I, when, when we talk about balance, you know, in people's diets, in people's lifestyle, it's not just about, you know, what you take, it's about everything else that you do. Like we've just Said, you know, I laugh throughout my workout. You know, I walk my dogs, I take my daughter to school. I do have pie mash every now and again. You know, it's, it is about balance and we have to get that right. It's about a number of things that we do, and sleep is a big part of that, you know, And I have worked harder at that. Like, I've worked harder at drinking more water. You know, I was never great at drinking a lot of water, but now I'm great at it, apparently. But, you know, you get up a few nights, a few times during the night, obviously, but if you drink too much water. But I, you know, I, I think

you should have him talk about his time in nature with his farm.

Oh, yeah. Oh, that's right. You're a beekeeper. You're, you're, you're, you're a gardener.

My life, yeah, it's a big part of my life.

Nature is also medicine. Yeah, yeah. Is this in the uk? You've got a.

This is in the uk. It's in, in the Cotswolds, down in the countryside. And I started, I, you know, throughout lockdown, after lockdown, I was like, okay, I want to create our own, like, I want our own food, I want our own vegetables. I want to be able to grow things that we eat every, every weekend. So that's what I do. So I created this farm that's grown and grown and grown. And then we started, obviously, with the bees. The bees was the first thing, actually. The bees was the first thing which me and one of my children came to me throughout lockdown. And he was like, dad, have you seen these beehives on online? He said, let's get one. So we, we, we bought a. We. It was a flat pack beehive. We, we stayed up till four in the morning building it. And then I was like, do the bees. I had no idea. This was my first time even thinking about bees and honey. And I was like, do the bees come naturally? And obviously they don't. You have to buy the bees. So you buy the bees and a man, a man comes up in a white van and he gets out with a cardboard box and he says, there you go, there's your bees. And you're stood there holding this box

of bees and you don't have one of those suits on yet.

No, because they're all in the box still. So you've got this box of bees and there's 5,000 bees in each box.

5,000.

5,000. There's one queen bee, and there's 5,000 bees. So I'm stood there. So then I contacted a local beekeeper and she's amazing. So she came around and her name's Helen. She's unbelievable. She came round and she said, okay, this is how it works. We put the beat, we put the bee suit on, we put the bees, Transferred the bees from the box into the hive and. And that's really how it. It all began. But I must admit, I post a lot with my, with my, my, my, my stuff that I do in my garden because I have this amazing cockerel and I have this, these amazing hens. This cockerel is the most handsome cockerel you'll ever see. I'm going to show you a picture. So handsome. And he struts around and he's gorgeous. He's so handsome. But one of the things that is that I, that I, I get a lot of comments from, I like to walk around my garden in bare feet. You know, not when I'm planting, but I once was planting a rose and I was digging with. Obviously I was digging with no shoes on and no socks on, and it didn't go down very well. So everyone had a lot of comments about the roses, because of the roses. But I love it. You know, it's one of those that I always go down to the countryside for a day and just walk around in bare feet, walk around my garden, walk around the, the vegetable garden. And it's, it's one of my big passions.

Being in nature is something we're all organic deficient in.

Yeah.

And you eat it and eat the food.

And I eat, Eat the food.

Chickens eat the eggs.

Eat the eggs. We have, we have seven. Six hens, one cockerel. I have seven ducks. So we have duck eggs.

Duck eggs.

Duck eggs. We have, we have some amazing apple juice actually at the house now as well. So we have apple juice. We have jam, plum jam from the, from the trees. Yeah, yeah. We have so many plum trees that I was just like, what am I going to do? All these plums. So one weekend, Victoria came down and the table was, like, covered in these plums. She was like, what are you doing? I was like, well, I'm going to make some jam.

I love it. I love it. Wow. And Don, how about you? I mean, in terms of your, your routine? I mean, you're, you've been. You're in your early 50s, you've had two major illnesses, you know, that mostly would have killed people. And you look like you're just Starting your life. So what, what is, what is your sort of routine and non negotiables that you've kind of come to understand that are, are part of, you know, essentials for your life?

