#94 - Optimizing Longevity and Performance with Dr. Robert Silverman, Part 1

Hi everyone, and welcome to a brand new episode of The Factor Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Riddle, and as always, thank you for tuning in. Today we're diving into a fascinating and timely topic as we kick off a new 2-part series with the incredible Dr. Robert Silverman. Together, we'll explore healthspan, the real measure of how long we can live a vibrant, disease-free life. Sure, we've all heard of healthspan, but lifespan? That's where it really gets interesting. So here's a hard truth for you: 70% of Americans are living with at least one chronic disease by age 65, and nearly half of those are managing 2 or more. For healthcare professionals like you, this isn't surprising. It's what you see in your practice every day. But the question is, what can you do about it? In this series, Dr. Silverman will break down actionable protocols to help you deliver more personalized care for patients battling chronic disease, managing long COVID effects, or struggling with the pervasive impact of inflammation. Plus, you'll discover new intervention strategies to boost immune function and support healthy aging. With the new year just around the corner, this is the perfect time to equip yourself with fresh insights and tools to help your patients set the stage for their healthiest year yet. So let's not waste another minute. Cue the intro music. It's time to get started.

Let's move right in. Let's talk about the protocols for longevity. Optimizing healthspan and human performance. Longevity is without question the conversation piece of 2023 and now in 2024. And I do believe that we're really gonna still be talking about it in 2025, 'cause it really incorporates all that we do, or at least a lot of what we do in the idea of nutrition, functional nutrition, also functional medicine. I believe that the key to longevity is turning on the health switches, and I'll go into a little more detail with that. But without question, the master switch is having a robust and resilient immune system. People always ask the question, what is longevity? Can we have a definition? Well, we talk about lifespan versus healthspan. And what is truly the difference? Well, the difference between lifespan and healthspan, interestingly enough, is that lifespan is how long you live and healthspan is how long you live without a chronic disease. Even longevity is based on chronic disease. I'm not real happy about that. Now, most people have a chronic disease in America by the time that they're 65. Actually, almost 70% of Americans have a chronic disease by that point. 4 out of 10 Americans have 2 chronic diseases. So the World Health Organization put together some stats in 2023, and the reason they did was COVID was driving a lot of conversation about age of death. And what they found out was that our generation, this generation right now, is the first generation where people's ages rescinded. So the American mantra, or one of the American mantras when it comes to health, is always to leave the place in better shape for the generation after us because of what everybody did before us. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. So in the US, we are now expected to live 77.5 years. My goal is 120, but that's for another day and another dollar, if you will. People are expected to live in full health in America to 66 years. So there's an 11.5, almost a 12-year difference between lifespan and healthspan. That correlates to about 18% of our life we are gonna live in chronic unhealthy disease. We are not doing a good job. And the first thing I'm gonna say is not enough people are seeing alternative practitioners. Not enough people are seeking lifestyle health. Not enough people are seeking out nutraceuticals, changes in diets, etc. Globally, lifespan is at 73.3 years and the healthy lifespan is about 63.7 years. There's about a 10-year difference. Again, you're looking at about that 16 to 18%. We all globally, nationally, locally need to do a better job. So a couple of things that we got from 2023 in the longevity recap was number one, Reducing caloric intake by 12% improved the cell senescence, the ability for the cells to die appropriately, and slowed the pace of aging. Now, the attempt in that study, interesting, was to decrease caloric intake by 25%. They only got to 12%, but that 12% decrease in calories really dramatically affected longevity, healthspan, lifespan, and what I like to refer to in vitality. Now, is intermittent fasting all about caloric restriction? Not gonna really have the opportunity to get into that. I'd love to come back and do a webinar on intermittent fasting, how women are affected by it, and what effects other than caloric restriction do you have. Maintaining the levels of taurine found aging and improved health and lifespan. Taurine is really without question the secret sauce. It's an amino acid that helps with bile flow. It decreases excitotoxicity. I would have to venture to guess that if I quizzed many people, most people don't take taurine, but they will take other amino acids. So distinct longevity mechanisms. This is interesting. I was just on a podcast with a longevity expert, and he disagreed wholeheartedly with this in that reduced activity of growth hormone IGF-1 was found to extend lifespan across species. He thinks upping growth hormone again, it's the debate, but in this study, that's what they found. And essentially, the last two bullets are by. Mitochondria. I believe that the one thing that we should all start to consider, test for, and look at is mitochondrial dysfunction. So here's what we call the hallmarks of aging. This was from a 2013 study. I took a little creative license and moved it around. Number one, immune reboot. I believe we all have to reboot our immune system. It was the name of my 2022 bestselling book. I think we all need immune health, but the biggest thing is we need immune resilience. We need our immune system to be resilient versus multiple variants of pathogens. Inflammation, or now what we like to refer to as inflammaging, burning ourselves up from the inside. Inflammation, my mantra is to manage and modulate it. Microbiome. Well, I mean, if you wanna talk about your microbiome, your number one microbiome is in your gut. We are made up of 10 to 1 bacteria cells.

