Heroic Interview: Be Well with Frank Lipman

You're listening to be well an optimal living interview with frank lipman, m.d. and brian johnson. Frank, thanks so much for being with us today. I am really excited to chat and tap into your wisdom and lovely to be with you. Right on. Well, let's jump straight in. There are so many things that we can talk about and I know that one of the topics you're so passionate about is, is epigenetics. And you talk about this throughout your work. And you have a quote from Revive that I just love. You said the environment you bathe your cells and genes in determines how those genes are expressed. And that you said we have lots of potential versions of us. Can you tell us about epigenetics and how it relates to the old concept that our genes were kind of our destiny?

Sure. We always were taught that our genes were stuck in stone and you couldn't change them. But now with this new research on epigenetics, we know that it's more about how you can change your genes and how your genes are expressed, and that's determined by how you live your life. We can have the genes for heart disease. I have the genes for heart disease. My father died when he was. My brother had a big heart attack when he was 50. I have heart disease. I've had scans and whatever I do have heart disease or how I live my life will actually determine whether I have a heart attack or I suffer from major heart disease. So I have the genes, I have the predisposition. But whether I get that heart disease or not is really determined by how I live my life, what I eat, how I move and exercise, how I deal with stress, if I meditate, if I do yoga, if I'm surrounded by too many chemicals, the love in my life. What I believe there are all these factors that will determine how your genes are expressed. And that's incredibly empowering because when you know that, you change your lifestyle. Now, what's interesting in the latest, well, not the latest in a couple of weeks ago in the Time magazine, there was a picture of Tom was want to know your future? There's a whole article on the DNA dilemma because what we now know is with new technology, it's forecast that in the near future everyone will have their genetic code analyzed for future medical assessments. So I think what's going to happen is we're going to have our genetic code analyzed and the doctors are going to say, well, you're going to get heart disease or you get cancer because you have the genes for that. But what we will all have to do, because it's not going to come from the medical establishment, is turn that around and say, oh, I've got the genes for heart disease. That's not how I'm going to die. Let's change how I'm going to live.

Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, one of my genetic predispositions potentially is alcoholism. My father struggled, his father struggled and ended his own life. And it's been one of those things that, okay, it's kind of that loaded gun, Right. And the question is, are we going to pull the trigger or not? We might have that genetic predisposition, but what are the environmental factors that we're bringing into our life through our thoughts, et cetera, that are going to either bring that to life or not. And that's, such as you said, an empowering perspective to have. And let's talk about what we can do to positively influence our genes expressions through this epigenetics, just genetics idea. One of the metaphors I just love that you describe in revive is the idea of teaspoon by teaspoon and the idea of kind of starting with a muddy glass of water and then shaking it up and pulling one dirty teaspoon out and putting a pure one in. Can you talk about the importance of quitting the get it quick attitude and really embracing a shift in lifestyle in the long term perspective?

Right. I mean, I think a lot of that is determined by personalities. Some people actually do better with radical changes, but most people actually do better with slow, steady changes. And it's slow and steady that it's going to win because for instance, detoxes are very popular. And what I see a lot of people eliminate sugar and alcohol and clean up their life for a week, maybe 10 days, maybe two weeks, and then go back to their old patterns. And they're continually doing these detoxes per se. I think it's just part of our culture, but I think most people do better when you slowly. Ultimately, we want to give up sugar. I'm a big believer in giving up gluten as well, for instance. But there's certain foods that are going to affect our genes and how our genes are expressed. The quicker you can get rid of those foods, the better. Now, talking about a detox, a detox is a way into a healthier lifestyle. It's a way to. The power of a detox, for instance, is you stop the foods and you feel so much better. And that's sort of the carrot that keeps you going. But ultimately, I think most people do better with slowly getting rid of the alcohol, the gluten, the sugar, slowly starting to exercise more slowly getting into a meditation practice, slowly going to yoga. So I think that was the metaphor I used. Taking a teaspoon of muddy water out, replacing it with clear water, and it slowly becomes clear over time.

