My Top Three Longevity Tips: Foods to Avoid and Habits to Embrace

Coming up on this episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy. Essentially, there's these four nutrient sensing pathways that regulate biological aging. One of the hallmarks is called deregulated nutrient sensing. Essentially it means your body and food are not working together to create health. And so these pathways, when they're not properly tuned up, will drive all the other hallmarks. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. As functional medicine practitioners, we need to get to the heart of root causes behind our patients' health concerns. and let's face it, ordering labs to get the data can be an administrative nightmare. Luckily, Rupa Health is here with the solution. Rupa's simple lab ordering platform helps you access and order from thousands of tests from over 35 different lab companies in one place. And better yet, it won't cost you a cent. That's right, there are no hidden fees, subscriptions, or complicated billing systems when you use Rupa Health. So if you're tired of juggling multiple invoices or dealing with administrative headaches, do what I do, make the switch to Rupa Health. Sign up free at rupahealth.com take control of your lab ordering process today. That's R-U-P-A-Health.com Now, before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help everyone via my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand, well, you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function Health for real-time lab insights. And if you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, well, check out my membership community, Dr. Hyman Plus. And if you're looking for curated trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, visit my website, drhyman.com, for my website store and a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested products. Welcome to the Doctor's Pharmacy. Every week I bring on interesting guests to discuss the latest topics in the field of functional medicine and do a deep dive on how these topics pertain to your health. In today's episode, I have some interesting discussions with other experts in the field. So let's just jump right in. The single biggest input to your biology every day are the pounds of food you eat every day. And the information in that food is in real time changing your biology and regulating everything that's going on. In fact, I call them the longevity switches, which is kind of a term I made up in the book. But essentially there's these four nutrient sensing pathways that regulate biological aging. and these pathways are one of the hallmarks of aging. So one of the hallmarks is called deregulated nutrient sensing. It's a big mumbo jumbo of, you know, medical language, but essentially it means, you know, your body and food are not working together to create health. And so these pathways, when they're not properly tuned up, will drive all the other hallmarks. So for example, the amount of starch and sugar in our diet is driving increase in insulin signaling pathways. So insulin goes up. and this insulin creates this cascade that drives all the disease of aging. So insulin resistance and poor metabolic health, which affects now over 93% of the population, according to a new study, is the biggest driver of heart disease, of cancer, of diabetes, and dementia, and not to mention all the other problems like depression and infertility and so many other problems that occur from insulin resistance. So this is the biggest phenomena that's happening globally, which is caused by our ultra processed diet, which is about 60% of our calories in America. Processed food could be sardines in a can or a can of tomatoes. That's not necessarily bad, but ultra processed food means that they take these raw materials from industrial agriculture, corn and soy and wheat, and they highly process them into components that you wouldn't have in your kitchen, and they recombine them into things that are food like substances. And, I've written about this. I've written, I think more books than I probably should have on food and nutrition. So, a lot of the fast food.

That'S out there, a lot of the grocery store in the sort of inner.