Wow.

to human cells. Our second microbiome is our gums, and our third microbiome is our skin. Our microbiome within our microbiota is really something that we should want to positively affect. Just look at our gut. I don't know if Jessica told you I'm from New York, so I had the honor for many years of taking a New York City subway. If you've ever seen a picture of a New York City subway, it's a bunch of sardines in a tight little can. So there's always this one stop. It's 125th Street, but everybody comes in and squeezes together. They literally squeeze some people out. People want to get out. That whole idea of the people coming in is good bacteria pushing out all the bad bacteria in your microbiome. Mitochondria dysfunction. Mitochondria dysfunction, as I said before, is a major player. Big believer in mitochondrial dysfunction and being a conversation piece. Mitochondria dysfunction is the cause for fatigue, which is the number one reason that we go to the doctor, believe it or not. Also, mitochondria dysfunction has been implicated now in neurodegenerative diseases. Fascial injuries— nothing better to help fascial injuries than what I like to refer to as the, the gold medal winner for instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization: fascia. Fascia, the Saran Wrap of the body. It Envelopes, everything going around the body. It leads to a theme called tensegrity. Vagus nerve tone. And each one of these hallmarks, there'll be a few slides, we'll get into a little bit more detail. We'll get a little granular, if you will. Vagus nerve, cranial nerve number 10, goes from the brainstem, the medulla oblongata, down through the transverse colon. It is the key communicator between the gut to brain and the brain to the gut. What I like to refer to when the vagus nerve is functioning well, it is the superhighway to health. Telomere shortening. The shorter the telomere, the closer we are to death. Loss of muscle mass. Muscle mass has been coined a phrase by Dr. Gabriella Lyons as the longevity organ. I think it is without question the longevity organ, but it's the first step in that stepladder of health. Those next steps would be muscle-to-fat ratios, and the top layer would also be grip strength, VO2 max, and power. Disrupted nutrient insulin signaling, mTOR pathway, AMPK, and sirtuins. And lastly, compromised autophagy— our body's ability to break down old cells, use the debris to make new cells. If it's compromised, we're really stuck with a lot of old, dying, or dead but inflammatory cells. And that's why they call them senescent cells, or we like to refer to them in our parlance as zombie cells. So 2023, a follow-up 10 years later, all the hallmarks are interconnected. Thanks for the memo. The body's all interconnected. So whatever you do to one part of the body, you do to the whole part. So you have localized that ultimately affects systemic. Dysbiosis was a newly added hallmark. It's unleveling of good and bad bacteria. You need about 85.1% good bacteria not to have dysbiosis. So there are no days off when you're thinking about gut health. I like to ask a lot of my patients, what have you done for your guts lately? Do you have the guts to be healthy? Getting back to the hallmarks of aging, along with now chronic inflammation as opposed to just inflammation, disabled macroautophagy. There's 3 types of autophagy. This type of autophagy was signified as being the key to the inability to perform