Yeah. Such a beautiful image. And then on that note, you mentioned changing our diet and the sugar and the gluten and the alcohol. Digestive system. You mentioned in your book. Just the profound stat that just blows me away every time I think about it. Something like 70 to 80% of our immune system is actually in our gut. Can you tell us how that's possible and how that works and why nutrition is so important?

Yeah, the gut, interestingly, the gut. In Chinese medicine, when I studied Chinese medicine, you learn that digestion, the earth element, the stomach, spleen is the earth. That's the center. That's where everything happens. When the earth goes off, everything goes off. And even in Western medicine, when you're not digesting and absorbing, everything is going to be a problem. So the gut is the center for me. And I was taught many, many years ago by a famous English herbalist, Simon Mills. And I remember him always saying, when you don't know what to do, treat the gut. And that's in most herbal traditions, they teach you the same concept when you're not sure of what to do, treat the gut. Because the gut is the core. Now, we know from Western medicine that, as you mentioned, 70 to 80% of our immune system is in the gut. And the gut wall is very, very thin in many parts, it's just one cell thick. You're exposed to the external through your foods, or you're protected from these external foods, the ext. By a very thin layer of gut wall. If that gets damaged or there's an imbalance in the good and the bad bacteria, you can create damage in that gut wall. And these toxins or particles and antigens get straight through into your bloodstream. It's really important to have a good functioning gut. Why so much of your immune system there? All these, what they call Peyer's patches, Part of their lymph. No, part of your lymphatic system. And there are hundreds of these patches all over the digestive system. And obviously for a reason to protect you from the foreign invaders. But another really important part of the gut that most people don't realize, it's called the second brain. All the chemicals made in your brain, the serotonin, the histamine, all those neurotransmitters made in your brain are also made in your gut. In fact, there's more serotonin, which is the happy neurotransmitter, the antidepressant, the antidepressant neurotransmitter. There's more serotonin made in your gut than is made in your brain.

Wow.

And another fact, now that we're up to facts about the digestive system, you have 10 times more bacteria in your gut than you have cells in your body. So we're talking about a major organ system just of the good and the bad bacteria in your gut. So your gut, to me, is the center. I treat the gut with everyone. I mean, I think the gut is the key organ system when it comes to protecting yourself from disease and staying healthy.

Right on. So we'll talk about some of the ways we can protect our gut. And then just to speak, because we're recording this shortly after New Year's and this whole idea of a flu season coming out of nowhere, and it sure seems like the diet and what we're doing and how we're bombarding our gut from Thanksgiving to Christmas and the other holidays to New Year's might play a role in that. Am I fair in that assumption?

Major, major role. I think you're mostly because so much of your immune system is in your gut. Keeping your gut healthy is going to prevent you from getting the flu. One of the major preventive measures I do with people in winter or if they think they're getting sick, is I give them lots of probiotics, which are the good bacteria. I often also treat or try to kill the bad bacteria at the same time. But the point of keeping your gut healthy is probably the best thing you can do for your immune system. Way better than the flu shot, which I don't recommend for most people. Actually, much more important than the flu shot is actually having a healthy gut.

Well, let's jump into that. So what are your top recommendations and tips for having a healthy gut?

Removing the common foods that trigger inflammation. So sugar, gluten and dairy are my top three foods that I take out of most people's diet. Then all factory farmed meats. I'm not against meat. I'm against what we do to the meat, the antibiotics, the hormones that we actually inject into them. Some people do really well on a vegan diet. Some people do better on a paleo type of diet. I don't think there's one diet for everyone, but I do think if you are going to eat meat, you need to Eat grass fed beef, you need to eat organic chicken. So you need to eat altered animal protein, unaltered animal protein, unaltered foods in general. So it's sugar, dairy, gluten, factory farmed meats, and then obviously avoiding as many GMOs, genetically modified organisms and processed foods as possible. In fact, there's more and more studies showing that eating GMOs and in fact specifically the Roundup herb that Monsanto uses on their GMOs is found to kill good bacteria in the gut and precipitate the overgrowth of bad bacteria.