Aisles that are like highly packaged foods. Yeah, all of that. Yeah, all of that is so bad for you. And, if you look at the label of ingredients and you can't recognize what it is with covering the front of the package, you shouldn't eat it. And, whether it's a corn dog or a Pop-Tart, you may not be able to tell the difference looking at just the ingredients on the label. So, that's the biggest drop the driver of so many of these deregulated nutrient sensing pathways. The other is just the constant influx of food. So we eat all day long, we snack, we eat before bed, and then we eat when we wake up. And this doesn't give our body a rest. And so that activates this pathway called mTOR. mTOR is a really important one of the four longevity switches. First is insulin signaling, then it's mTOR. mTOR is activated by protein and also by sugar. and when it's over activated, it actually can drive cancer and prevent your body from repairing and healing itself. So you need to give your body a break from eating and inhibit mTOR, which then allows this process called autophagy, which essentially means self-cannibalism. So what's really exciting is our body has these innate repair mechanisms. We have the ability to clean up waste, we have the ability to rebuild new tissues, we have I can think of it, you cut your skin and all of a sudden your body then makes new skin, which is kind of a miracle, right? This is going on inside your body too, but we don't allow that to happen. Imagine if you had a cut in your skin, you kept scraping it and digging at it and it would never heal. That's exactly what we do with this constant influx of food. So we have to give our bodies a break so we can activate this process of self-cleaning, recycling and repair. And this is called autophagy. Now, you can't do that all the time because if you weren't eating all the time, you're gonna starve to death. So you need to sort of have this Goldilocks balance between stimulating mTOR to create protein synthesis to build muscle, but also inhibit it at times by not eating. We call it time restricted eating, intermittent fasting. There's a lot of ways to do it. That activates autophagy, which then creates this self-cleaning process. So think about like it's basically this cleanup crew that comes in and cleans up all the garbage and gets rid of all proteins and all, you know, inflammatory stuff. and then builds new stuff. So it's like you've got this building construction crew and this demolition crew, and you need both to actually maintain your health and create longevity. So food is the biggest single thing, and we can talk a long time about how to use food to activate all the longevity switches properly. And the other big thing that I think is driving our disease states is lack of exercise. I mean, most of us are not using our bodies as they were meant to be used. we don't carry and lift things anymore. We don't, you know, run anymore chasing animals to go kill them and eat them like we used to as hunter-gatherers. So our bodies are not being used and are not fit. And, and that lack of exercise creates this horrible set of consequences that drives disease across the whole spectrum of illness, whether it's dementia or diabetes or heart disease or cancer and, and many, many other problems. So exercise the right kind of exercise, strength training, and cardiovascular fitness are medicines just like food is medicine, exercise is medicine that activates also these longevity switches and pathways. And it also works through these four longevity switches, mTOR, insulin signaling, another one called sirtuins, which we can talk about, and AMPK, which is regulated also by sugar and so forth. So we have all these redundant pathways that are designed to work together to repair DNA, to shut off inflammation, to clean up old parts, to build muscle, all these great things that our body needs to do so we can maintain our health. And what's so exciting now is we know how to turn the dials on these switches. You know, it's like a jet plane. You go in the jet plane and it's like a little overwhelming and you see the cockpit and you go, man, that guy's gonna fly this thing. It's got 4,000 dials and switches. I hope we can take off and land, but your body the same way. And then the beautiful thing is though, learning a few simple principles, you can keep the thing running without a whole lot of effort if you just know what to do. In Okinawa, which is one of the longest lived people in the world, they form a community. at birth of babies that are kind of connected by their parents that go through life together and go through all the ups and downs and trials and tribulations from birth to like 100 years old. And it builds a sense of, and it's not like a hundred people, it's like five people or four people. And it's, you know, most people can't even say there's one friend they have that they can call up when they feel bad or sad, who they can have a honest, transparent conversation to. That's really heartbreaking and it's so much of a driver of so many of the ills of our society. It's something people don't talk about. And it's what, you know, when we were with Rick Warren in Saddleback Church, I had the insight of using the power of community to help people create health. So, suicide is contagious, but health is contagious. That's right. And obesity is contagious, but so is, you know. Good health. Good health. Right. And I think that's such an important thing you're creating in the world is this call to belong. and not only to belong, but actually you've created a very specific roadmap. So I want to get into that now. You've talked about going in to go out. So let's talk about going in and what that means and how do you do that?

Right. So, you know, I have about 20 exercises in my book that really take you by the hand. The whole point is to get dirty in this journey of self-exploration and have fun. But going in starts with first an audit. of who are you spending your time with? Just take a moment to write down who are the people I'm spending my time with today? At work, at home, around me, family, friends, relatives, who are all the people you're spending your time with? And just write that down on a piece of paper. And take a look at this map. And this map will begin to, and what I like to do is color code it. So work friends, I'll color code in green, and family, I'll color code in red. and friends that I choose, I'll color code in orange, right? So different colors just to sort of see, ah, okay, cool. And then I have this kind of axis of energy that I created in my book in chapter one, or in part one of the book, where you sort of assess, okay, who are the community members who are bringing me up and who are the community members in my life who are bringing me down? So looking around, you begin to see, ah, cool. So in all the green quadrant sort of is is, is up and to the right. So therefore, I realize that my work life is very positive. I have very positive Community at work, but then maybe there's more red dots around family and friends in the negative quadrants. So you're like, ah, okay, I need to really understand and assess what's happening in my family life so I can really heal that or support that or ask myself, you know, how do I connect and handle family members? And we've all, you know, we all, we've all, we're all, we all go through that. And so, so really looking your family. They're all pretty awesome. Well, you know, your mom's Japanese. My dad's, yeah.

