STAY YOUNG: What To Eat & When To Eat For LONGEVITY! | Mike Mutzel

Try just a 24-hour fast once a week. Just one day a week, that's it. And I think people will really start to notice that they're thinking more like they used to think maybe when they were in high school. New research is coming out suggesting that in order for ketones to be made, the autophagy pathways need to be upregulated. And of course we see autophagy, which is basically how our cells clean up waste and get rid of and recycle some of the proteins, lipids, and also glucose and phospholipids within our cells. autophagy is needed and necessary for that. Again, mechanistic studies are coming out suggesting that in order for ketones to be made, autophagy kind of needs to happen. So it's this way to really enhance many aspects of longevity. And of course, we see in a myriad of different disease states, autophagy and metabolism become dysfunctional. We're talking about depression, we're talking about Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and other chronic neurologic and other systemic inflammatory disease. These pathways become a little bit challenged. So I think it's great for if they're new to this, just start out by compressing their feeding window. And what I mean by that is just say, again, anyone who's eating a standard American diet can do this right now. Just only eat between say 8:00 in the morning and 8:00 p.m. at night. And of course over time as you become metabolically flexible, you're not getting hangry, that is hungry and angry, you know, if you miss a meal, then you can even compress that feeding window longer or you can just start doing 24-hour fasts. One thing that I like to do to kickstart my week personally is Every Monday I fast for 24 hours. It's a great way to really start your week fresh. Kickstart the ketone synthesis that I mentioned that will help to clear out the brain of maybe that anxiety that can happen from the GABA and other neurotransmitters. It can help to kickstart the autophagy and really help to clean up some of your cells. Again, we talked about insulin resistance earlier. There's some interesting data showing that insulin resistance can be and aberrant fat tissue and our fat tissue becomes dysfunctional or inflamed, that can be to autophagy dysregulation. Fasting and exercise and possibly the ketogenic diet are great strategies to kind of ramp up this process that naturally would be occurring for humans anyway because before refrigeration, before preserving meats and so forth, food would ebb and flow with the seasons and there would not be this 24/7 access to food that a lot of us have. So in regards to ketone testing and analysis, I think it's really important that people understand kind of the process that keeps how they're made. And so I like to teach people that there's basically a recipe. and again, this happens in a lot of different ethnic groups, various humans, I mean, outside of folks potentially from Saudi Arabia and folks from Portugal, they might have a single nucleotide, a gene snip that slows this process down, but pretty much every single human being on planet Earth can make ketones in this context. So we need blood glucose to be low, okay? So this happens after exercise, this happens after fasting. We need insulin to be low. Okay, we also need glucagon to be high. Okay, so glucagon is also a hormone that we don't hear about so much. We're starting to hear about it more and more. Guess what? It's increased through exercise. It's increased through fasting. So this hormone helps to kind of improve insulin sensitivity. But that recipe, low glucose, low insulin, high glucagon creates an environment where the liver says, okay, we need to feed the brain. So the brain is kind of running the show, if you will, because it needs energy and it demands a lot of energy. So in that context, when glucose is low, the liver kicks in and says, okay, brain, we're going to help to make this alternative fuel source. We need those ketones from the body. So these ketones are really derived from either dietary fat or our own fat tissue in that environment. So our fat tissue starts to release free fatty acids. Unfortunately, just how the blood-brain barrier is set up, these free fatty acids can't directly cross the blood-brain barrier as easily as, say, glucose or ketones can. And that's kind of the premise or the reason why the body's created this sort of energetic backdoor to make the ketones, to make beta-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate so that the mostly beta-hydroxybutyrate can cross the blood-brain barrier and help to feed the really energy demanding neuronal cells within the brain. So that's sort of, you know, kind of the overview of, you know, how ketones are made and how they're utilized. Now, I encourage people when they first start out, just start out testing their glucose and become familiar with what's going to affect my glucose, what raises glucose, what lowers it. Because suffice it to say, if you're chronically having glucose elevations, you're not really going to have ketone synthesis, right? So it's just a great way to kind of ease into things, get familiar with testing because the ketone strips are a little bit more expensive. The glucometers you can get at any grocery store or drugstore in the country or North America or in the world for that matter. I've traveled and lost one and I was able to get glucose test strips anywhere. So if your glucose levels start to rise over around 100, 110, in milligrams per ML, that's when ketone synthesis, and it's not a one-to-one correlation, but that's when it starts to slow down a little bit. So become familiarize yourself with what's affecting your glucose levels, again, because that's gonna be deterministic about your body's, your liver making these ketones, and then you can start testing your beta-hydroxybutyrate once you're comfortable with your glucose levels. Now, there are breath acetone testing modalities. Level is an app that people can use and there's other meters out there. that can test your breath acetone and those are great as well. That can be more variable. I think if people are averse to testing their glucose, then they can use something like the Level or the KetOnics. But if you become familiar with just, it's a small little finger prick to test your ketones or glucose, it doesn't hurt. It's uncomfortable the first few times, but then once you're familiar with it, that's fine. So I suggest people test first thing in the morning and start to test one hour and two hours after the meal. Again, because a lot of inflammation whether it be in your gut or the rest of your body, occurs in the postprandial or the post meal state. And so we really want to see what our body is doing in that stressed out state. A lot of people do their blood work fasted. A lot of people test their ketones and their glucose fasted. You know, that's, you know, kind of like, you know, a lot of doctors do a, you know, cardiovascular stress test, right? Not necessarily testing your heart, just sitting there doing yoga. You're putting your body under stress to see how your heart handles when it's under load. And so I do like people to do these post meal tests. to see really how their body is handling the nutrition that they're bringing in. So that's one way to test the ketones and you can also test real time heart rate variability in the post meal window and test to see is this diet or this food that I think is healthy for me, is it really healthy for me? Because if it's not, it will suppress your heart rate variability. So we want more beat to beat variability. And as we addressed earlier, that's kind of correlated or synonymous with an elevated parasympathetic tone. So we see in anxiety and depression, there's kind of an increase in the sympathetic tone and a suppression in the parasympathetic tone. And we won't want to reverse that because, of course, even the inflammatory response, there's this somewhat complicated anti-inflammatory signaling hub called the cholinergic anti-inflammatory reflex arc. And that's what's really unique about yoga, about these mind-body based therapies, is they activate this very powerful anti-inflammatory reflex arc, and that can help to suppress inflammation within the brain and outside the brain. And it has to do with vagal nerve activation. So I encourage every client that I work with to do some sort of spiritual based work, whether that be mindfulness, meditation, prayer, yoga, even just deep breathing, even just taking a moment to just sit down and sense the thoughts. If people have a busy mind like we all do in 21st century life, just think about the sounds. and the thoughts and don't put any judgment or attachment to them. Just hear the thoughts, notice that they're there, let them pass. That's in essence meditation. And if you have trouble getting into that state, then you can go take a walk in the woods or in the forest. Even if you