Wow. The paradox of that. It kills weeds, but it also then destroys the good bacteria in us.

It's a major problem, these GMOs and what Monsanto doing is a major, major problem.

Wow. Again, there's so much we can talk about here. We can literally unpack all this just for a week. But you talk about one of the simple ways we can kind of navigate what we're going to consume. And again, the big things that create inflammation, sugar, gluten, dairy, factory farmed meats, GMO processed foods. You have this quote on the ingredients label. You say, remember, the longer the ingredients label, the further away the food is from nature and therefore the less healthy it is. That's one way we can go, right?

Yeah. I mean, I think we should all be eating as close to nature as possible. As I said earlier, there is no one right diet for everyone. Different people do well on different types of diet. But within that philosophical belief system, I think we need to eat as close to nature as possible. It's what we do to the foods that cause the problems. Gluten, for instance. 50 years ago, wheat, 50 years ago wasn't a problem. It's what we've done to wheat. Wheat is modified. It's changed. So eat what our grandparents used to eat. Most foods that we eat should not actually come with labels. Fruits and vegetables don't come with labels. Nuts and seeds don't. If you're eating grass fed meat or organic chicken, there shouldn't be labels on most of the food that you eat.

Love it. Tell us, why are sugars so bad? I know that that's you mentioned a couple times now. Why are sugars so bad? What do they do? Why do we need to stop?

Well, first of all, it's the amount of sugar that we eat. I think I just tweeted this figure recently. In the 1700s, the average person ate eight pounds of sugar in a year. Now we eat eight pounds of sugar in four days. So it's just the amount of sugar that we eat, because most of the foods that people eat are just loaded with sugar. Most of the processed, refined foods are loaded with sugar. And when you put such a big load of sugar into your body, your body has to deal with it. So your body responds by releasing insulin, and then your insulin levels go up and that brings the sugar down. And when your sugar goes down too low, then that causes the body to secrete the stress hormones, the adrenal hormones. So it's like a stress on the body, apart from the insulin secretion and the diabetes and the obesity and the heart disease that it's going to cause down the road by this constant influx of sugar creating this insulin response and this vicious cycle. But it's actually also a stress on the body. So same as you want to meditate or do yoga to counteract the stress on the body, removing sugar is also removing a stress from the body.

That's great. And then gluten, we talked about briefly with the wheat and how that's changed. And then the dairy is the same story.

I mean, it's pasteurized and homogenized. So it's changed. I mean, I have less of a problem with raw milk. For some people, raw milk doesn't cause a problem. For some people, it does cause mucus and digestive problems. But for many people, raw milk seems to be fine. In New York, we can't get raw milk. I know in California you can, although they're still trying to come down on these guys, supply the raw milk. But I have less of a problem with raw milk than I have with the milk that you buy in the store. And I also have a less of a problem with goat's milk and sheep's milk because they seem to cause less problem for people as well.

Dr. Well, it's amazing because I grew up and I had ear infections and all those things, lymph nodes removed and allergy shots, three shots a week for years, then stumbled upon this idea of dairy and removed that from my diet. Allergies gone, just stunning. That's just a powerful thing in my life. For those listening who might struggle from allergies and all the other obvious inflammation signs, try taking dairy out. So huge.

It's a very, very common allergen. And this gets me to a really. I mean, well, maybe we'll talk about it later. But the two questions that I always ask myself when I have a patient in front of me, instead of trying to make a diagnosis, which is the way I got taught in Western medicine, The way I think now and the way I try to teach my patients to think is ask yourself two questions. What needs to be removed? Or what's harming you? And the second question is, what needs of my body are not being met? Met? Or what is lacking? So what do I need to remove and what do I need to add? So what's harming me and what's lagging? What needs are not being met? And that could be from nutrients to love in your life, to sunshine. So if you ask yourself those two questions, it's a much healthier way of trying to work out what's going on with you than making a diagnosis and treating that diagnosis with a drug.