Your sister's a doctor.

And then your sister's, you know. Well, you know, it's, and culturally, it's interesting. Right. Like, you know, my father, my mother, most, some of the most loving Community Builders. I know. In fact, they, they, they modeled what Community looks like for us. And yet it's interesting because culturally talking about love and, and, and sex and, and definitely, you know, you just don't talk about those things. Yeah. With your, you know, with your, with your kind of Asian parents. And so on one hand, they're the best community builders I've seen. On the other hand, you know, I do long for a little bit more kind of emotional.

Honesty.

Honesty, yeah. But I think again, like we all have those sort of issues. I'm going through the motherhood process right now. I'm seven months pregnant. I keep asking myself every day, you know, what kind of, you know, what kind of parent do I want to be? And anyway, so plotting this graph, you begin to sort of see a pattern of, ah, okay, cool. you know, here is my entire life map and it begins to give you a sort of the beginning of that story. And then from there, you ask yourself, okay, why am I spending my time with these people? Are they grandfathered in? Are we making excuses? Am I being lazy? Is it just easier to keep them around? What is it?

Do they give us energy suckers?

That's right. Exactly. And can I And can I sort of be honest and vulnerable with that person and share, Hey, listen, this is how I'm feeling right now in this relationship, and it's not working for me, or I'm really, you know, sort of wanting to spend time with, you know, sort of more positive forces. I'm going through pregnancy right now, and I don't necessarily, I just wanna spend just some more time connecting with the joy in my life, you know, and things like that, right? Being more honest and vulnerable, and I've had those conversations. and it's wonderful either it becomes a mirror for that person to say, oh, wow, I realize I'm not showing up the way you want me to. Or they say, okay, I totally understand and let's reconnect after you give birth. So I think that there's that honesty piece there that we forget. We end up just ghosting our people in our lives. We end up running away or we end up shit-talking and it ends up being a very negative experience. But, you know, saying sort of, this isn't the time to spend time with somebody right now because I want to level up with my community members is the best thing you can do for yourself and for your friend too, because they will begin to see how they're showing up. And hopefully they'll go on the journey of self-exploration too. So rather than just cut them off.

Just have a real honest conversation with them. That's right.

That takes courage and vulnerability on all of our ends, but it doesn't create resentment on the other side. that leads to negative storytelling and hurt and all other sort of, you know, larger issues. So that's the first step in going. First step in going.

So taking inventory. Yeah, taking inventory.

Exactly. Auditing community who you spend time with. The second thing that I, this is what I did when I turned 30. And this is, this is exactly what I outlined in my book is my own journey that's taken me from feeling like I don't belong to this incredible, connected, joyful community that gives me wings. and lets me fly. The second thing I did was I wrote down a three-column list, which we'll get into in just a second. Column one was all the qualities I was looking for in a friend. So I just wanted to write down and actually manifest and call in what were the qualities I was looking for in a friend. We do this type of audit again for our romantic relationships. We do this for our professional careers. I want a job that pays this much. I want a job that has this type of vacation, I want a job.

It's interesting in terms of life planning, it's not a category.

It's like, why not?

Love, work, money, friend, is not a category.

Exactly. And it is the most important. When I say the most important category in life to focus on, and everyone says, focus on money, power, fame, and building your business, but really none of it will happen or will result in joy or a joyful life experience if you don't have a community being like, Oh my gosh, Mark, high five. Whoa, we get to celebrate your major win New York Times Bestseller List again. Holy shit. Let's go and throw a giant party for you. You know what I mean? If you're just kind of writing by yourself in your room and have no one to celebrate, then at the end of it, you're empty again. So it's so critical that we continue to put our laptops down and keep our word and go to those dinners with our friends and say yes to the dance floor and say yes to adventure. Because at the end of the day, no matter, no amount of success will mean anything if there's no one to celebrate it with, right? That's true. So column one was all the qualities I was looking for in a friend. Right? So I wanted friends who talked about ideas and not each other. I wanted friends who said, f*ck yeah, you can believe that out. To life. I wanted friends who, you know, really took care of themselves and took care of each other. I wanted friends who were interesting and interesting. listened, right? Who are good listeners. I wanted friends. Yeah, I just, I just, so, so I just, I wrote down everything I was looking for in a friend, which was kind of vulnerable because there's so much shame around saying I don't belong or there's so much shame around writing down the qualities. It just feels desperate for some reason in today's society, right? But if we just removed, right, that's what I'm saying. But, but if we removed all of that stigma, because there is stigma around fomo, Right? Fear of missing out and fear of being left out. You don't tell people like, yeah, I was left out from the party and it really hurt. Like, we're so proud. We don't really talk about that, right? But faux blow is a concept talked about in my book quite a bit, which is fear of being left out, right? Which is a more subversive, negative version of FOMO. Yeah. Right? And then JOMO is joy of missing.