autophagy efficiently. Dr. Peter Attia, who wrote the book Outlive, said one of the most important things to understand when you're using some sort of intervention is Do you have a biomarker to know if you're doing it correctly? So here are some of my biomarkers for longevity: interleukin-1 beta, interleukin-6, interleukin-8, and TNF-alpha. These are all inflammatory markers. Now interesting, interleukin-6 I like to refer to as the girl with the curl because sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad. But this set of interleukins should be taken on everybody if For me, as a baseline to see if they're inflamed, interleukin-6, interleukin-1 beta, and interleukin-8 can predict the incidence of lower back pain. I think it was at 92% accuracy. So I use these on all my musculoskeletal patients. C-reactive protein is tissue inflammation marker. How inflamed is your tissue? Hemoglobin A1c is your diabetic marker. So it takes the average of your blood sugar over 90 to 120 days with an emphasis on the last 30 days or the most recent 30 days to the tune of about 50% of your test. ApoE, I'm gonna ask everybody there. So here it is in a nutshell. There's 3 variants of the ApoE test. There's ApoE2, less than 1% of the people have that. If you have ApoE2, You ain't gonna see Alzheimer's. You are lucky. 75% of America has ApoE3. That means your car is in neutral, and if you have a good lifestyle, car goes into drive. Your car is in neutral and you have a bad lifestyle, you're going to reverse. You can get Alzheimer's. ApoE4 increases your incidence, having 2 ApoE4s, by 80% towards Alzheimer's. It's an Alzheimer's Predictor. It portends Alzheimer's. So who wouldn't want to know that they do not have a genetic marker for Alzheimer's? ApoE4 is critical. And last but not least, on the left side, LPS, lipopolysaccharide. LPS is an endotoxin that holds gram-negative bacteria on the inside of the intestinal wall. When it's expressed through leaky gut or damage to tight junctions, LPS is a direct minder Leads you down a slippery slope on a lot of health conditions, even lower testosterone, estrogen, brain damage, musculoskeletal damage. LPS will allow you to understand that better. Yet the expression of LPS increases the incidence of heart disease by 3 times. Lp, less than 1% of the population has the test. It is your genetic Marker for heart disease. Less than 1% of Americans have taken it. 25% of Americans have it, and 40% of their relatives have it. So for me, I made sure to take it so I could tell my sister, I could tell my parents even. I have no children— my niece, my nephew, etc. How many people out there know their Lp marker? I'm real curious to see what happens. That chat is lighting up. I can't see it. Blood pressure, body composition, as we talked about before, telomere length, VO2 max. VO2 max, the number one marker probably for overall fitness. It's how well you utilize oxygen when you try and perform cardiorespiratory exercise. Maximum grip strength, right there at the top tier for me. Mitochondrial dysfunction. And last but not least, Zonulin. Zonulin is a protein enzyme that talks about the pulling of junctions in epithelial cells. So when zonulin is elevated, it pulls apart the tight junctions. Also, an elevation to zonulin is an everyday marker in that people who have elevated levels of zonulin have bigger waist circumference, higher blood pressure, blood sugar metabolism, and body composition issues.

