USE THESE HABITS To Boost Your Immune System & PREVENT DISEASE! | Mark Hyman & Ken Cook

Most people do not understand the power of food to create change. And so often in our society, the easy choice is the worst choice.

Let's talk just a little bit first about the COVID environment and what you've experienced as a physician, if you don't mind. I'd just love to get your perspective.

Well, I've been incredibly frustrated because the focus has been on very expensive, literally trillion dollar efforts to address the economic impact, to develop new drugs, new vaccines. And almost nobody is talking about the reason why America is 5% of the population, but has 25% of the COVID cases and COVID deaths. Why is that? It might be because of what we're eating. And because our toxic diet, and that is something that is changeable, fixable and addressable. I mean, think about it, Ken, if 63% of hospitalizations could have been avoided, we wouldn't be in the situation we're in now. We'd be all back to work and having a good time and going to parties and, I mean, that's the problem and no one has named it. And it's the most frustrating thing for me. A study came out recently that showed that if your vitamin D level was over 50, Now, you could argue whether the study was good or bad or blah, blah, blah, but basically it was a pretty good robust study. If your vitamin D level was over 50, your chance of death from COVID was zero. Wow. Zero. There's no zero from any other drug or vaccine or anything else. So, I mean, these are the kinds of things that don't make it into the news, don't make it in the headlines. And I've been super frustrated that no one's talking about immune health and what we need to be doing. Environmental toxins are also immunotoxins. They're not just poisons for our cells, which they are, but they're also immunotoxins and they drive screwed up immunity and autoimmune disease and allergic disorders and a whole bunch of other things. So I think we really have to come to terms with this blind spot we have around the fact that we can upgrade our own health by upgrading our lives. And it's, you know, it's not just a, A personal thing, right? It is personal, but what we do to our bodies, we do to ourselves, right? But we also do to the planet. What we do to our planet, we do to the bodies, what we do to the planet, we do to our bodies. It's all connected, right?

Absolutely. We're constantly metabolizing our whole environment. But you have dedicated your life to trying to understand the role of diet and nutrition and health. Let's just rewind for a few people. This didn't start for you with COVID This started with you a long time ago. You've written books about it, you've taught about it, you're at the Cleveland Clinic practicing it, and in your private practice just generally. But where did the light bulb go on for you, Mark? When did you decide that the way we've been approaching medicine just isn't quite right?

It was in college. I met a bunch of people and moved into a house with a wonderful group of people and one of them was a PhD student in nutrition. And he was very focused on understanding nutrition and health. And he gave me a book called Nutrition Against Disease by Roger Williams. This is back in the 70s. And I was like, whoa, the light bulb went off. And then he gave me a book by, I have an illness called Medical Nemesis. and I began to start reading about ancient healing systems, about our environmental issues. And that was sort of an era where we worried about nuclear power and nuclear war. We still should be worried about nuclear war for sure. So I think we really, for me, it was an awakening. And then I began to explore my own diet and nutrition, living with them, and we cooked together and ate together. I began to explore yoga. I was a big runner. and I became a yoga teacher. So, I always sort of had this proclivity to understand health and wellness and well-being and I've been like that my whole life. But, it's gotten way more focused as I began to really understand the scope of the acceleration of the destruction of our species. I mean, everybody's worried about the planet and the earth and the environment. You know, earth is gonna be fine. We leave. it's gonna reclaim itself. Just like with COVID people went inside and in a few weeks, all the animals were coming back and the fish were coming back and it's like, you know, we put humans on pause, everything's gonna be fine. It's a self-cleaning oven. We are not, we are at high risk of extinction and I'm concerned 'cause we are not addressing the root causes, which are both our food system and our toxic system. I don't know what to call it, our environmental toxins system. Is there a word for it?

Well, you did leave something out that you didn't mention as part of what turned the light bulb on, which was medical school. Not so much in medical school.

Oh, God, no. God, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. I went to medical school knowing I was going to be in a cult. and I, I was going to be indoctrinated, and I was going to be brainwashed, and then I needed to, you know, make sure, like I was, you know, like a, like a good, you know, Navy SEAL, but I knew the techniques to resist the brainwashing. So, so that, you know, I was the weird kid in the class doing yoga in the back and bringing us healthy food to school. And, you know, I just, it was, it was a very interesting experience. And I, I learned it. I did very well. I, you know, was able to master the traditional medical model. But I really knew it was just, it was just, it was just a footnote to what was really true about the, the way our bodies truly work, which is it's an ecosystem. And, and, you know, when you understand the environment, you understand ecosystems. But in terms of the human body, it's not, it's not a bunch of parts that are all stuck together randomly. They're a dynamic, adaptive, complex system that's constantly evolving, changing in relation to its environment, to the diet, to environmental toxins, to stress, to our thoughts, our feelings, all of it is really transmuting our biology literally every second.