Out, which is the joy of missing out and having the confidence to know there's other things to do. Did you know that vitamin C is a superpowered antioxidant that plays a critical role in immune system functioning, collagen production and healthy aging? aging, but most people aren't even getting the minimum amounts their bodies need. With so many supplements out there, finding the right one can be overwhelming. I want to share with you one brand I absolutely love, Symbiotica. Symbiotica is one of the fastest growing health and wellness companies. It's so refreshing to see a brand only use clean, premium ingredients in its formulas. No seed oils, no fillers, no additives, no natural flavors, no artificial ingredients. I take a handful of Symbiotica products each day, and one of my favorites is their Liposomal Vitamin C. Symbiotica's Liposomal C is formulated with high quality ingredients and they're extremely transparent about how and where they source their ingredients. I love that I'm helping my immune system boosting collagen production and so much more by getting sufficient amounts of vitamin C daily. We have an exciting offer for my listeners. Symbiotica is offering my audience 20% off their entire order. Just go to symbiotica.com slash hymen and use the code hymen. That's symbiotica C Y M B I O T I K A dot com.

Forward slash hymen and use the code hymen for 20% off plus free shipping. So column two is all the qualities I don't want in a friend, right? So I don't want friends who are negative Nellies, lazies, shoulder shruggers. Debbie Downers. Debbie Downers, Netflix and chill watchers all the time. And homebodies. Like I wanted friends who were just like, you know, really, say yes to life.

Say yes. Like and I call it FYF in my book.

It's a very, and somebody else might want a friend who they can sit around and do knitting with. That's right. That's what I'm saying. So drink to that. Everyone's different. So your qualities are going to be very different from my qualities. whoever's listening out there, right? And that's exactly what you want to do right now is ask yourself, where do I feel the most energized? And then column three, perhaps the most important column was all the qualities that I need to embody in order to attract the friends that I want. All the qualities that I need to embody. So I need to be less of a workaholic. I love my work. You know, I need to put my laptop down. I need to be less judgmental and, and nitpicky and perfectionist and, I'm a CEO, right? I run companies for a living. And so my job is to focus on what's going wrong, right? My job is to focus on how to improve what's going wrong. So if I bring that, I used to bring that into my relationships, into my friendships, I'd be nitpicking what's going wrong in those relationships instead of being grateful for what's going right. So that sort of shifting your frame. Yes, that compartmentalization of in my work, I'm going to be focused on really kind of wanting to improve service and product and whatever, but in my personal life to really compartmentalize and say, Hey, wait, let me really focus on what's going right. Especially as, you know, as an Asian woman, you know, you grew up in a household where it's like, you're only loved if you get an A, you know?

A plus.

A plus. You know, so it's, it's, and you did all right.

You went to Cornell and you were on a varsity soccer team. Human.

But yeah, so I think it's so important to take that audit and look in the mirror and ask yourself, how are you showing up for your friends too? So that was a really important-- so that going in is doing an inventory.

Of your life and what matters. Looking at yourself.

Yeah, looking at yourself.

Where you're not the best friend and what you want.

That's right.

The qualities looking-- so what else is.

Part of going in? So going in, there's also another exercise I do and there's so many more.

But I'll share one. And by the way, the book is full of these amazing practical exercises. It's not like oh, you should be in a community and you should go have friends. And it's like a roadmap, step by step, to take you through the process of how do you create community capacity in yourself and how do you build and find community. And it's really, really awesome. Thank you.

