Exclusive Dr. Hyman+ Ask Mark Anything: Vaccine Boosters, Bone Health, And More

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Hi everyone, welcome to this episode of Ask Mark Anything. My name is Herschel Perk and I'm the Dr. Hyman Plus Community Manager. and I'm joined by Darcy Gross, who's one of the producers of the Longevity Roadmap docuseries.

Hi, Darcy. Hey, everybody.

Good to see you again. And we've collected your top questions this month, and we are here to ask the expert, Dr. Hyman.

So hello, Dr. Hyman. Hi, everybody. How's it going? Ask me anything. Yeah.

And so we're ready. We've collected the questions and we're ready to ask Mark anything. So let's get started. We actually received a ton of questions about this topic, so I hope you're ready. And it's basically about boosters. As you know, we're seeing a ton more COVID cases right now, and we're kind of deep into COVID, and a lot of people are wondering, should they be getting the booster? Or some of the other people have been asking, should I be getting the vaccine? What are your thoughts on this? And any guidance that you can provide on this would be greatly appreciated because it's on everybody's mind.

It's like one of those fire walks where you have to be in a trance to actually answer the question, 'cause otherwise you get burned. I think this is definitely an important topic to discuss, and it's one that has received so much controversy. And there really seem to be two main camps. One are the vaccines are gonna save us, and if you question them, you're a heretic and should be burned at the stake. And then there's the anti-vaxxers who are, hey, this is dangerous, we shouldn't do this, it's not necessary, it's going to kill us. Unfortunately, neither of those are the right approach. There should be a centrist approach, which is called vaccine, I call it vaccine rationalism, which is what is the truth about what we know, what we don't know, their safety, their effectiveness, the other treatments available. How do we approach this holistically? And I think One of the challenges now with vaccines that is kind of freaking people out is that we were told that they were safe and they were effective. And now, or getting mixed messages because we see massive amounts of breakthrough infections in those who are vaccinated, those who have been boosted even and still get the virus, Omicron seems to be much more aggressively transmitted. It replicates thousands of times more in the nose and mouth than other COVID viruses that we've had, COVID-19. It also is spread much faster. Delta was about a one and a half times as much spread as the original virus, and Omicron is two to three times that of Delta. So we're talking about orders of magnitude and exponential growth. So we're kind of, everybody's kind of freaking out right now. And I think that the truth is that vaccines are like any drug. There are risks and there are benefits. Is it 100% safe? No. Have there been deaths? Yes. have there been serious complications and reactions? Yes. Have they reduced the amount of hospitalizations and deaths? Yes. So the math is very complicated on this. And depending how you slice it and look at it, you're going to come up with different conclusions. And the truth is, if you look, the real risk populations are the elderly and those with comorbidities or what we call chronic illness. and, you know, to me, unfortunately, the most important things about COVID are not being discussed, which is that, I mean, we're about 5% of the world's population, but about 20% of the cases in 20%, you know, 15 to 20% of the deaths, which doesn't really make sense because we have the best healthcare system in the world. We're the most technologically advanced. We have the best medical pharmaceutical system. So why are we outsized suffering well, the boogeyman, the elephant in the room is that we are an unhealthy population where 88% of us are metabolically unhealthy, which is essentially somewhere on the spectrum of prediabetes to diabetes. And that's almost nine out of 10 Americans. And there's a linear correlation with the worse your metabolic health is and the worst COVID is for you, whether it's obesity. So being a little overweight, yes, it's a risk being more overweight and even more and so on and so forth. so, and the reason is primarily our diet. And I'm not just saying this because I'm a food guy, but data from Tuffs showed that 63% of all hospitalizations for COVID could have been prevented by people eating a healthier diet. And the reason we're all freaked out about COVID is because we don't want to overburden the hospitals and the ICUs and lead to see deaths. So if you can reduce that just by 63%, another thing that they're not talking about is vitamin