And that's functional medicine. That's the, that's the framework for it.

Right.

So, and you've been a pioneer in that, in that field. I, I do want to editorialize a little bit. Like, if anyone, if there happens to be a dean of a medical school out there, I hope you're listening now and, and, and give them just maybe a semester of nutrition. Would fun to ask.

Yeah, exactly. You know, it's funny. You're right. I mean, there really is. And I'm actually working with a group that's starting a new medical school on how do we develop the right curriculum? And, and, and I actually found out from somebody else that the dean of Stanford Medical School follows me on Instagram, but he only follows, like, 10 people. Like, he doesn't follow a lot of people or something like that. I'm like, that's really interesting. That's really interesting. You know, like, there's, there's, the light.

Bulbs are going on, you know, for people. It's just, people don't know how to.

Get to where they want to get to.

So when you're seeing a patient, what methods do you use? What have been successful techniques in your practice to actually get people to make those very hard changes? Was it Margaret Mead who said it's harder to get someone to change their diet than it is to change their religion? What are you- Margaret, I think so, but please don't check it.

Okay, I'm gonna check that. That's a good one. They're about the same, I think. Yeah. How.

Do you teach that in the time that you're caring for a patient?

Well, you know, when the theory of evolution was sort of described by Darwin, one of his contemporaries, T.H. Huxley, said, How stupid not to have thought of that. and so I essentially sit down with people and I explain to them the new paradigm. I said, this is how your body works. This is how you can upgrade your health. This is why you are having these symptoms and why you're sick. I'm not like, oh, you have arthritis, take this pill. I'll see you in six months. Or, you have a migraine, take this injection or take this. I don't do that. I explain to them how their bodies work and get them to be enrolled as a partner with me in their health. They're the CEO of their health. The other key lever for behavior change, and I do that through talking to them, I do that through lab diagnostics, I show them, you know? And when you do a mercury test on someone, you see their mercury is off the chart, they're like, oh, okay, I got, or you look at their blood test and they see their insulin level sky high and they have all these risk factors for heart disease and stroke. It gets people's attention. But also the other piece of change is, I call it the love diet. It's essentially the power of community and connection to create change. So I know how to change people's biology. I can reverse diabetes like that. Getting people to not eat the food that's causing diabetes is the hard part. Right. Right. And so the power of our social networks, our community, our friends, that is what really drives behavior change. you're more likely to be overweight if your friends are overweight than if your family is overweight. The social threads that connect us are greater than the genetic threads. And so in that understanding, we know this is true. This is not just a theory. This is true. And I've demonstrated the Saddleback Church where we got 15,000 people to go in small groups and lose, you know, a quarter of a million pounds together in a year and reverse all sorts of chronic health conditions simply by helping each other And supporting each other and loving each other through the changes that need to happen. Holding each other accountable. You know, Rick Warren says, Everybody needs a buddy. Everybody needs a buddy. Or getting healthy is a team sport is another way of saying it.

Well, I think, you know, that's a theme in the conference. We've heard that from some of our other speakers that the environment you create around you, the social environment you create around you, is one of the most powerful drivers and it's pretty important to success. that you try and shape that environment.

If all your friends are smoking and alcoholics, well guess what? What are you gonna be? If all your friends are drinking green juice and doing yoga, what are you likely gonna be doing?

Exactly right, exactly right. It does make all the sense in the world to try and create that environment. Assuming diet is central to it, But in your practice, what have been some of the sort of keystone changes that patients can make that dramatically improve their health? I suppose everyone must be very different, but what are some examples?

I don't know, Ken. I mean, I just, you know, I think people think it's mysterious and complicated and difficult, and then I'm going to come up with some great new secret. But the truth is, it's actually quite simple. and I just did a group program in Spain with about 16 people. And basically it was called Growing a New Body with a friend of mine. We run this program and it's sort of a health immersion program, but essentially it's a group and food. And then they can do a little yoga and get a massage and like that. But it's basically the food and the group. And in one week, we had people fill out a questionnaire of all their medical symptoms from all diseases, arthritis, migraines, diarrhea, depression, insomnia, joint pain, whatever, you know, like, and we had them score at zero to four. And at the end of the week, after six days, after six days, the average score collectively in the group went down by 70%. There's no drug on the planet that can do that.

That's right.