And I illustrated the book too, so every page is fun to read. It's not a bunch of words. It's very, it's like very fun. I love the pictures and colors and it just makes the whole journey of community building a lot more playful and colorful. So what are the other going in exercises? So yeah, so one more going in exercise I'll share before we move on to going out. is I have you also assess what I call your via chart. So, so it's a imagine a three sort of venn diagram, three circles that you draw. So circle one is your values. The V and via is your values. The I and value in, in the via chart is your interests, and the a is your abilities. So just write down your values, your interests and your abilities in three concentric circles. and sit down with yourself and ask yourself today, Mark Hyman, what do I value today? Because what you value today is going to be different than what you valued maybe 10 years ago. Maybe 10 years ago you're a big party animal and then now you still are. I mean, you know, sometimes change, I still see it Burning Man, fist pumping on the dance floor. But today, maybe you just got married to a beautiful wife. You're nesting. You have a house in New York now. And so maybe your values today is more family driven. And whereas 10 years ago it might have been different. So I'm seven months pregnant today as well. So my values are different. And values are sort of kind of the guardrails through which you live your life. What are the things that matter to you? And you can Google values and see sort of what values come up. And there's all kinds of lists that come up in my book, I list out about 100 values that you can choose from, but it's also something you can find on the internet. And you can begin to sort of map out what do I care about today and really sit with yourself and connect to that essence. So write that down in one circle and that will give you again the beginning of a roadmap for the type of other people you want to connect with. What are, you know, shared values are so critical, right? Yeah. And then The I is-- Because if.

You name it, then you can identify others, right?

That's right, exactly. And then the I in your VIA chart is your interests. So what am I interested in today? So, you know, it's different from your values, and your values is more sort of kind of intrinsic qualities, family, you know, community, work, life balance, you know, that sort of thing, right? Whereas your interests might be things like hiking and yoga and mindful meditation and music festivals and Daybreaker. And Daybreaker, yeah, thank you. And all kinds of, right? So it's what are you interested in tangibly doing today? And some people I do this workshop with will say, well, I don't know. We all have interests, right? So dig deep. If you don't have an interest right now, then start cultivating them. And that's what's so fun about this going in journey is that life is, we have 100 years to live on this planet. Let's really begin cultivating our interests that are outside of just one.

Well, only 100 years if you eat right, follow my advice, and connect in the community and follow Rados advice, then you get to 100.

Exactly. If you read all of Mark's books, yeah, for sure. And then your abilities are, and I really think about abilities through the lens of what can you bring to your community? So what are your abilities? Not just like, I'm a good public speaker, but what can you bring to your community? Are you, is one of your abilities to ask amazing questions? Is one of your abilities to cook? Are you a good cook and chef? Can you cook for your friends? Was one of your abilities to gather people in your home? Is your home a really wonderful place to gather? Is, you know, one of my-- Julia.

You'Re a great DJ.

Exactly, exactly. So, like, two of my friends, I love giving this example. You know, one of them, she always has a purse full of, like, electric candles. so that when, you know, she really doesn't like neon lighting. So she'll walk into any room and she'll just be like, oh no, no, no, this is like too harsh lighting. She'll turn off all the lights and break out all these electric candles and like vibes out the place instantly.

And it's incredible. And you have these other friends who are great sort of artists, musicians, who do exactly the same instruments. Exactly.

Play great things and do skits. That's exactly right. So fun. Yeah, so they bring instruments, like Eli and I bring gold stars often to gatherings, so we'll say, Mark, you did great. You know, it was a wonderful thing you just said. Here's a gold star for you. You know, we went to the hospital for when Eli's father was sick and we gave all the doctors and nurses gold stars and said, Thank you for what you're doing.

Great job, you know, checking his pulse.

We looked at you like, what the-- and they all started competing with each other for how many-- the doctors, like serious doctors, competing with each other for how many-- It's like kindergarten. Yeah, for how many gold stars they got and they put in their badges and it was this like hysterical, experience and we turn this sort of otherwise scary place into a playground. And, you know, it's whatever we can bring that feels good for us, it feels natural to us. Bring that to your community and your experience and write down your abilities chart.

All right, so we've got the inventory. We've got your BIA chart. You've got the three column list of where they fit in terms of whether they're bringing you life and energy or taking it away. So what about going out then? You've done this inventory, you've done all these things. What's the process of actually going out with this and finding your community and building it?