live in, say, Manhattan or Chicago or a major city, just being in a park where there's nature, studies have shown the Shinrin-yoku research, forest bathing, just being in nature actually affects your immune signaling response. It affects telomeres. I mean, this is actually real data. so I know a lot of people go to work out in indoors, all right? They go from the car to the work to the gym to home. They're never outside. And I think we have literally a nature deficiency, as crazy as that may sound. And so I think, you know, a therapy that a lot of people can benefit from, even if it's cold, even if it's snowy or rainy, it's getting outside. You kind of hit a lot of hats there, not only in training your body's circadian rhythm by being exposed to the bright light that the sun offers to us, but being near the trees in the forest and so forth can be really healing. and affect the body's immune system and stress response. It's interesting when we think about fasting and/or time-restricted feeding and its link to behavior and possibly brain health. Because we know in different disease states like anxiety and depression and other neuroinflammatory states, for example, Lyme disease and so forth, what we see is there's a decrease in this very important brain mediator called brain-derived neurotrophic factor. And this enables us to learn things and I'd been depressed before in college and I remember I was from Dean's List in biology, biochemistry to last in the class. I couldn't remember anything. It was really a weird time in my life and this is actually how, thankfully, that happened because this is how I got into functional medicine because the traditional school doctor said, oh, well Mike, you're depressed, you're a senior, you're a pre-med student, of course you're just anxious, of course you can't remember things. This is common, you just take an SSRI, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and you're good to go. And because I had access to PubMed and so forth, I figured that wasn't probably the solution. There must be more going on. And at that time, I was overtraining. I was indoors a lot. I was new to Bellingham and the weather that can happen in the wintertime and was kind of lost. Didn't have a lot of meaning, purpose. Wasn't really sure about my future. And I started to just dive into the research. And again, I learned that this brain, why I was unable to remember things that I would previously remember very well and recall very well. well, part of that was I learned that anxiety and depression is linked to this suppression and this brain-derived neurotrophic factor. So then I was very interested in learning ways that I can stimulate that and augment that with things like fish oil and DHA and curcumin and come to find out that things like intermittent fasting or time-restricted feeding can really help to clear the brain out of damaged proteins, of protein aggregates and so forth, and then also affect neurochemistry. But it can increase this important memory molecule that we just talked about, brain-derived neurotrophic factor and other neurotransmitters, one is called orexin-A, I believe, and there's others that have been emerging. Research supports this from a teleological perspective, meaning why does this happen? Why do we get a surge in neurotransmitters in a fasted state? Well, humans that didn't get that surge and become more vigilant for food-seeking behavior and problem-solving behavior, their genes are no longer in the gene pool because they did not survive harsh winters, famines, things along those lines. I think this is hardwired in a lot of us and having going through this period of food restriction and just, you know, at first you might feel angry, you might feel uncomfortable and like, why would anyone want to fast? But once you be learn this, just like when you become more proficient at exercising or doing yoga or cooking or driving, right? Driving is stressful when you first drive when you're 15 years old. So once you become comfortable with time restricted feeding or fasting, you start to realize how much more clear your thinking becomes. how much more energy you have throughout the day. And you don't have these ebbs and flows and possibly you might experience more improved memory. When I interview people, when I do podcasts, even today, I haven't eaten anything because I want to make sure that my brain is sharp. And so I think it's really important for people, they're feeling mental cloudiness, brain fog, if they're having ebbs and flows in their neuro, you know, kind of energy, right? Or if they're unable to start remember things or if they're reading and they're like, I can't remember what I just read. A great strategy, I think, to increase this BDNF is incorporating exercise into their lifestyle. Make sure that the sleep is on point and so forth, but also start to improve and, you know, compress your feeding window, start fasting more and try just a 24-hour fast once a week. Just one day a week, that's it. And I think people will really start to notice that they're thinking more like they used to think maybe when they were in high school, when their memory was as sharp as it probably has been. And so it's just a simple strategy that we have access to. I think the best part about it is it's free. It's not another supplement or another thing that you have to buy. You can go without food. And again, various religious cultures, I mean, we look at Ramadan fasting and the Islamic tradition and cultures, this is still part of their culture. because people do feel a sense of accomplishment and that sense of restriction actually improves kind of this mental grit. So I think it's a great strategy for not only peripheral metabolic issues like losing body fat, improving insulin sensitivity, but affecting the brain and memory in that regard. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of cardio metabolic abnormalities that affect really the entire body, including the fat cells, the pancreas, the heart, and the brain. And so we know that kind of a fat on fire. So generally a lot of doctors have been taught that the fat cells or the adipocytes are sort of these inert energy storage depots. But a lot of research coming out of Harvard, I think in the early 1990s, have made us realize and reconsider fat and adipocytes as an endocrine organ and immune organ of sorts that release these cytokines, we hear a molecule called leptin. Leptin is involved in the inflammatory response as well. So when we become metabolically sick, metabolically inflexible, that affects our immune system and one of the organs that can be unfortunately damaged from that is of course the brain. And so we see kind of systemic inflammation is correlated strongly with neurologic inflammation. And what we see is the different immune cells in the body, the macrophages, microphages, the monocytes and so forth. When they become inflamed, so do the different immune cells within the brain called the microglia. And we get these neuroinflammation cascades. Those affect neurotransmitter levels. Those affect our mood. They affect brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which of course affects our memory. So we can see then how a sick gut or a sick body can translate into feelings of malaise. And if you go back to some of the early animal model studies and if you look at people that have had trauma and so forth, whether it's induced in the laboratory or physical trauma, they tend to then start to get depressive feelings. And we know that when we get the onset of a cold that is linked with that feeling of malaise and that's at brain on fire. How do you really test to see if you have metabolic syndrome? It's a combination of looking at your blood lipids, that would be your triglycerides, your LDL, LPL, your blood pressure, and your waist to hip ratio. And so that, you know, these are common things that you can go to a traditional doctor, an integrative doctor, get some various tests and so forth. But what I like to look at and have people look at at home is just their blood glucose, blood ketone levels. And I encourage people to also look at heart rate variability. This is a proxy into our body's autonomic nervous system response. And what we see is that when individuals become more insulin resistant, more metabolically unflexible, their bodies pivoted into a state of really relying more on burning sugar for fuel as opposed to burning more fat for fuel. We see the body pivot into more of a sympathetic or a stress-based state. This is well documented in the medical research and that can then correlate with feelings of anxiety, feelings of dis-ease, and maybe predisposition towards mood disorders and maybe memory issues and so forth. But what people can do at home is, as I mentioned, looking at their heart rate variability. There's, you know, very inexpensive apps on your phone, like called HRV for training. You can buy, there's an elite HRV app that looks