Yeah. You know I wake up at 4am every morning. I love. I start my work early. That's when my mind is nice and clear and I exercise in the morning so I try to get a 60 minute run in the morning. I eat a whole food plant predominant diet but for the most part I've done that most of my life. When I'm traveling I'll add in some fish here and there just because it gets hard to do whole food plant based. But I really stick to a healthy nutritional pattern. Getting lots of vegetables and fruits. I really focus on that food diversity for the gut microbiome. I don't have a garden. I wish I did. I'm just so inspired by that story. It's just very hopeful. It's something I think I want to do in 2020.

You should.

Yeah, you've inspired me. I don't know if I can get roosters but yeah, this is pretty our hands. This is pretty exciting. So I really live by what I speak to my patients about in my own lifestyle. But I have such meaning and purpose in my career. My work is not work. It is my love and my passion truly. So I start my day typically about 8 or 9 o' clock with patients and I have pretty long days, I go pretty late. Research projects, you know, keep me busy. And I started the lifestyle medicine residency curriculum at Mayo Clinic and I'm medical director for employee wellbeing where you know, it's so meaningful because they're people that saved my life. So to help them be their healthiest version of themselves. They're caring for our patients. So really to help them learn how to cook healthy started a fitness center at Mayo Clinic. So our staff at Mayo actually have access to a gym that's open 365 days a year, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day and no charge. So it's pretty cool. So they can go and exercise right on site and you know, this is really cool. So part of that employee well being we're actually doing a 100 person randomized controlled study with the IMA. This is a high stress group of individuals. So it's going to be fun to look at those nutrient deficiencies that you know there's nutrient.

You're testing them before?

Yep, we're large panel of testing and Danny Jung has really invested appropriate. I mean I don't know of any other nutraceutical company that dedicates resources to having a scientific advisory board as well as the research. So we're really excited about doing this study at Mayo Clinic. And we actually brought IMA on to Mayo Clinic's Mayo Clinic Ventures because we're not allowed to collaborate with outside industry. But in this realm where we're building product and helping to advance the science, we're able to do this. So it's really exciting and it's fun to do it in the staff and the staff are really excited about it. So we actually sell IMA in the Mayo Clinic pharmacy. A lot of my patients do really nicely with it. They love the flavor, they love the convenience like we talked about. But it's really fun for me to be able to not just care for patients, but help to optimize staff as well. So it's been.

Yeah, because healthcare workers are among the sickest in the country.

They really are. And they're role modeling this behavior which is so, so, so critical and you know, I guess, you know, for me, winding down the end of the day. My daughter is in College now, she's 22. So you know, it's easy to kind of work a little bit later. And I try to go to bed by 10 o'.

Clock.

You know, I don't get my seven hours sleep but I just don't feel I wake up, I like spring out of bed.

So you gotta wake up bed at 10, wake up at 4.

That's I love my 4am Sometimes it's like 3:22. Like this morning it was 3:22, but I'm on California time so we're allowed. It's really 6:22 my time.

Let's, let's dive into some, some, some rap fire questions. What's one habit that is sort of non negotiable that you, you would never give up or that you maybe a bad habit that you like?

That maybe my one non negotiable habit that I, to be honest, it's working out. It's working out because when I retired I thought that my body needed to just recover and I stopped working out. I just sat and did nothing for, I planned to do nothing for six months because I thought my body has been through everything. It's been through surgery, it's been, you know, I've beaten it up over the, that, that time but it was the worst thing I could have done. So from that day I was like, I'm always doing something whether it's did

you do nothing for six months?

I did nothing for six months.

And what happened to you?

My body fell apart. My body fell apart. I, I thought that, you know, my back would feel better, my knees would feel better, my ankle. I ruptured my Achilles. Through my career, I, I thought that the body needed to just recover and it was the worst thing I could have done. So. So gradually I started getting back into, you know, cycling. I started, you know, boxing. I tried everything. I tried everything and then I found a workout that worked for me and, and that's my non negotiable. I will work out every single morning and if I, if I'm traveling, I'll be doing press ups in my room. I'll do something, I'll always do something to just get my money. Because it's not what, what I don't, it's not that I don't care about what I look like. It's not all about that. It's, it's actually what mentally and how I feel. So that's my non negotiable.

Yeah, I agree. For me too. You know, especially, you know, the older you get, the more non negotiable it is.

Yeah.

Like when you're young you can get away with it and you know, I've had many back surgeries and to me it's, it's just, it's just a foundation for feeling good. If I don't, my back hurts.