That's so great. Two questions. What needs to be removed? What needs are not being met? That needs to be addressed. That's amazing. I talk about, like, what's the number one thing you need to start doing in your life? And what's the number one thing you need to stop doing but actually prefer your order of what do you need to stop doing first? We need to stop damaging ourselves through different lifestyle practices, nutrition, otherwise, and then build from there. That's just awesome. Where were you 30 years ago when I was going through these challenges? This is awesome.

I was just finding out this for myself 30 years ago.

I was the little kid who always had the runny nose at that point. Pretty funny. So movement. Let's talk about movement. I know that you're a huge fan of movement as a way to be well and optimize our lives. I want to hear from you why you love movement so much. And then you also, I know, are a big fan of both yoga and walking. Not a lot of people talk about walking. The benefits. So I'd like to hear you talk about exercise and then walking as well.

Right. I mean, I like to see exercise rather as movement because some people think, oh, I've got to exercise. I think we need to move our bodies more. And I really got the whole exercise thing after years of doing acupuncture and noticing how often, as we get older, our fascia, the thin tissue that surrounds the muscles and actually all the organs, often tends to tighten as we get older and as we sit too much or as we don't move enough. And a lot of what I do still to this day in acupuncture, is actually release that fascia and free up the muscles so they can function better. And that's another huge, huge gap in Western medicine, this lack of understanding of this fascial system. You know, when you cut Open a chicken and you see that thin layer surrounding all the muscles. Well, that's a layer that actually connects you from head to toe. We all have it. And in fact, I believe that the acupuncture meridians run through these fascial planes. But it's an organ system completely ignored by Western medicine. And it's one of those things that I've noticed over the years are so important to free up. If it's tightened, you're going to have a lack of mobility. It can squeeze on nerves, it can squeeze on blood vessels. So the movement does much more than just help your heart. And the standard things that we talk about in terms of exercise, how it helps your brain, which it does, it helps your heart, it helps most of the organ systems, but it also, once it frees up this fascia or keeps the fascia loose, keeps the muscles less tight, there's less pressing on nerves and blood vessels, so everything's going to function better. I don't know if I explained that that well, but I think, in other words, there's much more to keeping your musculoskeletal system humming and this fascia loose than just what we talk about in doing some aerobic exercise. Because it's good for your brain or good for your heart.

I totally follow that.

That's why I think doing different movements are important. I mean, yoga. I'm a huge, huge fan of yoga. So I think it's more than just going to the exercise and pushing some weights and going on a treadmill, which I think is fine. And I do an elliptical trainer. I do my interval training, and I like pushing weights because it makes me feel good. And yada, yada, yada, you combine it with some other movements where you're actually using all these different parts of your body. And yoga sort of gets in there more than most other things.

Yep. Well, then you also make the profound point that it isn't about just the trip to the gym or even the trip to the yoga studio. It's about moving throughout the day. Right. And then sitting in the chair all day long. That's really the problem.

Exactly. And, you know, we see half my practice is actually releasing, releasing this fascia and these tight muscles. And people don't only just get rid of their back pain, but so many other things free up. I have a woman in my office who does a technique called active release technique, which is a sort of targeted deep tissue type of work. And I've seen unbelievable results with releasing these tight tissues that we completely ignore. People think that Waking up with a sore back is just normal, or having tight shoulders is normal. And you live with it. Well, most of us live with it, but actually over time it creates other problems. I'm a huge believer in freeing all of that up. And the best way is just to keep moving.

You got me out of my chair right now. I'm kind of stretching. This is great. Well, moving from the kind of the nutrition and the movement. I also wanted to hear your thoughts on thinking. You talk a lot about how our thoughts can be toxic and really kind of bring us down. Can you tell us about how that works and then we'll talk?

Well, I think that affects our genes too. I think negative. This is what I'm scared about, the future of this decoding the body's DNA. Because labs are going to do this. Even now. You can get it done for about $1,000. But soon everyone's going to be able to get their DNA decoded. That's going to be a problem for a lot of people because they're going to come out of there and western medicine is a fear based system. And they're going to come out of there and say, oh, I've got the genes for heart disease or for breast cancer or for prostate cancer. People are going to think they're going to get the cancer or the heart disease and actually start believing in it. And you know they'll get it. It's the same as, you know what the nocebo effect is as opposed to the placebo effect.