at your finger, the Oura ring tracks heart rate variability, and then a testing blood glucose at home. Because of course, if you just go to a doctor, whether it be traditional medical or integrative, and you do your labs once a year, that's just one snapshot in time. You know, there's 365 days a year. So I encourage a lot of people to start testing their post meal blood sugar levels and also first thing in the morning to really see where their body's at. Anxiety, depression, these feelings can create a neurotransmitter and hormonal profile that will start to elevate blood sugar and reduce heart rate variability. So then you can start to make tweaks to reverse that, of course, with diet, exercise, circadian rhythm awareness. That would be eating at similar times throughout the day and then also going to bed and waking at the same time every single day and getting exposure to natural sunlight. These are all great for not only your metabolism, but of course, your brain neurochemistry and other metabolic profiles. When individuals become insulin resistant throughout the body, it generally usually occurs first in the muscle tissue. And actually, if you look at some of the research on insulin resistance and, you know, we call it like regional changes, the upper body, some of the, even in individuals that have type 1 or type 2 diabetes, that are characterized as insulin resistant. If you biopsy their muscle tissue in the upper body, it's generally insulin sensitive. But if you look at the muscle tissue in the legs, it becomes insulin resistant first. And that then ricochets throughout the body. The liver becomes, you know, starts to lose its sensitivity to insulin, the adipocytes. And then what we have happen within the brain, there's changes as well. And that can lead to various cascades of affecting kind of the degradation of various proteins within the brain, beta amyloid and so forth. So we know that insulin is involved in affecting some of these different protein degradation products. And so one thing that I have learned from Max Lugavere and other folks is to not eat before bed because if insulin is high, what it can do is prevent some normal kind of housekeeping, kind of cleaning up and flushing the brain out of the proteins that are created through normal day-to-day living and neurochemistry. So that's really important. But I think the biggest way that insulin resistance can affect the brain is through its relationship between leptin resistance. And so there's a direct correlation between leptin resistance, glucose intolerance, and so-called metabolic inflexibility and leptin resistance. And a lot of people generally, when they hear about leptin, they hear about this hormone released from the fat tissue that then goes to the hypothalamus in the brain and then affects appetite and so on. And that is true, but leptin is also very inflammatory. So leptin kind of wears two hats, if you will. It has this metabolic hat that I just referred to with regard to food seeking behavior and affecting satiety or appetite, but it's also involved within the immune system. And that's where challenges occur because what leptin does in situations or contexts where leptin is, say, what we call supraphysiologic or outside of the normal range, very common in people that are overweight or obese, too much leptin around. And the analogy that is great to think about is if you were to order pizza, for example, or Uber Eats and 400 Uber Eats drivers or pizza men show up at your doorstep, you're not going to open it up for fear that they will all come in, right? That's kind of what happens at the cellular level when we think about insulin or leptin resistance is there's so much of whatever the mediator that we're talking about, whether it's insulin or leptin, that the receptor basically is like your door. It's not going to open for fear that so many, you know, messages will come in. so it becomes desensitized. And that creates a situation where we're chronically hungry. And because again, leptin is involved in the inflammatory response, that creates inflammation. So we have these protective cells called, in our immune system called the T regulatory cells. They're analogous to policemen for our immune system. So if we have an allergen that comes in, or if we have, say, gluten, or if we have a cell that maybe is predisposed to developing an autoimmune scenario, T regulatory cells, when they're in physiologic amounts and levels, T regulatory cells would normally break up that inflammation. It would prevent autoimmunity. But when we see chronic, whether it's chronic neuroinflammatory disorders, depression, various autoimmune disorders, multiple sclerosis, lupus, Hashimoto's, you name it, there's kind of a dearth or a lack of these protective T regulatory cells. Now you might wonder, well, why is that? Is it the birthing method? Is it lack of breastfeeding? Is it, you know, exposure to food at an early age, solid foods, possibly all that plays into it. But also leptin downregulates this protective immune cell called the T regulatory cell. So that's kind of how leptin creates inflammation. So getting back to insulin resistance, the kind of trajectory, if you will, mechanistically of this neuroinflammation that can affect behavior, anxiety, and so on, glucose intolerance, insulin, high insulin, insulin resistance, then high levels of leptin because insulin and leptin correlate and function very synergistically. So I think it's very important for people to understand and this one emphasize exercise because exercise is so powerful for helping the body burn fat and making muscle tissue both insulin and leptin sensitive, particularly exercising the leg muscles. A lot of people go to the gym, they do pull-ups, they do push-ups, they do things that are natural, No one necessarily wants to squat or deadlift or pick things up or do burst training for their legs, but their legs are very important to keep stimulated because as I mentioned earlier, they are the first site within the musculoskeletal system where both leptin and insulin resistance tends to occur. So we need to constantly stimulate them and we evolved to move around and chronically use our legs and of course now in 2019 we don't need to move or walk much. We get everything delivered to us, we take the train, the Uber and so on. So move your legs is just a great tip to kind of kickstart your body's not only fat burning process, but to optimize insulin and leptin sensitivity. So as many of the listeners may know, the ketogenic diet has been used in individuals with epilepsy. So these are seizures that were intractable. No other therapy at the time was, you know, efficacious for helping to ameliorate the onset of these seizures. And some doctors figured out that at these children who were prone to epilepsy or seizures, were fasted, then the onset of the seizures was reduced. And so since that time over 100 years, we figured out that the main mediator of this kind of change in neurochemistry is a molecule called beta-hydroxybutyrate made by our own liver. So what's unique about beta-hydroxybutyrate is it's not only kind of an energetic molecule in the sense that it can the brain can utilize it and other tissues within the body like muscle tissue and the kidneys and so forth can utilize this as a fuel substrate. It's also a powerful signaling molecule, meaning that it, again, not only affects cellular energy production, but it influences neurochemistry. And there are some thoughts that it might change the GABA to glutamate ratio. So GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter. So that feeling when we take a deep breath after a yoga class, we go in a sauna and we feel really calm after. A lot of that can be attributed to neurotransmitter changes, possibly increases in GABA. Glutamate on the other hand is kind of stimulatory. In high levels, it can be neuroexcitotoxic, meaning that it creates damage within the neurons itself. So by changing GABA to glutamate, you actually change the way that people feel. And so that's one aspect that the ketogenic diet can then contribute to brain health and behavior. Moreover, what I think is really interesting, having a degree in biology, is beta-hydroxybutyrate, again, made by your own liver, either when we exercise or when we fast or we eat a low-carb, high-fat diet. And it doesn't have to be a bunch of bacon, lard, butter like people see on the internet. You can eat a plant-based ketogenic diet or you can exercise or you can just compress your feeding window even if you do eat a lot of carbs, for example, for exercise purposes. So there's a lot of different ways to go about this, which I think is very interesting. but again, why I'm excited about it is this molecule beta-hydroxybutyrate exerts all these secondary signaling effects within our immune system, within the way that our genes are being expressed epigenetically. So BHB kind of affects these so-called histones, and so these