D. which is so essential. And we know that you're 70% more likely to get COVID if you're low in vitamin D. We know that if your vitamin D levels are adequate, your risk of ending up in the hospital and ending up in the ICU and dying is dramatically lower, and like I think a 97% lower risk. A recent study showed that if your vitamin D level was over 50 nanograms per deciliter, which is where I like to see it 50 to 80, that your risk of death is zero. So there's no other drug that does that. So there's a lot, there's a lot, you know, to be said about, about how we prevent it, about how we can treat it early, which is not really a focus of conversation. So I, I'm very focused on helping people go all on the spectrum by the right supplements, for example, oral and nasal rinses with the Betadine, which has been actually well studied and has plenty of documentation on the effectiveness in reading the oral and the nasal cavities of COVID which is really, really important because that's how it spreads down in the rest of your body. It's how you spread it to others. So doing a nasal rinse of a dilute solution of two teaspoons and six ounces of water sprayed up your nose and gargled and then spit out is a really effective way when you're going out and about to not get it yourself and not spread it. And then there's early treatments, monoclonal antibodies and IVs and the whole protocol that I have developed. But with vaccines, the truth is that they're experimental still. And they had early use authorization or EUAs, which allowed them to be put in the market. But depending on how you look at it, if it is considered experimental, according to the rules of science, you can't force someone to be in an experiment. So if people choose to opt out, they have that right. If you're someone with diabetes, I can't force you to be in a study to take a pill on diabetes if you don't want to. So that's a concern to me around the mandates. I think that's a slippery slope. As far as the effectiveness of vaccines, I think it's really clear that there are effective in the early part of the vaccination process. So in the first two months, you're generally well protected. Antibodies tend to wane over time and, you know, at six months they are reduced and that's why people are talking about boosters. The question is, do the boosters work against Omicron? Are they effective? You know, there's so much we just don't know yet. The other thing is that, you know, the boosters can be mixed. They're using J&J now with the mRNA vaccines and there's just a lot of fine line, to be honest with you. And anybody who tells you we know what we're doing is kind of goofing because I think there's really a lack of really great science because it's just all happening so fast. I mean, Omicron just came on like a juggernaut, you know, a month ago, and it's now the dominant strain of new cases in the United States as well as around the world. So do I think you should have vaccinations? I think you have to weigh the risk of your age, your health status, your own beliefs and your own predilections about what your risks you're willing to take. or not take. I've been vaccinated and I plan on getting a booster as well. I haven't gotten one yet and I have concerns about it and I think it's just a risk benefit equation. And I think I'm generally very healthy and I think I'll do well with it. But some people also don't. And so you have to accept the risks. Just like if you take an aspirin, 16,000 people die every year from taking aspirin. So that's not a joke. and so when you go, oh, that's interesting, but Tylenol, probably one of the number one causes of liver failure, not overdoses, but people taking regular doses of it and then maybe drinking and not having great health and then boom. So there's always risk to taking any medication, but I think that we're in a delicate situation. For me, the focus is really on how do I strengthen my own health? How do I strengthen my own immune system? How do I upgrade my diet, my sleep, my stress level, how do I exercise? how do I take the right supplements? How do I make sure I practice the right practices around wearing N95 masks when I'm going into crowded areas? How do I make sure that I rinse out my nose and mouth, which is a very safe and cheap and effective way to kind of keep the virus at bay? So I wish I could give you a clear answer. Yes, everybody should get a booster. Yes, everybody should get a vaccine. But I don't think it's clear. And even especially in children, I think the risk of them getting sick and hospitalized versus the consequences of adverse effects of vaccines. I just think it's a tough equation. I'm not encouraged by giving a lot of kids these vaccines, but we'll see how the data plays out.