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So blood levels and, and longevity, glucose, creatinine, and uric acid. All these people who lived to 100 had lower levels in good blood markers. Interestingly enough, look at the first bullet: lowest of 5 groups for levels of cholesterol and iron had a lower chance of reaching 100. Wait a minute, what are you saying? WTF? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? What is going on? Well, you know what's going on. The bottom line is they're telling you that a low cholesterol marker is a good thing. It's not. It's not. If you— if they're not taking particle size, if they're not taking ApoE status, if they're not taking Lp, direct LDL, your cholesterol markers are virtually useless. And by the way, cholesterol, 15 to 20% is based on the ingestion of cholesterol. 80% or more cholesterol numbers are based on consumption of sugar. So even the discussion That I see traditionally is really archaic and inaccurate at this point. I love taking an omega-3 index. It shows the percentage of EPA DHA in your blood. Eight percent or higher is ideal. Most people in the U.S. are four percent or lower. It's the highest risk zone. People with high omega-3 levels live five years longer, and people of high omega-3 levels hold off Alzheimer's for five years as well. So you're buying five years of healthy life by just taking omega-3s every. Day. And this just really wanted to go into detail. If you look at the right side, the baseline 300 milligrams going up with the big percentage is 1,800 milligrams. And I suggest 4 grams a day or 4,000 milligrams. I believe you're only as young as your immune system. So if someone would ask me a longevity test, biological versus chronological, I would definitely do markers to see how functioning and how resilient your immune system is. Immunity is the key to longevity. Tufts University, Boston U Medical School helped answer the question. People who lived to 100 had a highly functioning immune system. Immune resilience, talked about it before, here it is. It's a term that represents the ability to withstand and bounce back from infections and inflammatory stressors. You look at the people again who lived to over 100, there was one thing that they all had in common. They had beneficial bacteria. They were populated with a large amount of beneficial bacteria, and they did not suffer from dysbiosis. 80% of your immune cells are in your gut. It's where your macro and micronutrients are absorbed. So it's all about that ecosystem once again. Time Magazine did a study 20 years ago, March of 2004, and in the study it called inflammation the secret killer. As I said before, inflammaging is the inflammation that's causing internal aging and aging you before your time. As I— my credo is to manage and modulate inflammation. And inflammaging will decrease hormones, metabolites, your ability to take away cellular debris, increase inflammatory cytokines, impair autophagy, cause mitochondrial dysfunction and dysbiosis. Also increase cell senescence. Here you've got a beautiful slide where you've got healthy microbiota versus dysbiosis. Healthy microbiota, it has diversity and richness. It allows for oxidative and cognitive status, whereas dysbiosis is a decrease in the variety of bacteria species and destruction of helpful bacteria. You need a biodiversity. You don't wanna take in a probiotic, the same one, the same species, All the time. It's like a neighborhood. Diversity wins in your garden of your gut because the more diverse bacteria you have, the more health-promoting functions you can draw upon. How to get healthy aging in your gut and take care of your gut because it's your second brain. Your gut is not only necessarily your second brain, it has its own nervous system called the enteric nervous system.

Yeah.

That nervous system is the largest nervous system in the body. Diet, supplements, and good exercise will help you towards taking care of your ecosystem. Well, Ozempic and all these weight loss drugs, I'm not saying no one should take it. I'm just saying that I think it's being overprescribed, and I don't think people understand all the side effects that are associated with it. 40% of the weight loss is muscle mass. In addition, there's some more side effects that are very uncomfortable— diarrhea, vomiting, and the like— and also 3.7 times the increased size in your intestines. So you want your Ozempic? Take care of your gut microbiome. Here's your anti-Ozempic, if you will, protocol: berberine, alpha-lipoic acid, Said anything interesting so far? Pro-resolving mediators, pre- and probiotics. You got it. You take that and you're gonna get a Ozempic moment. So some of the consequences of mitochondrial dysfunction— dysfunctional mitochondria lead to oxidative stress, decreased ATP. A decreased ATP leads to an increased amount of sensitization towards pain. Altered mitochondrial