histones are these protective layers around our genes, and it helps them to relax in certain regions, which then affects genetic expression. and so basically the metabolic signature that's created when you're in ketosis is the same metabolic signature that we see when we're fasting or when we really restrict our calories. No one necessarily wants to live in a calorie deprivation of 30 or 40% over a long period of time and again so we can mimic that metabolic effect and also that neurochemical effect with the ketogenic diet. One of the reasons why I'm super excited to be on this Broken Brain docuseries is I really felt like I had a broken brain growing up, whether anxiety, depression, we create a lot of stories in our head. And I created this story that I was just dumb, that I had challenges. My brain would always be broken because an older sibling exposed me to drugs and alcohol when I was nine years old. So first time I started smoking pot was when I was nine, progressively started using more, not hard drugs, but more pot, more alcohol. Was arrested twice before the age I was 15, before 15, got suspended multiple times from school for fights and all kinds of crazy stuff. So it's funny, so now my profession is interviewing doctors and speaking from a stage and sometimes I wonder like, wow, I would have never envisioned the old Mike Munschel doing that because I had this perception that I was going to be a screw up, would have been in jail or whatever. So I really transformed my brain because literally, I mean it sounds like I'm making this stuff up, but multiplication tables, I had to relearn that. ABCs, I'm not even kidding, I had flashcards to relearn my ABCs when I was 16 years old. And so how did I change my brain? Was there just this magic pill? No, there wasn't a magic pill. I started to regain confidence first through fitness because I wanted to just become stronger. I was skinny, I hadn't been in sports, I'd just been hanging out on the streets skateboarding and all this in Northern California, just sneaking out at night doing all these weird things. I first transformed my body through fitness. And so I started consuming as much content as I could. These were magazines, muscular development. I was a big fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme. So I realized that as my body started to change, I was like, wow, the body like responds to like different new stimulus. And I started to like remember more things. I became a better reader. I still sucked at school because I was uninterested in what the teachers were teaching me. I learned how to play the guitar. I learned how to fix my car. I became really interested in things like that. And so I started to learn these new things and I became slowly more and more confident. Came to me. One day in college, and again, I only got to college through going through junior college. My dad pushing me hardcore like, Mike, if you don't go to college, yeah, I can't support you anymore. Like you're done. And I didn't know what I would do, right? So I went to junior college, took some classes, The only way I graduated through high school was literally cheating and copying. I got really good. It's embarrassing to admit now, but I could look over and see on the Scantron, my ACT and SAT, I slept through it. I got the worst score. So again, slowly transform my brain and body to the point where I was starting on the football team at Bellevue High School and they went on to win multiple regional championships and so forth in 3A. so we've got a little bit of confidence through just small wins. And I think that's the most important thing for people, whether they have a disease, where they think they have a disease, or a predisposition, is you've got to get that low hanging fruit, because progress begets more progress. And I'm living proof that the brain is very plastic and malleable. So wherever you are, you know, the abuse, whether it's drugs, alcohol, you know, running through those those challenges in your brain and playing the victim card and, you know, wishing that things could be different. They'll that you can't change that. All we can change is what's right here, our thoughts, our emotions and our mindset and understanding that, like, our body, it's like, it's a blank slate. Like, we're constantly, you know, our body's changing in real time all the time. So it's your thoughts. It's, you know, literally. You think about the most successful people in the world and the smartest people, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk respectively have created Apple and Tesla and Solar City and all these things. They're human beings just like all of us. They have 24 hours in a day just like we do. What's holding a lot of people back, I think, and it was holding me back for a long time is my mindset. This belief that I was dumb, I was unintelligent, my brain was fried. I literally thought that I would probably die before I'm 30. I'm 36 now. That I wouldn't have kids. All this crazy stuff. And it was like, I look back, I'm like, why would I ever even think that? And of course I didn't know any better. And back then my brain was messed up. But I caught up. I learned my ABCs. I eventually did really well in calculus in college and stuff like that. I had to get a tutor. And I was like, I just learned things later. It wasn't that my brain was messed up. And so I just want to encourage that. for people because I know what it's like to feel suicidal, right? I know what it's like to like think like this is it, I'm done. I can't, how can I ever surmount this obstacle that's in front of me? Whether it's actual or perceived, we can create a lot of challenges. How can I ever talk to people or how can I ever get that job or whatever? You can do it, right? You just need to change your mindset. And so for me, it was just constantly learning. And so literally like audiobooks, CDs, like this was back in the late 90s when I was changing my brain. I was like constantly learning because I realized that, wow, maybe my my brain's not messed up. I just need to like learn more. That's like indelibly inked in my head. This is what I do every single day. Start out the day with audiobooks on Audible, listen to podcasts, read all the time. Again, because I told myself I was a bad reader. Now I can read very quickly, right? So I just want to emphasize nutrition and all that is very important and it can move the needle in a big direction. But the things that you say repetitively about yourself, about your abilities, about your predisposition can really affect your brain. And most importantly, I think, and this may be controversial and I may get some flack for saying this, I think depression and anxiety is selfish. And I say this because it's chronic rumination about yourself. Like if I'm scared to give this talk right now, I may not inspire people. And that is being selfish. Like me getting nervous is inhibiting other people from growing. And so every single day, what I tell myself is like, even if I can just help one person, like that makes a difference, right? And so I encourage everyone out there, if you're depressed, you're anxious, you're suicidal, you know something that can help other people. And we're all put on this world, I really believe, to help and inspire other people. So get kind of emotional thinking about it, but like that's what drive, that will drive you out of depression. It's really important to know that if you're in a bad place, you need to take your lessons and you need to share them with other people. And that in and of itself can transform your life because you'll have more purpose to get the heck out of bed and to stop thinking about how depressed you are or how anxious you are or whatever because you're here to help other people. Once I discovered that personally, and it was a combination of going to seminars and learning all these things, that I realized like, I can't think about depression anymore. I can't be depressed. I can't think about trauma. I can't think about my older siblings beating up on me and tying me in bushes and throwing me down the stairs and stuff like that. I can't think about that stuff because I need to help other people. And if I identify with this victim, like, oh, you know, I can't go on stage because I smoked pot when I was nine, then I'm not helping people. And that's dumb. And it's selfish. I think it's really selfish. So I really, anyone listening right now, you have some gift deep down in you. I don't know what that is. Your doctor may not know what that is. only you know what that is. And it's your obligation to share that. And so I think if you look at the most successful people in the world, like Elon Musk, he has this crazy brain to figure out how to make an electric car. That's going to change the world. If he was anxious about what people thought about him, whether he wasn't smart enough to make the car or whatever, then we wouldn't have benefited from that.