Thank you. That was really helpful. I know a lot of people are looking for guidance and obviously they really trust your work and your philosophy. So thank you for that detailed information on that. Really helpful. Darcy, over to you for the next question.

Yeah, thank you so much, Dr. Hyman. And taking a 180, we're kind of switching gears over to women's health specifically as women reach menopausal age. So the question is about the benefits of taking calcium. Of course, we know that as women get into the post-menopausal age, they really need to focus on bone health. But of course, there's a little bit of a concern with taking a plain calcium supplement so can you talk to us a little bit about like bone health specifically for post-menopausal women and how they can help to support like nice, healthy, strong bones?

I mean, basically we've been all brainwashed that you need to drink three glasses of milk a day if you want to have healthy, strong bones and that that's where you should get your calcium and that's so important and kids should drink it and it's an essential food. And unfortunately the data just doesn't pan out. In fact, for every glass of milk consumed, the risk of fracture went up by 9% in one large study. So I think we've been sold a bunch of baloney. In fact, the Got Milk ads were forced off the air by the Federal Communications Commission because of false advertising, because they weren't able to hold up their claims with any data. And my joke is Got Proof, you know, they don't have proof. And so that was really telling, and all those milk mustache ads and all those things, those were all boloney. And, the truth is that, that what matters around your bone health is a complex web of lifestyle factors and environmental factors that determine your bone health. So the most important, obviously, is exercise, strength training, weight bearing exercises, very important for building muscle. You know, you can have all the ingredients you want, but it's like putting, you know, all the ingredients for soup in a pot. Unless you turn the heat on, it's not going to become soup. Right? So that's really, really critical. And the second thing is that there are a lot of factors we engage in this life in America and in the Western world where we're really causing bone loss. In countries, for example, like Africa, there are very little osteoporosis and their calcium intakes are like 300 milligrams a day, which is really seems almost nothing because we're recommending to take 1500 milligrams a day. and they don't have osteoporosis. And the difference is really what we call calcium balance. How much are you taking in versus how much are you peeing out? Okay. And so what causes us to excrete calcium and lose bone? Soda is number one. If you look at the phosphoric acid and soda, which is the colas predominantly, are hugely impactful and cause basically the leach bone caffeine. sugar, stress, stress causes cortisol to go up and cortisol is basically a hormone that causes your bones to dissolve. And also we are lacking in obviously the activity, 8% of Americans get the activity that's recommended by the government's sort of exercise recommendations. And then we are lacking in a lot of the things we need. to build healthy bone. A lot of the minerals that we don't really talk about beside calcium, magnesium, boron, and zinc, and other nutrients that are really, really essential. So vitamin K, for example, vitamin K2 is really critical. So we have to make sure people are getting all the nutrients. And I don't focus so much on calcium. I can't remember the last time I told a woman with osteoporosis to take calcium actually. I say, get your calcium from foods, right? greens are a great source. Arugula has a huge amount of calcium. Sesame seeds, if you use tahini, which is sesame seed paste, Middle Eastern food, you can make salad dressings with that. It's great on pasta sauces. I mean, there's a lot of ways to use it. Dipping sauces for vegetables, and that has more calcium per serving than almost anything. Chia seeds in a serving of chia seeds has more calcium than a glass of milk. So there are a lot of ways to get your calcium from food sardines with salmon with the bones in them. Also the bones how you can eat the bones. It's a great source of calcium. And then you need to make sure you're getting adequate magnesium and adequate boron and zinc and silica and many of the other nutrients you need for building bone vitamin K, vitamin K2, and obviously the exercise piece is so key and cutting down on the habits have caused you to lose bones. So do I recommend calcium as part of a general supplement? It might be 300-400 milligrams, but I don't have people make 1500. And 1500 is the recommended amount total, including diet, right? So if you're getting stuff from your diet, then you know, you need less from supplements. So I'm not a big fan of just giving calcium supplements. In fact, the data really is clear on this. They don't work. It's not just, it's not just my opinion. They just, they just don't work. So if you just look at studies where they just get calcium and vitamin D is something I finally have to mention, which is probably the most important thing. So between cutting out the things that cause bone loss, like sodas and too much sugar and too much salt and stress and caffeine, all those things. The two most important things are exercise and vitamin D. So I'm much more concerned about getting a woman's vitamin D level up to 50 than I am about having her take calcium. And so getting your vitamin level checked is important. Making sure you get the right amount is important. Usually the dose is between 2,000 to 5,000 units a day. of vitamin D3, but I would also combine that with vitamin K2 as well. And so that's what I would recommend. And I've seen really dramatic increases in bone density. And sometimes hormones are necessary, you know, and for women going through menopause, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. Testosterone is an incredible anabolic hormone for the bones, especially in men. A lot of men have weak bones as well because they're sedentary and have bad habits. So all that stuff is really important.

To think about putting together as an overall strategy? Yeah, that's super helpful. And I think really good and tangible advice. And I think a lot of women and men could really benefit from basically all the way that you laid it out there. And I just have one follow-up question about calcium. So I know that there's lots and lots of people who supplement with calcium unknowingly just taking it because their doctors say so. Are there any risks like we've heard, oh, if you're taking calcium, it could end up building up in your arteries or anything like that. Is there a real risk with calcium in that regard? Or like, what do you think? I don't think it's a huge risk.

I mean, you know, the body regulates calcium very tightly in the blood, but you do have to excrete it in your kidneys if you're taking that much. So it gets excreted. I think, you know, calcium is the body's band-aid. So wherever there's inflammation, it goes there. So if you have arthritis, you get calcium buildup around your joints. If you have heart disease, you got calcium build up around your heart arteries. That's what calcium does. We call it calcium score, which we use for assessing heart disease to look at the amount of calcium plaque developed in the heart. So that really is how calcium works in the body, among other things, but it's not really likely that if you take calcium, you're going to end up with calcium deposit unless you're taking a huge amount. But I think that's probably not the case.

Okay, thank you so much. That was very helpful.

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