So most people do not understand the power of food to create change. And so I'm really basically a cheerleader and a coach, an evangelist to try to convince people, hey, you can do anything for 10 days. Try this and see what happens for two weeks, 10 days, what happens? And then they don't need to listen to me and say, oh, if you do this and this and this, you'll get better. They go, oh, my God, all these symptoms went away. Oh, my God, I feel better. Oh, my God. I. And then if they go back to eating the way they did eat, then it comes back and then they can make the connection. So their body is the smartest doctor in the room. To answer your question, the most radical change comes from diet change. And what happens is that most people don't make enough of a radical change to see a difference. If you're drinking 12 Cokes and you only drink six, it might be better for you, but it's not going to change your life.

That makes all the sense in the world. And so a lot of these simple dietary changes are very difficult for people to make. But what do you see when someone feels successful about it? How do they maintain the habit to eat well? Surround themselves when they can with people who are like-minded. And it's very basic stuff, right? It's cut back on... Yeah, it's structure.

Yeah.

I mean, it's strong. It's structural for them to follow.

Right. I mean, well, yeah, but it's also structural. You know, there's one, many books written on habit changed tiny habits is written by a professor at Stanford.

It's really great. He was, he's at our conference.

He's one. Oh, great.

Okay. Yeah. I love him.

He made the connection. Yeah. Yeah. And he's, he's a professor. I saw him in, in Hawaii when I was there, and they, he says, look, you know, you have to have the desire, you have to have the ability, and you have to have a trigger. Right? So, for example, I, this early on, many years ago, I wasn't doing any strength training. I couldn't do a push up. And, you know, I just saw a study that came out that if you can, if you can't do 10 push ups, your risk of heart disease is very high. And if you can do over 40, then it's, it's a better predictor of your cardiovascular risk than a stress test. So I'm like, so like, well, every day I take a shower, I want to do push ups. So my trigger is and I have the ability to push up because the trigger is taking a shower. So every morning I turn the shower and takes about three or four minutes for my shower to heat up because it's an old barn. And so I do my push-ups and then I get in the shower. But I mean, it's building the structural things around you. So when I go downstairs in the morning, I have every ingredient I want for my smoothie on the counter. It looks a bit messy, but who cares? And that is basically a trigger for me to do the right thing. I make sure that I build into my calendar the things that that are important to me. I plan a workout, I plan time with friends, I plan a walk. You have to build the structural things that make it easy. If you want to go for a run and you don't have running shoes, well, you can't go running. So it's that simple really is to build the structures and the strategies around you so that it's automatic. The easy choice is the best choice. Often in our society, the easy choice is the worst choice.

Yeah, that makes a lot. that makes tremendous sense. And BJ did speak to this whole sequence of steps that really can help you embed better behavior, replace a not so healthy habit with a very healthy habit. And it's, you know, it's not magic. The system makes perfect sense. Have you, I mean, go ahead.

We go on vacation, you know, you plan where you're going, you plan your hotel, your flight, you know what you're going to bring, you pack your suitcase. I mean, we don't do that for our lives. All right. How do you organize your life so that I knew today I had a bunch of things. I had a board meeting. I had this thing with you, and I knew I wasn't gonna get a chance to cook dinner. So last night I cooked double, and now I went down and able to heat it up quickly and have dinner. I had a 15 minute break, which is not ideal, but, you know, I was able to actually take care of myself and I have to, you know, eat some crap that I couldn't get to or not eat at all. So I'm very focused on how do I build the the structural components of my life so that what I need to do for myself that's good for me is automatic.

Makes sense.

I mean, if you want to brush your teeth, you gotta have a toothbrush in the bathroom.

So let me ask you the gender question. Why is that? I'm a male. I know the answer to that. But why is it that men find it so much more difficult, it seems to me anyway, to form these habits of environmental health than women do. Or is that not your experience?

I think they're the inferior.

Well, yes, there's that. We're starting way behind in the ball game. That's right.

I think women are much more tuned into their bodies, how they feel, what's going on. It's like, it's like, you know, it's like that Monty Python movie, just a flesh wound, you know, just a flesh wound, he has an arm cut off, you know, and he's like, oh, it's just a flesh wound. And I think we're, I've experienced that, I'm just, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm good, I'm good. I'm like, unless you're like having a heart attack on the floor or something, you're fine. And I think it's a male trait and to just push through and it's unfortunate 'cause we don't actually take care.

Of ourselves and we end up in terrible situations which could have been easily prevented. I used to go to my doctor when I lived in DC, a wonderful guy. And if I was a little late for the checkup, and I'm late right now for my checkup, by the way. So you can go ahead and wag your finger at me. He used to say, well, when was the last time you missed a checkup for your car? I'm like, oh, I never missed that. I make sure that I get it to the dealer. Right within the window.