Right?

So he's sharing his gifts at his best level. And you don't have to be Elon Musk or Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. You just start where you are. And so I think that it's subtle, but it can really change your viewpoints. And it's literally changed the trajectory of my career. And so suicidal ideations, thinking that I'm dumb and all that, it's like it doesn't even It's not even a blimp. It doesn't even come into my prefrontal cortex. And so I think it's important not talked about enough. And it can be as much or more powerful than dietary change. When I was anxious, I'm like, oh, I need more fish oil. I need more acetylcholine. And look, those things can be amazing. But once I realized that like, wow, I have a purpose. I can help just one person. And it can be as simple as opening the door for someone, for some people. Because I used to be the guy in traffic where if someone wanted to merge in, I'd like speed up and cut them off and all that. And it's like, that doesn't make you feel any better. And so just with small things and what I found in my life, like the more that I give both monetarily, like give money back, support different groups, give people random things, the more comes back to me. And it's really, at first you think like, well, I don't even have enough to give because I can barely afford my rent. And I understand that wholeheartedly. but I think just starting giving small, you can start with your time volunteering. And so I, you know, it's amazing like, and again, and that's to come back full circle why, why I said, and I hope I don't offend anyone, that depression and anxiety and those feelings can be selfish because once you start giving back, those feelings will really go away because then you realize like, wow, I have a purpose and, you know, I found that through having backyard chickens and animals, giving to my daughter, of course that's maybe kind of not the best example because it's maybe self-serving because I get something bit out of it, right? But even just being connected to nature in that regard, like, oh, I hear the chickens. I have to get up. If I'm having a bad day, that can get you out of it. So people can volunteer at a farm, help to plant. There's a million things people can do, and I think it can very powerful. So up to now we've been talking a lot about meaning, purpose, giving back, gratitude, mindset, nature, and part of, you know, nature that we don't think about very often and it's been kind of relegated as, you know, I'm talking more about psychedelics and other mind altering substances that when used in low dosages can really kind of kind of hit the reset button on the brain. And personally, again, due to the past that I shared and feelings of unworthiness, depression, all that. I was intrigued by what these microdosing of psilocybin and also LSD can do. And again, just to clarify, not to necessarily go on a trip and escape reality, using low dosages just to hit the reset button. And it's really made an improvement in my outlook, in the way that my brain works, and helping me find more connectedness with other people. And as crazy as it sounds, the universe at large. Now in my home and my wife thinks I'm crazy. We're growing psychedelic mushrooms and just low dosages. And so there's different protocols out there. And again, as controversial as it is, I think for a lot of people that experience things like seasonal depression, periodic anxiety, and for me, just sometimes relating with people or coming to an event, not necessarily social anxiety, but just like sitting chatting with someone, there was always sometimes some unease and I could never really explain what it is. Some people it was worse than others and that's been totally basically erased since low dosages and when I say low dosages and how much I've done this it's been maybe 13-14 times. So it's not like an everyday type of thing 13-14 times in a two year period. Now the natural question for people is how do I get started? Where do I get low dosages of LSD? Do I go to the downtown metropolitan area and hope the local drug dealer, I don't recommend doing that. What we're seeing is the path that cannabis and marijuana, kind of the trajectory of legalization and medicalization of that, we're starting to see that emerge with psychedelics and mushroom. And I know at least in Oregon, psilocybin is being brought onto the table as maybe trying to medicalize that for depression, anxiety, things along those lines. I will say, and again, I'm not endorsing any particular companies, but if people are interested, you can grow your own. There's a midwestgrowkits.com where you can learn how to grow mushrooms in your own home. Not only just psychedelic mushrooms, I encourage people to also grow other medicinal mushrooms, lion's mane, chaga, you know, you can grow oyster mushrooms. I mean, there's, you know, shiitake, maitake, there's a lot of health benefits. particularly when it comes to brain health due to how mushrooms affect the immune system, immune system signaling, which of course is affected by brain neurochemistry because our brain's immune system and our body's immune system coalesce and crosstalk and communicate. But of course, the easiest way to get mushrooms, whether it be psychedelic or medicinal, is to go out in nature and look for them. And I think this is great. There's different books that people can get guides. Daniel Winkler makes some psychedelic foraging guide and a medicinal mushroom guide for North America. And, you know, since we are in the Northwest, a Northwest specific and also a California guide, you can learn to identify these natural things are growing in our environment. And that's where people can start to experiment. So that's where I would suggest. And again, not going head first, you know, trying to trip out and escape reality. I'm talking micro dosages and being in nature. and you might not notice something that day or the next day, but weeks later when you're talking with someone or you're thinking about again getting back to the meaning, the purpose, what are you here to do on this planet? That's where these low-dose psychedelics tend to help you become more aligned. Thankfully, Western scientists are looking at the mechanisms through which how they work and affect maybe the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus and the amygdala, the fear center of the brain, maybe help to hit the reset button there. So these thought patterns that I'm not good enough, I'm not strong enough, I'm dumb, I've always been fat, so I'll always will be fat. You know, those thoughts, those self-limiting beliefs, we tend to not believe them as much. And so I think these can be profound for people. And I think we just need to have a little bit more awareness about this. Thankfully, Michael Pollan wrote an amazing book, and there's more and more scientists that are looking at this. But anyone that's had treatment resistant or long and relapsing depression, anxiety, you know, those type of feelings, I would really explore that. And so I've done some free videos online if people are interested just sharing my experience with this. There's ayahuasca treatment centers too with dimethyltryptamine and so on in Costa Rica. There's a lot of things that people can do now. And I think, you know, do the work at home, the