I love it. It's the patients who are told they're going to get a certain treatment. They don't even get it, but their hair falls out as if they received the medication.

Right, exactly. So that's the nocebo effect. And I think if you told you're going to get heart disease, that's going to happen to a lot of people. It's how you think. It's your thoughts. And I don't know how many studies. I think there'd been a number of studies, but people have observed this all over the world. For instance, when the shaman says to someone, you're going to go out and die, they go out and die. Your beliefs and what you're thinking are so important to the way you're going to feel. As I said earlier, that's what scares me about this DNA decoding. If it's done irresponsibly like I feel it may be done in western medicine, we got to put the fear of God into people and tell them how they're going to die instead of saying, well, this is how you can live and you're going to be fine.

When I think that goes to the other issue with such advanced medicine is we're always looking for that magic pill and there's no locus of control within ourselves. Right. To actually change our behaviors, our thoughts, our patterns. We're always looking outside of ourselves for the latest and greatest fix it quick solution. Right. Right.

Well, as you say, you've come up with some great lines, and one of them is the closest magic pill we have is meditation. I mean, if there was a magic pill, meditation or meditation could be bottled. That would be a magic pill. So to me, meditation is probably one of the most important things people can do for themselves because that does train your mind. I mean, that's one of the few things that can ultimately train the way you think and how you respond to the stresses in life. I know you're. In fact, I just posted one of your 10 tips on how to meditate and why you should on my blog today. I love that you just made it so simple.

Right on.

Thank you for that.

Well, thank you on that note. So meditation training our attention and then breathing, the way you describe the power of breath has profoundly impacted me. I'd love to hear you riff on that for a moment, if you will.

Well, once again, the breath is part of every tradition, whether it's doing tai chi or yoga. We just tend to forget about it. We tend to forget that there's this rhythm in our breathing. It just becomes so unconscious. And what meditation is and yoga to a certain extent seems to do for most people. Definitely did it for me. Makes us really become aware of our breath. One of my first meditation teachers, it was all about the breath is your anchor. Whenever your mind goes, get back to the breath. And that's such an easy tool for people to learn just to remember to breathe and to remember to get into their breath. So I'm not sure how much more I can offer. Except to me, it's all about when I start getting freaked out or stressed out like I was a couple of weeks ago. I just remember to breathe and just get out of my head and back into my breath. So to me, the breath is that anchor. It's just reminding yourself that you are breathing all the time. You can observe your breath because when you start getting stressed and anxious, you start breathing more shallowly and more quickly and you just slow it down. It's whatever. I always notice when you can compare being in the streets of New York City, how Everything quickens up. Your breath will start being quicker. Or if you're at the sea and at the beach, how things slow down. And I don't know, we haven't really spoken about entrainment, but your body rhythms and your breath is one of your key body rhythms actually entrains to the external surroundings. And that's why it's easier to slow down and meditate, slow down your breath at the beach than it is on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

So powerful. What else on that note, what else have we not talked about that you really want to make sure we discuss?

I think this whole idea, we're living in a different world today. We're exposed to so many chemicals and I think especially women, people aren't really that aware, or maybe they are aware. They're not concerned about, for instance, what they put on their skin. Now the skin is this huge organ system which absorbs anything you put on it quite easily. And it's. Things get absorbed straight into your bloodstream. So I think the idea of toxicity and the idea of being as aware of what you put on your skin as what you put into your body. I mean, I see people being obsessed about organic food and then they go buy all this makeup which is full of these chemicals which can do harm too. So I think just becoming aware of other areas where we're getting chemicals into our body, whether it's our shower, our water, our cosmetics, our household cleaning products. And I think just not only thinking about what we're doing to our own bodies, but what we're doing to our environment. Because our health is going to be affected by the health of the environment as well. So the more unhealthy the environment, the harder it is to stay healthy yourself. This concept of all these chemicals around, I think we just need to drum it into people's heads that it is an issue. You shouldn't freak out about it, but just be careful, just be more aware of what you put into your body and onto your body.