So step one, and there's some people who are like, I'm shy or this doesn't come naturally to me, or it's so much easier for you, Rada, because you're naturally more extroverted, which I, by the way, break those labels in my book, too, in part one. We talk about the fact that we have begun to sort of label ourselves into corners. So I'm an introvert, I'm an extrovert. That's a good example with Carl Jung. who kind of named those terms and people are really banding around those terms. I've seen friends who are definitely extroverted start dating introverts and then begin identifying as introverts and disappear from the face of the planet. And so I think we've taken these terms too literally where Carl Jung himself, who defined these terms, said that if you are only introverted, you'd be in an insane asylum. If you're only extroverted, you'd end up in an insane asylum. So we are on a spectrum of introvert and extrovert, which I call metavert in my book, right? We are all metaverts. so let's just stop. Some days I'm social, some days I want to be at home by myself filling up on energy. And so I think if we stop putting these social limitations on ourselves, we'll begin to allow so much more exploration in the communities that we're a part of. And so exploration, so going out begins with first like removing all of these labeling and then getting sort of a deep understanding of who we are, like going in experience. And then it's just putting your shoes on. I would say, put your shoes on, write down five communities in and around you that align with your values, interests, and abilities, and then begin exploring them. So it's a light touch, right? So for me, the first year was, okay, when I went on this journey, when I started at 30 years old, I realized I didn't belong and I was going to sports bars and doing kind of like the everyday thing. I asked myself, okay, what are the things that I really care about? What am I interested in? So I realized I'm interested in entrepreneurship. I'm interested in music festivals, which I'd never really explored in my 20s. I just was kind of doing the city life thing. So I began looking up all the cool music festivals around and I stumbled upon Burning Man, Lightning in a Bottle, and different music festivals I started going to. And I started going to entrepreneurship summits, like Summit Series, and various communities in New York. Across Nexus Summit community, it's sort of a Young Global Leaders Summit. So I began sort of charting this on a little map as well.

So you go to pre-existing gatherings of people who had similar interests.

Exactly, interests, values. And all of a sudden, I started meeting people and I started realizing, oh wow, wait a minute, you're in some things I'm interested in, we want to solve problems for the world. And I began to sort of find my people for the first time. And one by one, I said, Hey, let's hang out. And whereas before I used to have siloed relationships, right? Like I had my friends I work out with. I had my friends that I go travel with. I have my party friends. I have my intellectual friends. But this was the first time in my life also that I wanted to remove all the compartmentalization and just bring everybody together fearlessly. because I think so often, for some reason, we can get territorial.

Yeah.

With our friendships as well. I call that the oxytocin overload, which is, you know, which is actually a term around when you become so close to somebody as a friend, one-on-one there's a sort of animal instinct. Yeah, exactly. Animal instinct that you don't want to share that person with somebody else, whether it's your kids or your or your family and friends, that overload is there. And it's on us to just recognize that it's happening, to know, wait, I'm feeling irrationally jealous. I'm feeling irrationally territorial over this friendship. And to name it and just say, hey, I just want to let you know that I'm feeling irrationally territorial. And then I know that's Oculus over because I care about you so much. But so that going out piece is so critical. and first tearing down all the needs for those siloed friendships and just bringing everybody together, which is what I did. And again, it could work differently for everybody, but for me, just breaking down the barriers and sort of fearlessly introducing my friends and watching them develop friendships without me, feeling jealous of their friendship was actually something new that I didn't have in my 20s. So in my 30s, I was like, wow, that's so cool. I did that.

More is more.

More is more. they're now friends without me. That's so cool. And they thank me, you know, when they see me every once in a while, they're like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. Like this person is such a meaningful person in my life now. And more is more. So like everyone listening out there, you know, connect your friends fearlessly. You know, recognize that the rising tide truly lifts all boats. And, you know, when we actually courageously and fearlessly connect one another, life becomes far more rich.

So.

So, yeah, going to. So then going out and exploring all these communities, I began finding these people, bringing them to my house, hosting dinner parties. Not that weren't just wine and cheeses. Everyone listening, let's stop doing wine and cheeses. I think we're past that. I think it's time that we really think about gathering as a more meaningful connection point. It's kombucha and kale chips now, right? Exactly. Kombucha and kale. Exactly. But there's just, you know, I talk about entry rituals, like when someone comes into your home. How are they coming into your home? Is it just like, Hey, I'm here with wine, or are you greeting them with, you know, a little wishing well to say, Hey, today when you're coming into my home, I want you to.