biogenesis, calcium imbalance, and cell death. The diseases that can be affected by the mitochondrial dysfunction: neurological diseases, said that earlier, dystrophy, aging, neurogenic disorders, cardiac disease, cancer, mitochondrial disease, metabolic disorders and diabetes, and skeletal muscle and movement disorders. Here's a slide that really illuminates the idea of what fascia can do. The skin pulling away from the chicken breast, that white film, which is depicted right here or right there, that is your fascia. Interestingly enough, you look at a filet of salmon, the white film on top, or when you open it up, that's fascia. So fascia's on top of the muscle, it's in between the muscle, and it's actually in between the muscle and the bone. Fascia is the longest and largest system in the body because it attaches to the skin. And it's the only system that touches every other system. Fascia is living matrix. It's your full-body wetsuit. It's connective tissue. It's sheathing the body. It's below the skin and above the muscle. Lymph nodes and nerves live in fascia. It's a sensory organ and it accounts for 20% of our body mass. Vagus nerve. We could do a whole webinar and spend an hour and still need more time to cover all that the vagus nerve does. The basic vagus nerve, medulla oblongata down through the transverse colon. It attaches to the transverse colon at a point called a neural pod. That neural pod is able to sense what's going inside the microbiota. So the microbiota communicates to the gut. That gut communicates to the brain. The brain communicates to the gut. That gut communicates to the microbiota. 3-way calling, both going up and down the chain. 80 to 90% of the signals of the vagus nerve is afferent and 10 to 20% are efferent. So if you look at the anatomy, you see that the vagus nerve covers a litany of different organs. So vagus nerve afferent and nerve relay data from gut-to-brain axis transmits information about pain, inflammation, satiety, motility, presence of toxins and irritants, intestinal barrier issues, and the microbiome. Efferent, going back down, carries signals from the brain to the GI modulating digestion, gut motility, hormone release, and neurotransmitters. Now, why did I put this in there? Well, both the afferent and the efferent pathways are both anti-inflammatory, but the vagus nerve, by stimulating it appropriately, also has a third anti-inflammatory pathway, and that's the vagal splenic nerve pathway. So the vagus nerve, or stimulating the vagus nerve, can dramatically reduce inflammation. Who better than manual therapists to decrease Vagus nerve— excuse me, increased vagus nerve stimulation. Stimulating the vagus nerve increases acetylcholine. The positive to acetylcholine is it's the effect on the spleen, which is a respite for immune cells. These immune cells release macrophages. So the macrophages, when they're— when vagus nerve tone is down, also come and stimulate TNF-alpha. Okay. Acetylcholine, when vagus nerve is stimulated, blocks TNF-alpha. So the macrophages come out and do their work, and that's why vagus nerve is anti-inflammatory via the spleen. Stimulating the vagus nerve also reduces inflammation, improves outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis, inhibits cytokine production. So some hacks, lifestyle hacks for vagus nerve physiological sigh. Submerging the face in freezing water, cold plunge. The basic idea is sudden exposure to cold induces the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. You could do a vagus nerve massage, stroking and twisting the trap muscles, gripping the trap in between that and the SCM massage, anything. The key to vagus nerve stimulation or appropriate vagus nerve stimulation is increasing the heart rate variability. Sarcopenia. Everybody loses on average about 1 to 2% of their muscle each year after age 40. Some may lose up to 25% muscle mass by age 65, and I've also read for up to 40% at age 70. Lean muscle— muscle mass is an effective endocrine organ because it enables you to efficiently dispose of glucose. It also has a very potent effect on microbiome modulation. So the pathogenesis of sarcopenia and cardiovascular disease. So sarcopenia, loss of muscle mass, you'll see both of them have commonalities in malnutrition, physical inactivity, insulin resistance, inflammation, hormonal changes, autophagy, cell death, apoptosis, and oxidative stress. But each will lead to a different outcome. Sarcopenia, falls and fractures, frailty, and cardiovascular disease. Typically, in many instances, death. Muscle mass is your organ of longevity. We've heard that one before. And Peter Attia, who I quoted twice in this webinar, does a great job. I'm talking about his 4 pillars of fitness. Strength is the foundation of longevity. 