meditation, the forest bathing, work on journaling, you know, finding out your meaning and purpose and then maybe start to look at these mushrooms or possibly LSD. And I've gotten my wife into it. She's only done microdosing about three times, but even she notices, like for her, it just she creates recipes and food blogs and things like that. Like if she found her purpose and her meaning a lot more quickly, like just like she was not sure like the direction of her career. She's a practicing chiropractor, but just after a few dosages she was like, narrow, like, she's like, I don't know that I need that anymore. Like, I got what I needed out of it. And so that's the other benefit that these are not habitual things that you can become hooked on that, you know, you, if anything, you'll realize, well, I kind of got what I needed. I don't feel this dependency on them. I feel more clear, and I don't have those thoughts. So that's my personal experiment experience with that. So an interesting proxy or insight into our body's autonomic nervous system response and really kind to figure out are we in a predominantly a stress-based neurologic state or more of a calm, relaxed state is using heart rate variability. So unlike blood pressure and heart rate, we don't necessarily want those high. And a lot of people confuse heart rate with heart rate variability. These are totally different insights, totally different biomarkers if you will. Heart rate variability really looks at the beat-to-beat variability between consecutive heartbeats. And we definitely want more resilience more variation in there. And so we want a higher heart rate variability. And when the parasympathetic branch of our nervous system is stimulated through that vagal nerve, through being mindful, through hugging someone that we care about, through exercise, when we're getting deep sleep, when we're eating the foods that are, you know, commensurate and, you know, agree with our body, our heart rate variability improves because that vagal nerve is being activated so that means we're really in a more relaxed, calm state. We're better able to think about decisions and not react to things emotionally. I think it's very important for people to understand this because sometimes, you know, we can get ourselves worked up with co-workers, with relatives, because we're in a stressed out state. So we respond, we snap. We're not really thinking about what we're saying. We just respond because we're stressed. And that's not a good place to start to build meaningful, lasting relationships. whether it's in the work or family or beyond. So I think it's very important for people to be in tune with this. They can test their heart rate variability using things like the Oura Ring. It actually gives you an insight into your average and max heart rate variability while you're sleeping. So that's a great proxy. There's an app called HRV4, the number four training, where you can use any sort of mobile device using the camera on the back side of your phone. I personally use an app called Elite HRV. And this is a little probe that goes on your finger that you can do first thing in the morning that I do. But you can test it after meals, you can test it after exercise. And again, it's giving you that insight into your body's parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. And in biology and health sciences, what we were taught is the parasympathetic branch is associated with rest and digestion. and having sex and procreating, right? So when those nerves are being innovated, our gut is getting blood flow, our gut is getting that neurologic drive to digest food. And so I think it's great for people to be aware of this. A lot of people are tracking macros, counting calories, eating gluten-free, eating non-GMO foods, which is great, but guess what? They're on their phone when they're eating, they're on the computer. They're not in a parasympathetic state. So as healthy as the food may be, if they're not digesting it, what is happening? we're getting fermentation byproducts, we're maybe not getting bile acid release, we're not absorbing the fatty fat soluble micronutrients and vitamins. So it's very important for all people, all walks of life, to be aware of their heart rate variability, in particular to notice the trends. And if you start to see a trend going down, generally it's when you're getting sick, you're over training, your life load or your stressors in the job, in the workplace, or at home. or school are too high and you need to back off. So it's a great way to see if we're pushing the body too much. And there's a lot of great data. This isn't woo-woo, you know, naturopathic medical journal science. This is a lot of, you know, highly reputable scientific journals have correlated low heart rate variability and predicted outcomes and correlated outcomes in mortality in cancer patients, heart disease, onset of sudden cardiac death. I mean, this is, it's really pretty amazing what we see. and unfortunately what we see is in going back to insulin resistance and metabolic flexibility, when folks become more insulin resistant and more metabolically inflexible, they're thriving on sugar burning, HRV tends to go down. And so it's, you know, in those folks, it's hard for them to unwind and calm down. And that's where we may see self-medication with alcohol or other illicit drugs or habit forming, OxyContin, other things like that, opioids. as a way to kind of calm down because their body's chronically in a stress state. So it's just a great tool that anyone can do, anyone can become familiar with. I forgot to mention that Firstbeat is another tool that can track your heart rate variability and the Polar H10 monitor is another tool as well. So there's a lot of tools. People can go on Amazon or on the web and search for this, but highly suggest checking into it and using it as a proxy. into your body's stress response. So in my eyes, the number one thing that people can do to improve their brain health is just have the belief that the brain is changeable, it's adaptable, it's malleable. Where you are right now with maybe it's mild cognitive impairment, maybe it's depression, maybe it's anxiety, maybe these feelings of unease, the brain can change itself. And that's the most important thing and hopefully I've conveyed through this my personal backstory that, you know, I'm living proof that that's possible. And so I think a lot of people just need to have the belief that you can change your brain through nutrition, through exercise. Like you have to do the work. It's not going to just going in and talking to a therapist may or may not have that sweeping change that is necessary. You're going to have to do the work. But I will tell you that out of all the other organs, I mean, the brain is constantly preparing itself. It's going to grow new neurons. There's a lot of potential. And I think the potential is unlimited. You know, if we think about, you know, outside of trauma and concussions, things like that, maybe there's some you know, damage to the tissue. But I think for most people, they can change their brain. And just having that belief that you can do it is going to enable you to make the changes that you need to change your brain. I just want people to realize that and to start believing in that because it's really possible.