Share a little wish that you have for this gathering. I mean, tribes always had rituals. That's right. They always had, that's right. Ceremony. And you're saying, Let's bring that back into our lives. Exactly. Because it creates meaning and context and connection. You know, the question is, what are you trying to achieve with supplements in the space of longevity? What pathways are you activating? What are the important longevity switches in the body? And how do you regulate those? So I think aside from the foundational stuff, which has a lot to do with extending life, you mentioned the fish oil study, vitamin D, I mean there's just so much data on this that's really impressive. But in terms of specific thinking about which product supplements are effective for longevity and aging, there's a There's a number that really come to mind. And, you know, just to kind of, kind of back up a little bit, and then I'm going to get a little geeky here if it's okay, because this is a masterclass. There are a number of things called the hallmarks of aging, which are these fundamental dysfunctions that happen as we age if we age abnormally. So, aging should be considered a disease. It's not normal. The way we see aging in this culture is a sign of abnormal aging. and we think it's normal because it pretty much happens to everybody, which they get old disease and decrepit. You know, if you're 65 years old, it's like you're gonna have three or more chronic illnesses. Just dow it goes. Right. But it's not inevitable. And. And so one of the Hallmarks of Aging is. Is as a dysfunction of these nutrient sensing pathways. So we have Exquisite systems in our biology that sense either abundance or scarcity. Oh, there's too much of a food. We just. We want to start to build and grow and make stuff. in our body, but if there's scarcity, it activates all these repair and healing and general mechanisms. And we need both. We need both a demolition team and we need a construction team to actually continue to renew and rebuild our bodies. And a lot of these supplements that we're talking about are working on some of these key pathways. So one of them is really important. It's called NAD. NAD, you probably heard about it. It's an important compound that's part of your cellular metabolism, helps produce energy. but it turns out it has a lot broader effects. And one of the key nutrient sensing pathways is something called sirtuins. These pathways were discovered in 1991 by Lenny Guarente and his colleagues at MIT. And it was a real breakthrough because they were able to stimulate certain sirtuins in yeast models and mice models and extend life dramatically, double it, sometimes even up to a thousand years equivalent in a worm or you know, 120 or 140 in a human, how they were doing it with some of the mice studies. So what turns out is NAD is a sirtuin activator. So when NAD levels are good, which means you have energy, it turns on the sirtuins, which then creates a whole downstream series of effects that creates longevity. So it sends out a massive DNA repair team, which is awesome because we got 100,000 hits to our DNA every minute, basically from various insults from food, from oxidation. oxidation from metabolizing food, from environmental toxins, from all sorts of things. Second, it actually inhibits one of the key hallmarks of aging, which is inflammation. We talked a lot about inflammation on the podcast, but it does so through a particularly important mechanism that is one of the master inflammation switches in the body, which is called NF-Kappa B or nuclear factor kappa B. And essentially, this is a transcription factor. Transcription factors are what tell your gene what to transcribe. So how does your DNA know what to do? Well, it's listening for messages all the time from signals from your body. And NF-kB is a signaling molecule that tells your DNA to make more cytokines, to make more inflammation. So when you activate sirtuins, it shuts that off. It also increases your metabolism, increases your insulin sensitivity, which we've talked about a lot on the podcast. If you want to be healthy, you have to be insulin sensitive. So it's through a whole series of different mechanisms, NAD is his multiple actions through sirtuins in addition to just powering up cellular energy. And, some of the studies from David Sinclair are just mind boggling. He uses derivatives, so NR nicotinamide riboside is made into NMN, which is then made into NAD in the body. So, this is a normal consequence of cellular reactions. So, you can give NAD as a shot or as an IV, but if you want to take it as a pill, you have to take it as NR or NMN. and David gave NMN to these mice. Now, these old mice, now they had these mice treadmill, which I'm not a researcher, so I don't really know about it, but they had these mice treadmill that they have an upper limit because no mouse has ever run more than two kilometers, like young, old, any mice, right? And so they had this mouse treadmill. It was like two kilometers. And then it would just kind of turn off and it would, like, overheat and stop. And they gave this old mice NMN, and the mouse ran three kilometers and broke the treadmill. So it's pretty amazing. And even in some studies, it regulates all sorts of stuff like hormones and fertility. In some studies, they've literally been able to reverse mouse of pause. So take menopausal mice and give