50% of your workout is based on weight resistance. You should do practical, applicable movements like deadlifts, squats, shoulder presses, farmers walks, pull-ups, push-ups, lunges. Stability should also be a component that you should partake in if you want to get that pillar of health. Plank, standing on one leg, goblet squats. Low-intense cardio for someone like me over 50, great choice because it promotes mitochondrial biogenesis. And intense exercise— walking. Walking is the exercise of 2024. It is wearing a weighted backpack if anybody's interested. And where to get the best walking backpack, feel free to reach out to me. I'll share some contact information. Small doses when you're a little older is better to and more effective to increase lifespan. So age-related causes of protein shortfall. Why are we having so much trouble? The memo is real simple. If you want longevity, you need to eat more protein as we age because muscle protein synthesis wants to slow down and digestion in the gut Also has slowed down. So here are some reasons: inadequate intake of protein, reduced ability to use available protein, greater need for protein, all can lead to the loss of functionality, i.e., muscle, bone, and immune systems. Sarcopenia, animal versus plant protein. I do not dislike plant protein. However, if you wanna put muscle on, And you have an option between the two, animal protein wins out, especially if it's grass-fed, grass-finished. It does so because the articles are robust on its ability to put on muscle mass and increase muscle protein synthesis. Animal versus plant. So flicking the switches, that was one of the things that we talked about before. AMPK is activated protein kinase. It regulates the amount of energy. It's a nutrient and energy sensor. It maintains energy homeostasis. If you want to stimulate AMPK, alpha-lipoic acid, berberine, omega-3, resveratrol, intermittent fasting, high-intense exercise, and of course caffeine. You're going to see some commonalities. So AMPK is good for fatty acid synthesis, mitochondrial biogenesis, protein synthesis, cytokine and eicosanoid synthesis. Glucose uptake, blood flow, and activated B and T cells, i.e., your immune system. Sirtuins—they protect the cell from damage. They lead to repair. They reduce inflammation. They boost memory. They impair mitochondrial health. They repair mitochondrial health. They're stimulated by NMN. Wow! Which stimulates NAD plus. NAD plus is without question a powerful. Nutrient that is under fire because they want to make a prescription. EGCG, green tea, turmeric, resveratrol, quercetin, exercise, intermittent fasting, extra virgin olive oil, and coffee. Sirtuins activation increase brown fat activation, make you leaner, improve insulin sensitivity, improve exercise performance, improve NASH. Optimize endothelial function, improve cardiac function, improve neurodegeneration, and optimize innate longevity pathways. So the one— the real conversation— again, I was with a longevity expert today on my podcast that'll be coming out in a couple of weeks, Proven Health Alternatives. Interestingly enough, we talked about the mTOR pathway, and a lot of people like to upregulate it, other people like to downregulate it. I like to balance it because it's a central processing unit that makes all complex decisions related to cellular growth. It's a signal for growth rather than survival. So to balance or dim it a little, resveratrol, quercetin, zinc, melatonin, omega-3 fatty acids, curcumin, coffee, intermittent fasting, vitamin D, and the ketogenic diet. I use the term inhibit mTOR. How about Dim it a little. If you can do that and get it in the right spot— remember, the body's all interconnected. The body, it's called homeostasis. It's balance. Switches on, switches off, switch in the middle. So this is a switch in the middle to a little bit off. If you do that with mTOR, you can induce autophagy, mitophagy, and mitochondrial biogenesis. You can preserve stem cell function, reduce inflammation, and regulate innate and adaptive immunity. Inhibit NF kappa B, so it can do a plethora of things when it's in the right space. So the switching of aging, real simple: you want to turn on sirtuins, you want to turn off AMPK, and modern America, you probably want to decrease or turn down mTOR. Fasting, I know it's it's well I'm coming at you real rapid. Fasting, Paraclesus once said about intermittent fasting. Fasting is the greatest remedy. It is without question the physician within the patient. So mechanisms of intermittent fasting. Number 1, oxidative stress hypotheses. Number 2, circadian rhythm. And I think that may be the hidden gem. I think the idea of resetting yourself with circadian rhythm. 