As we talked about before, teaspoon by teaspoon, clean up our environment. Clean up the environment and really lean into this wisdom and start engaging and embracing it. Just great stuff. I'd love to kind of wrap this up by learning more about your fundamentals and what you do to stay plugged in. It's one of the most fun parts of this, just hearing from these extraordinary individuals like you, what do you do? Like what do you do on a day to day basis to stay plugged in, to stay vibrant and to give your gifts the way that you do.

Okay. So I try to practice what I preach. I'm definitely not perfect, but I usually get up and I meditate in the morning. Sometimes it's just for five minutes. Depends on what's going on. I mean, I try get a good 15, 20 minutes in. Then I'm addicted to my computer and I go check out my email and everything else. My breakfast is usually a shake in the morning, a healthy shake. I use one of my pea proteins. Sometimes I use whey protein. I mix in some blueberries, but generally and some avocado. Generally a shake with good protein and good fat. So having a good breakfast like that and I always put chia seeds in. Now having a good breakfast like that sort of sets me up for the day. And I go to work and I usually walk from the train station to my office. So I usually try to get a walk in. And then for me, my work is usually a meditation because I have to be so present with my patients. So I just try and be present. And when I'm starting to drift or starting to go places, I once again get back into my breath. My other meals I tend to have, I tend to eat more paleo style. I do eat grass fed meat. I do eat chicken. Not too much of it, but I eat it. But I try not to eat crap. I love ice cream, I love sugar, that's my weakness. But I try not to eat too much and then come home. And it's time with my daughter, doesn't live at home anymore. It's time with my wife, just spend some time or we go out with friends. I think having love in your life, having a lot of friends, having community is really important. And the one thing we didn't talk about is passion and what you feel passionate about. And apart from being passionate about my work and loving what I'm doing, I work very closely with a nonprofit, so I'm often doing stuff around this Ubuntu fund. I just try to keep engaged and I'm always trying to learn new things. I always like my wife and my daughter in particular, catching me out on my shit, which they often do. And that's it. I just try and enjoy myself, do things that I like doing, Just try to live the way I want to live.

That's fantastic. Beautiful. Thank you so much for giving us such an intimate look at at how you're showing up. Super helpful and inspiring and just love the transparency and authenticity of look. We're all having fun exploring our edges and none of us are perfect. We're not going to be the first perfect human being on the planet. Let's get over ourselves.

I thought I was perfect, right?

Such freedom, right? When we realize that we are not going to be the first perfect human being on the planet, wait till your.

Kid grows up and becomes a teenager. Then you realize how imperfect you are. Stupid job.

That's so great. I look forward. Last thing. I'd love to hear your number one tip in health and in life. Your number one tip for health and your number one tip in general for life.

I would say my number one tip is to do something you love. So it's not a job per se if you can find work that you just love doing. You just love getting up and going to work and enjoy your work. I think that my experience has been not only with myself but with my patients. People who love what they do tend to be healthier. So if you can find something you really love doing, I think that's so much more important than making a million dollars doing something that you aren't enjoying doing, which is I see those patients too. I mean, they're making tons of money but they're not happy. So, you know, finding your passion can be in your work, it can be in your family, it can be in anything. But part of what you do needs to. You need to feel really passionate about and love doing it. I think that makes that would be probably my number one tip.

Fantastic. Well, Frank, thanks so much for taking so much time and sharing so much wisdom. I appreciate who you are and how you've inspired and supported Alexandra and I so much. So big hugs and I'll look forward.

Pleasure. And I love what you're doing. I love you guys. So I'm so pleased that you parents and enjoying it. Have fun with it.

Life is good. Thank you.

Okay, Brian, lovely to speak to you.

Likewise. Talk to you soon. We hope you enjoyed this optimal living interview. Please visit BrianJohnson me for more.