Just because I have some of these heart genes doesn't mean I'm going to get it. Yeah, I'm probably losing it a little bit.

You seem all right. You seem all right, Frank. You're doing okay.

My heart may not be But that sort of makes me want to just be more careful because you can change how you age. You can change the progression of these diseases. And I think it just all comes back down to these lifestyle changes that we all have to make. And sleeping is one of those things that I think is really, really important. We don't talk enough about it, although more and more people are starting to realize the importance of sleep. But how you move, how you sleep, how you think, how you eat, when you eat, all these factors affect this epigenome, these malleable genes that actually can be upregulated or downregulated and affect how well we feel and how we age.

I think that's really an important point, Frank, because you mentioned you have these predisposing genes, but they're not predestined.

Exactly.

They're not predestined to get these conditions. And what most people don't realize is that 80 to 90% of our chronic disease issues are not driven by genetics. They're driven by what we call the exposome, what our genes are exposed to and how those genes are expressed. And so, if you're exposed to environmental toxins, if your microbiome is not healthy, if your diet is crappy, if you're not exercising, if your mental set, your mindset is not optimistic and focused and positive, it literally can change the expression of your genes by all these factors. And that's the beautiful thing about functional medicine. It teaches you how to optimize the function and the expression of your genes to improve their functioning and also to reduce the ravages of aging. I'm very optimistic about you, Frank, because I didn't realize you were 66. I thought you were like 56. I mean, I know you're kind of older than me, but you don't look it. So, something's working. And I think for two old dudes, we were doing all right. I'm 60 or 66. It's working. And I think that people don't understand that what we see often as aging in America is abnormal aging. It's not really how we need to age, that we can age vibrantly. healthfully and be alert and focused and energetic even right up to the end. And I've seen this in many people. I met this guy who was 95 years old the other day. He had a girlfriend that was 20 years younger than him. She was a young spring chicken at 75. He was just running around the room and I'm like, what's up with you? How do you do this? He says, Whatever I did yesterday, I just do it today. If I played single sentence yesterday, I do it today. And I think he just kept living his life and not mentally succumb to the idea of aging. And, I think you have to be more cautious, careful, you have to be more alert to what you need to do to take care of yourself. But, I think we have so much potential to stop and even reverse the ravages of aging. And, I noticed this to myself. Because of COVID I was locked at home like everybody else. I'm like, well, I'm not going to not exercise. And, I got a Zoom trainer. and I really never had done weights before because I was, you know, I was running around on the road. I was, I didn't, I don't like it. I don't like it. It hurts. It's uncomfortable. I'd rather go for a bike ride, you know, play tennis. And, and I got, I got serious about it. And within a very short time, I noticed my body started to change. I literally put on 10 pounds of muscle. My, my, it was like, I, I was an incredible transformation, and it was just in a very short time. So I think we have the potential at any age to stop and even reverse these. these effects. And what I love about your book, Frank, is that you have very simple tweaks that have a profound impact on healthy aging. So, talk about some of these tweaks and I can trigger you if you need to, but I just think there's.

Some really—Yeah, I'm really old. I'm contraband.

I mean, you talk about things like physical intensity, cold showers we talked about, rolling out your fascia, magnesium, saunas, mushrooms, sunshine, sleeping, sort of various kinds of simple tweaks or tricks. They're not really tricks, they're just science-based interventions that if we stack them have accumulative benefit.

Right, so there's so many simple things we can do. I think, actually just to get back to what you said, I'm also starting to do some weights now. I've always resisted weights too. I love riding my bike outside and doing yoga and stretching, but I've sort of always resisted weights. I'm starting to do a little bit of weight training now and I also find it actually quite helpful. So I concur there. I think I'm going to start back to the fascia and watching injuries because what I've seen so often in so many people, because I see so many patients, many times people are exercising a lot and something happens, they injure themselves. and then they don't recover properly and then they stop exercising or they don't exercise as much. So, you know, I encourage everyone when you do hurt yourself, just take care of that injury. So it doesn't limit, it may change the way you exercise in future. Now I can't run because of my knee but I ride a bike. So, you know, you do want to continue exercising but don't let that injury just stick around or don't let it fester. You need to treat injuries. So if you can't get bodywork, a foam roller can be really helpful. I think getting outside early in the morning, getting some fresh air and some natural light first thing in the morning is a really good thing. I find it helps people sleep at night. In other words, getting your body into some type of rhythm I'm also obsessed with rhythm, you know, maybe because I saw when I first started doing medicine in South Africa, when I worked in the bush and there was no electricity and I saw how people lived with the rhythms and cycles of life. They got up when it was light, they went to bed when it was dark, they ate whatever was local and grown locally. And they didn't seem to have a lot of the chronic diseases I was seeing in the city. Trying to keep a rhythm is important. If you can try keep it with the seasons and with day and night, it's important. So if you go to bed, try to wake up early and get outside and try to go to bed at the same time every night. Try to create some type of regular schedule. I think that's really helpful. I'm boring now. Me and my wife go to bed pretty early. It's been great with a little grandchild because he goes to bed even earlier than us, probably the only person who does. But if you can get into some type of rhythm, going to bed at the same time, waking up at the same time in the morning, and getting outside and getting some fresh air and some natural light, that's really helpful. I do think trying to incorporate some form of time-restricted eating is helpful for most people, especially as you get older than 50. It's a good idea. Keeping active during the day, so you don't have to go to the gym, you don't have to ride your bike, but get up and move around. Move your body. You just want to move your body.