them NMN and they start menstruating and get fertile again. It's really trippy. So that's just one example of one compound. Another one I think that's really important is, is, is something that actually and I think curcumin or this product I think are really important, which is regulating inflammation through again these very variety of effects. But there's a compound called HTB, Himalayan Tartary Buckwheat derivative that has like 132 phytochemicals including quercetin and rutin, which quercetin also is a longevity supplement. So it contains a lot of these things, but it also contains a compound only found in this ancient grain, which isn't really grains of flour. called Himalayan tartary buckwheat, which has only been recently been recultivated after thousands of years of being sort of out. And because it's in the Himalayas, and it's, it's called to hoba. And it actually in, is regulating some of the inflammatory systems that are involved in senescent cells and chip cells. So as we age, some of our cells just get older and they don't really die. They're kind of like zombie cells, but they're not just inert, they're actually creating a whole inflammatory cascade. And then, then they're causing other cells to become senescent zombie cells. It's like the, it's terrible. So you get this kind of wave of inflammation. And so the, this can help to kill that. And there's something called chip cells, which are, you know, cells that are from the bone marrow from damaged, damaged stem cells that produce white blood cell. And you get these funky white blood cells in your body that are just generating tons of inflammation. So some of these compounds really help to regulate this inflammatory. senescent things. So one of the hallmarks of aging is cellular senescence, which means the aging of your cells. And how does that happen? The zombie cells is essentially what happens. And, and, and we can go into how they're created, but, but it's really fascinating how these natural plant compounds combat this. And what's also exciting, Drew, is there are so many other compounds. It's, it's in addition to just three that are super powerful, like green tea extracts, epigallocatechin gallates, resveratrol. You might have heard about resveratrol was the thing that was first sort of discovered. which is from red wine that helps to activate sirtuins to extend life by a third. So, if you actually take resveratrol from red wine, you give it to mice, they'll live a third longer, which is equivalent to humans being 120, right? Which is kind of cool. But then, how much resveratrol do they get? They got a lot. They got the equivalent of 1,500 bottles of red. Well, they got the 1,500 bottles of red wine. So, don't try this at home, okay? But, what was interesting is that, there was ferretrol, and this was fascinating and it's kind of wild, these pathways, these conserved longevity pathways that are really survival pathways, when they're activated, they're so powerful that they have so many beneficial effects. So even though the mice kept eating junk food and not exercising, their metabolism got faster, their exercise capacity increased, what we call VO2 max, they reverse their diabetes and insulin resistance and high blood pressure and even while eating crap. So I'm like, wow, what if you actually ate well and exercise and then use this as a booster? Amazing. So that's, that's the, and there's also incredible compounds that are now looking at how we can actually help to extend life called fist, fistine, which is F-I-S-T-I-N, which is from strawberries, is a compound from strawberries, but turns out to be incredible longevity supplement. sulforaphane, which comes from broccoli. Broccoli sprouts are the highest concentration of these. So, this is a hugely detoxifying molecule, anticancer. It improves glutathione and really helps with some of the key longevity pathways. So, I think you've got these incredible compounds and there's more, obviously. There's compounds from persimmons, comes from lychees, there's berries, there's compounds in Chinese medicine. There's all these wonderful compounds that actually help to activate these longevity pathways. We were talking about AMPK and before, but quercetin, resveratrol, catechins, curcumin, all these things from the plant kingdom all regulate these pathways. So, do I think we should take three? Yeah, there's probably a lot more that are going to be coming around the pike. And, I think a basic longevity stack of supplements would be NAD, HTB rejuvenate, and I think vitamin D is up there for sure, and I would like to sort of see a polyphenol blend, like polyphenol blend. And if I could put it all in a pill, I would put in catechins, I put in resveratrol, I put in quercetin, I'd put in fustin, I'd put in curcumin. So I put in a lot of these very important compounds that come from plants as a cocktail of various phytochemicals that all have very different effects. but that's what I would do. Thanks for listening today. If you love this podcast, please share it with your friends and family. Leave a comment on your own best practices on how you upgrade your health and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. And we'll see you next time on the doctor's Pharmacy. I'm always getting questions about my favorite books, podcasts, gadgets, supplements, recipes, and lots more. 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