Yeah.

And add me right there. Yeah, he had me right there. So tell me a little bit more about functional medicine and tell me a little bit more about what you're doing at the Cleveland Clinic. Because I think this audience would be super interested in hearing more from you.

Well, you know, I think when people think of the environment, they think of our planetary ecosystem. and we are part of that ecosystem. We're not a separate organism outside of that ecosystem. We are also inherently, our own biology is an ecosystem. And so when you begin to understand that your body is one interconnected system and that everything you do impacts how it functions, then you can begin to kind of change the way you live your life to optimize your health and optimize function. That's what functional medicine is really about. It's about understanding how toxins, how food, how stress, how infections or microbes, allergens all impact us. And it basically comes down to two simple questions. What is it that you need to get rid of that's upsetting your system? It's causing an ecosystem imbalance. Toxin, and there's a list of them. And Environmental Working Group is like the leader in the world in, you know.

We got the list.

You know way more about it than I do. You got the list. In fact, I just did something about a home cleaning product company that was talking about the environmental working groups, dirty dozen of household cleaning product toxins. So you guys do a great job with that. We have to sort of eliminate the toxins, eliminate the allergens, eliminate the microbes that are out of problem, and figure out what's bugging us and get rid of it. And the other question is, what does your body need to thrive? It needs the right nutrients. It needs the right food. It needs the right balance of hormones. It needs sleep. It needs activity, exercise, sleep, restoration, movement, love, connection, meaning, purpose, all those are the ingredients for health. So you take out the bad stuff, you put in the good stuff. The body naturally wants to heal. That's all we did in this 60-day, 70-day workshop. All we did was take out the bad stuff, put in the good stuff. Got sugar, alcohol, caffeine, processed food. I'm eating real whole food. I mean, it wasn't that complicated. And it's profound what happens to, because systems want to repair and heal. I mean, you know, I don't know if you saw David Attenborough's latest film about his whole life story and how the environment's changed. And at the end, he goes to Chernobyl. And this is a place where basically nuclear reactor went off and contaminated the entire area. And now it's like the Garden of Eden, right? The human body and the Earth are self-cleaning organisms that if you provide the right conditions, will heal. I don't treat disease. I never do. I create health. And when the side as a side effect of creating health, disease and symptoms go away. That's functional medicine. Do you want to know my secret for living a long and happy and healthy life? Well, all I have to do is check out my Clean Newsletter, Mark's Picks, where I share my favorite tips for health, longevity, wellbeing, and lots more. Check it out and the link below.

And so give me a, and we're about at the end of our time, but I just wanted to ask you again a little bit about how as a country we've approached COVID. I mean, I'm just so focused right now on returning to normal. But there's something about what's going on now that's very positive when it comes to getting people to really absorb the vital significance of living a healthy life. Would that it had happened in another way, but the fact is, I think a lot of people have absorbed that lesson. I mean, we have a lot of people who aren't taking care of themselves during COVID and we we're reading about that all the time. But I also get a sense, and we hear this through our channels at EWG, through our social media followers and through email and just contacts, that some awakening has happened here as a result of this terrible pandemic. Is that your sense too?

Yeah, I mean, I would say nobody wants to return to the normal that we had. The normal we had was not good for us. It was a crazy frenetic. driven world where nobody had time for anything. And I think people are resisting that. And I think people are resisting working in the same ways and, you know, being in the same places. And I know I'm doing that for sure. But I do think people are having an incentive that they didn't have to consider their overall health and well-being and how they can protect themselves from COVID And so the message I give people is, you know, you can become Covid resistant. You can make your home, your host, your body, not a very friendly place for Covid. And I guarantee you I've been exposed probably many, many times because I've been out and about. I'm, you know, not been sick even before, you know, a vaccine came on the market. And I think it's because I'm very focused on doing all the things that need to do to upgrade my immune system. And I think everybody's thinking about that and asking about it, wanting to learn about it.

Yeah, and I think taking those lessons from a very bad time and holding on to them, if you're taking steps to ensure that you're as healthy as you can be during COVID so many of those steps will carry over into the post-COVID period. May it come as soon as possible, right?

For sure. I mean, just one simple thing people can do. I mean, a study came out recently that if your vitamin D level was over 50, that your risk of death from COVID was zero. Zero. Like zero you don't get from vaccines or any medication or anything, right? Zero. Now, why don't we have a vitamin D mandate? We should. It should be given out free to everybody. Super cheap, very safe.

Makes sense.

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

If your aspirations weight loss and you think it's about walking on the treadmill at the gym, focus on the wrong behavior. So that's one of the systematic problems. Another one of the problems is the idea that you set this really lofty.