Yeah.

And so I know I have to do it just for keeping myself going and, and makes me feel good and it's just good for everything.

Exactly.

Yeah. If you don't move, you won't.

It's true.

How about you, Dawn?

My non negotiable is waking up at 4am Because I just have so much I want to do, including move. I have a lot. So it is my quiet time. So it's just so peaceful. But my non negotiable is 4am earlier actually.

I mean I love that if you go to bed early enough.

Yeah, yeah, I do.

I try.

Yeah. I mean I love getting up early and I love the quiet and I love that like nobody's bothering me. It's like, you know, you wake up at five and four or six, you know, it's like the world's still asleep and you can have this moment. It's great. So what's, what's a food you could eat every day?

Oh my goodness. A food I can eat every day.

It could be pie and mash if you want.

It could be pie and mash, but it shouldn't be pie mash.

It can. That's okay.

Oh, my goodness.

I mean, when you. When you do everything else right, it doesn't have to be about perfection.

So a food I could eat every day. You know what? And it's quite controversial. A radish.

A radish.

I love radishes.

Spicy radishes.

Spicy radishes.

From the garden.

From the garden?

Yeah, from the garden.

I. I pull them, I clean them a little bit. And then I. I love radishes.

Some of the dirt on, because then you get some more probiotics.

There you go.

Yeah, you'll good adjunct your ima.

Yeah. So radish.

I like that. That's good.

How about you?

Oh, mine is easy. The purple sweet potato. I just love those. They're glorious. But you had a pack. So gorgeous.

Yeah, yeah. Those are the Okinawan sweet potatoes. And then Okinawa is one of the blue zones where people live a very long time.

So they have 150% more anthocyanins than blueberries that powerful.

I eat them almost three times a week. Like, I. They're in my house all the time, and if I can't find them in the grocery store, it's very upsetting.

Yeah, you're right. Or they'll sell out. Or they're a little bit out of season. So there's a way you can grow them. You should.

I should grow them.

Oh, you should grow them.

I get messages from people in the uk. Where can I get purple sweet potatoes?

Yeah, those are great.

Great.

That's a great.

I'm gonna have a long queue outside my house.

How about recovery? What's your most important recovery tool you use ima.

I may, actually. As you know, I've had a couple of things in the last couple of years where I've had to have, whether it be nasal surgery or, you know, dental surgery. And the one thing that I took every single morning and it helps me recover quickly was ima. Other than that, an ice bath. I love ice baths. It helps me recover from. Actually, it clears my head. It clears my head. You know, even if I've not worked out, I'll go and sit in an ice bath for 10 minutes.

10 minutes. What temperature?

Well, I go in and it's. It's like two. Two degrees.

Damn.

Yeah, so it's cold.

You're like Wim hofing.

It's cold.

Holy cow. I got like. I don't know, like, somebody said I had like, 6% body fat, and if I. If I did that, I'd Be like shaking for an hour.

You have to have a shower close to warm your bones up. But ice bath seems to recover muscles. My muscles and my aches and pains and I love it. I love ice bath.

I have what I call a tribathlon. It's a sauna, a hot tub and a cold plunge on my deck.

I like that.

Yeah, you can come over and do my tribathlon. How about you, Don? What do you do?

Oh gosh. Like my life is a little bit complex. I feel like sometimes I get just so busy that and I recover really quick because of my nutrition. And so I find that my whole food plant based nutrition just has such powerful anti inflammatory properties that I can really just keep going. But I would say for me it's not necessarily something I do every single day, but every three months I do a five day fasting mimicking diet with Prolon. I really, I'm not sponsored by them, but I really love that lot. And I use that fasting mimicking diet for my patients during chemotherapy actually for their seven, you know, their 72 hour fast. So I'm a, I'm a big advocate for that. I, I'm not a good faster like daily. I like to eat as soon as I wake up.

Yeah, well you're a little and thin so if you didn't fast, you like me, you kind of waste away.

And I need energy as soon as I wake up. I am intuitive. I listen to my body. Like I would never get in that cold, like in the hot, you know.

You're sounding like Victoria. Victoria's never got it. Actually she got in the ice bath once.

Okay, good for her because I do it. That was love, by the way.

It was love.

Good for Victoria.