It's amazing how inactive we are. When you look at an average day, I've got a ring, it's called an Oura Ring, and it tells you how many hours of inactivity you you have and I'm like, holy crap, I've had eight hours of doing nothing and sitting on my a** doing podcasts or reading a book or working on my computer. And it just, you know, it's really important to move.

Right.

And, you know, I found that since COVID I've made that much more, you know, especially doing more virtual sessions with patients and not in the office. I'm actually getting up in between and going out, which is good. So I think that's important. And I think the little things we talk about, don't take yourself so seriously, have a sense of humor about aging, being optimistic, being kind to others and yourself. I think kindness, compassion, I think these are all really important factors in aging. And then finally, having a sense of purpose and some meaning. And that sense of purpose may be your job, it may be your family, whatever it is, find something that's meaningful to you. It could be volunteering at a non-profit. But I think getting involved in something that's important to you is really important. And then finally, find a tribe or a community that you relate to that supports you and that you can support. I think, yes, obviously eating, we talked about eating and sleeping and exercising. all important, but it's these non-tangible things that are important. And it's the little things we do on a daily basis, the ordinary things we do on a daily basis that have an extraordinary effect on our health and our aging. And that's these little things we're talking about, you know, having passion for life and having meaning and having a community. So, you know, don't just think it's all about diet and exercise and which is really important.

It's a lot about what's going on up here.

Yeah, absolutely.

In your mind.

Yeah, these things are key and there's so much bad stuff going on. There's so much negative, it's so easy to get caught up in the negativity of today.

But, Frank, you were talking earlier, you just reminded me of a study I read in the Journal of the American Medical Association this year, which was very amazing, which showed that longevity was related to your sense of meaning and purpose. So even the science is showing that just being connected to something bigger than yourself is so, so important and having meaning and purpose is so key. So Frank, let's talk a little bit about supplements. Is there a role for supplements? Do they really work? There's all these longevity supplements out there. Is it a waste of money? Is it a good idea? Tell us. what's the deal on supplements?

Well, I think they work. I take a load of them. Yeah, I do think they work. I mean, look, I'm not going to, I think it's a bonus rather than essential because they tend to become expensive, but I do think supplements are helpful to optimize function. I really do. And, you know, I take the regular supplements that that I will take with vitamin D, which I think is essential for everyone. I'll take my fish oils. But there are supplements which I think do affect the mitochondria and do affect the aging process. Am I sure about that? No, I'm not sure, but I'm not going to wait for the science to confirm to make sure it's happening. I'm going to take it.

The thing is, when they're lower risk, they're low risk, there is a cost to it. but the benefit potential is there. And I think that there is good evidence that these things do affect some of the biology of aging.

Yeah, me too. I take now coenzyme Q10, I take nicotinamide riboside, nucleotide riboside, which is like the hot one.

NAD, right?

NAD and NMR, everyone's pushing their supplements, but I actually do think I mean, I take it. It's hard to say if it's making a big difference because I'm doing all these other things too, but I take it. Particularly as we got older, it makes a big difference. I see people who are more nutritionally.

Deficient as they age, their diet isn't good, the absorption is not good, and there's really good data that shows even a multivitamin in an older patient reduces the risk of disease and hospitalizations, infections, and a whole host of things. Particularly in the time of COVID we all need to upregulate our nutrient levels. What about testing? Are there tests you can do in functional medicine that are different that help you determine longevity? What do you recommend?

I don't know if they're different. I just do a few more biomarkers. We do like the Boston Heart or Cleveland Clinic has one, too. We do an advanced lipid panel. which I think can be helpful. And then we do insulin growth factor, we do interleukin-6, we do a couple of other inflammatory markers. But for the most part, we're doing most of the markers we've always done. We've added maybe a couple more. We're doing more obviously hormones, measuring hormones. And then there's a wonderful genetic test that we've started doing, the 3x4 genetics, which I find by far the best genetic test started by a woman, actually a South African woman who is a functional medicine.

Oh, yeah.

What's her name again? But anyway, Yale. I find that we've been finding, because it's the only genetic test that I've seen that actually sort of works in a functional medicine perspective and puts a lot of how these genes work together. and what you can do to help these combination of genes. So it's actually a pretty helpful test that we've been doing as well. Then, you know, the other tests, you know, measuring your biologic clock and telomeres, I don't know about those tests. I mean, they've been promoted and, you know, we're starting to play around with it. I don't know how important that is. I think some people like to see these things, which is fine. But my philosophy hasn't changed from that perspective. It's more about making these lifestyle changes and whether you want to do this extensive testing is fine. My experience has been that these lifestyle, these factors we've been talking about have been changing people's markers.

You can measure the changes over time.

So you can and people like that. If you want to actually do a test and then measure it three to six months later, you see the changes, which is actually, that's quite encouraging for people. From that perspective, I think it can be helpful. These things aren't necessary. The things that are necessary are the Pegan diet and looking after your sleep and moving your body. and having meaning. All the things we talked about, now whether you want to measure all these factors can be helpful because it can help you fine tune things like the genetic test can say, okay, your liver function, you may need some more of these nutrients because the way you're processing hormones or toxins is not so good, or you have more propensity for inflammation or or your brain health may not be as good, so take this. I do think the markers can be helpful in sort of taking it to the next level, but not essential.

If you love that last video, you should check out the next one for sure on getting to the root cause of all disease.

What if I figure out where these nutrients are that I'm taking in pill.

Form, where are they in the food? And I reorganize my paleo diet to stress those.