2 weeks ago I had a specialist on and he specializes in circadian rhythm and figuring out your appropriate circadian rhythm and allowing you to exercise at that circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythm. I think that's a brilliant theme. Circadian rhythm, your sync with your environment, your time zone. So everybody knows I'm in New York. I travel all over the place nationally and internationally. So when I go nationally and I go to the Central Time Zone where Jessica is in Texas, it's 1 hour. I don't change my phone back. I live my life like I'm in the East Coast. I do the same when I'm in Mountain Time. I do struggle a little bit when I go to like the West Coast. The problems that I have are when I go to Hawaii and when I go to Europe. Now, when I go 5 hours ahead, going ahead in time is just horrific. Coming back in time is refreshing. So the sync of the circadian rhythm does enable you to optimize energy metabolism. And intermittent fasting will help you with ketosis. So some of the benefits of time-restrictive eating are inducing autophagy, improving the circadian rhythm, promoting longevity, improving cognition, increasing insulin sensitivity, promoting weight loss, and improving your gut health. Because I do believe the gut is the epicenter of your health. Some examples of intermittent fasting's effect on different organ systems— let's just go for it. Muscle, liver, bone, brain, gut, and fat, all having a positive outcome from intermittent fasting. Fasting actually reduces chronic inflammation but doesn't affect acute inflammation. And Mount Sinai did a study on that, and that's just fabulous. So it manages and modulates your inflammation. I am a big proponent of intermittent fasting. I like 14:10, a 14-hour fast, a 10-hour feeding time. So intermittent fasting, restricted hours of eating, 12 to 16 hours. Long fasts, which I do not like, 24 to 72 hours, nothing over 24. Fast-mimicking diets, data hasn't been proven on that. Ketogenic diets, proponent of a ketogenic diet, 70 to 75% fat, 20% protein, 5% carbohydrates, and 5 and 2. I like the time-restricted eating the best. Anyway, the benefits of the time-restrictive eating are in to recap: inhibit mTOR, reduce insulin signaling, improves insulin sensitivity, activates AMPK, activates sirtuins, activates FOXO, activates autophagy and cell repair, and stem cell renewal. Senescent cells accumulate with normal aging and impede organ function. Create chronic inflammation, emit protein-destroying enzymes, shorten lifespan. Removing senescent cells usually confers with a healthy longevity, increased lifespan, increased healthspan, and of course improved vitality. Which diet is the best? Well, any diet that isn't the standard American diet is going to be more effective because the acronym for the standard American diet is SAD. Probably for successful aging, the Mediterranean diet has the most data. In this study, it showed an 11% decrease in cognitive impairment, a 51% increase in the quality of life, 10% higher odds of successful aging. All of these have beneficial health effects for mental and cognitive function.

That wraps up part 1 of our 2-part series with Dr. Robert Silverman on healthspan, longevity, and functional medicine. I hope you're walking away today with some actionable insights to start making a difference in your patients' lives. But we're just getting started. In part 2, Dr. Silverman will dig even deeper, sharing advanced strategies to optimize mitochondrial function, enhance vagus nerve health, And combat muscle loss, all key components for unlocking the full potential of healthy aging. He'll also reveal cutting-edge nutrition protocols and practical interventions to help your patients thrive in the year ahead. You definitely won't wanna miss it. Episode 95 drops in 2 weeks. Be sure to check out our show notes and click the link to get on the list to receive all of our end-of-year special offers. You'll get an email Monday with exclusive discounts on new in-person and online courses. As well as a few freebies we cannot wait to share with you. So click the link in our show notes and fill out the form. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, share it with your colleagues, and leave us a review. You can visit our website at factorpodcast.com. That's F-A-K-T-R podcast.com to view the full transcript from today's episode and chat with our AI features to gain key insights and takeaways from today's episode. We'll see you next time. Hey guys, if you like what you heard today, I encourage you to visit our website at factor-store.com. That's spelled F-A-K-T-R-store.com to find out more information about all that we have to offer. We have a variety of online offerings as well as our hands-on FACTOR Rehab System course scheduled in cities around the globe. Be sure to also check out our event calendar and bookmark any of these upcoming live webinar dates coming up in the near future so you can join us live. And of course, the biggest compliment we can receive is for you to help us spread the word to your friends, colleagues, and classmates. You'll find all the important links as well as info about our sponsors in the show notes, so be sure to check those out.