Well, I actually told her it tightens skin. I was like, it tightens your skin. She was like, okay. She was like, I'm in. I mean so yeah, she only did it once. She didn't need it.

Bring on the wrinkles. Yeah. So the fasting is what I would recommend. You know, I think that trying to get that 12 hours each night is great, but I just, I'm not good at that.

Yeah, it's hard. You know what you said. I think I want to just double down on the anti inflammatory diet.

Diet.

It should be a sort of a non ecosial recovery tool because whether you're a professional sports or whether you're just a human being wanting to live up and feel good, it's so important. And I, and I think with my patients see how much inflammation plays A role in their health or disease actually and how much an anti inflammatory diet can actually help them feel better. And I created something called the 10 day detox diet, which was just, you know, just the name of what I did with my patients in elimination diet, as it adds in all the healthy foods and the anti inflammatory foods and takes out all the inflammatory foods and you do it for 10 days. And people's lives are changed. I mean, not just they lose weight, but they, the inflammation goes out of their body, their skin clears up, their rashes go away, their joints feel better, their headaches go away, their digestion gets better. And it's so simple. It's not, it's just basically taking out the bad stuff, putting in the good stuff. And it's, it's in 10 days we've done thousands of people. There's a 70% reduction in all symptoms from all diseases in 10 days. And it sounds like, like, like I'm hyperbolic, but actually that's what people find and it's, it's so quick and I, I just, I would say people don't believe how, how they can feel better. They don't realize how close it is if they just change a few habits. So hopefully this inspires them to do some habit change. So anti diet, I don't know about the 10 minute cold plunge, but the workout for sure. What, what are you more strict about now in your 50s than you were when you're 18, that you're, you're sort

of like doubling down on sleep and drinking water? You know, I'm definitely stricter with that now. You know, I think that that's almost a non negotiable. It's almost sleep and water.

When you started say drinking, I was

like drinking, wait, I had to correct that really quickly.

Sleep and drinking water. Okay.

There was a little bit too much of a pause between drinking and water. Definitely not 10 pints.

How about you, Diane?

You know, for me it's sleep too. And I really work on that. I'm very intentional because I found out when I wasn't sleeping my metabolic health was more deranged. It wasn't because I had a body composition. I wasn't sleeping. So we really do need to honor our sleep. And you know, a unique thing I find in my patients is so much sleep apnea that would have otherwise been not detected. That's not necessarily my situation. But, but this is just a shout out. Sleep hygiene is something really to focus in on. So for me it would be sleep too.

Sleep. I agree. Sleep is Important. All right, so how do you define health now for yourself, both of you? David, you start.

How do I define health? To be honest, I want to obviously look after myself, but I want my family to.

What does health mean to you? When you think of health, what does it represent?

I think it represents everything that is in my life at the moment. And that really wasn't. I'm not saying it wasn't as important when I was playing because when you're an athlete, you're surrounded by doctors, by nutritionists, by people that want to look after you and have to look after you. But now, obviously, for a long time, I've been looking after myself in a different way purely because I've had to, you know, of course, I have an amazing wife that does everything for me. She makes my smoothies when I'm not making them for her. So I have an amazing wife that does that. But my health, I've noticed how important it is for me because there's nobody else doing it for me other than myself. And I have to do that. I have to do that.

How about you, Don?

Yeah, I think that's just so important for me. It would be, you know, especially going through healthcare adversity is just to wake up each morning and feel good, you know, and not have any resistance and impediments and things that are pulling you down, whether it's aches or pains or reduction in energy, shortness of breath, chest pain, whatever it may be, but just to live that life without those ailments. And, you know, I just find even in my patients during chemotherapy, when they're taking good care of their bodies, that they're able to attain that vitality and then to use that vitality to really, you know, go after your meaning in life and then share that with others. And it just fulfills this beautiful, purpose driven life.

I think that's really important, Donna. I mean, you know, a lot of people walk around with what I call FLC syndrome. You know, that is, that's when you feel like crap and that and that, you know, that's something people think they have to live with and you know, the work both you're doing, you know, but support things like ima healthy diet, exercise, sleep, it's not that hard. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks for doing the work you do in the world and making a little bit better place.

Thanks, Mark. This is a lot of fun.

Yeah, thank you so much, Mark. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

If you love that last video, you're gonna love the next one. Check it out. Here.

There.