3 Health Factors That Are Destroying Your Body [MASTERCLASS] EP 1346

There's no medication that reverses diabetes. There's no medication that reverses heart disease. There's no medication that reverses Alzheimer's dementia. They manage the symptoms, you know, and maybe.

Maybe some relief a little here and there.

Relief, but they do not create health. And what health is? Health is.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome to this special master class. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in. I've also heard examples of people who let's say eat perfectly, but still have challenges. Maybe their relationships are off and they're in a stressful environment in their relationship or their marriage or whatever it might be, or they just react poorly, they worry often to things they see and experience. They're a warrior. And so every time they worry, there's a, I guess the stress hormone is spiking, right? And sending hormones to the body, which is spiking blood levels. Is that right? Yeah. Blood sugar. So it sounds like the psychological side of things is also extremely important to understand and that every time you're allowing your body or your mind to ruminate on a consistent basis, it's sending a signal to the body in a negative way, which is helpful if there's a real life threat, but not when it's on a repeat every day, is that right?

That's exactly right. It's that chronic low-grade stress that can be really damaging. There's something that's been really fun to experiment with is there's now heart rate variability monitors like Oura Ring or WHOOP or Leaf Therapeutics. And what these do is heart rate variability is a metric that you can track that looks at actually the time between each heartbeat. And oddly enough, we want the time between each heartbeat to actually not be consistent like a metronome. We want it to have some variability. Yeah, like maybe 0.7 seconds and then 1 point, I'm sorry, 0.7, Yeah, seconds, 1.1 second, 0.9 seconds. That's variability.

Why do we want that?

It really is a symbol of a dynamic system. You want elasticity in the system and that can sometimes have some irregularity to it. Sort of the way I kind of think about it is like a stiffer system is going to be a little bit more regular and there's sort of that, and these are subtle. It's not like you can feel it in your pulse if you just feel your pulse, but you can pick it up. And so we want more heart rate variability. and usually less, lower heart rate variability is an objective measure of stress. And I've worn these things and been giving a talk on Zoom or something like that, and I'm looking at my data afterwards and my heart rate variability plummeted during the talk, or I'm processing email, my heart rate variability goes down. And then, of course, glucose may go up. And so you see these things happening together, and the immediate thing I think is, this is where our tools come in. This is where the deep diaphragmatic breath, where the mindfulness, where having awareness of this happening. And then there are so many things we can do to modify that stress response, even telling your body, you're safe. You know, everything is actually okay. It can have a huge difference. So really dialing into awareness and then where can I apply the tool? So I would say I take about a hundred times more diaphragmatic breaths now than I did a couple years ago because I realized, wow, if this is happening all the time throughout the day without my awareness, that's going to add up over the next 30, 40, 50 years and have a huge impact. But it's not actually just the chronic low-grade stress. There's been a lot of research showing that acute traumatic events, like loss of a loved one or divorce or childhood events, so adverse childhood events, which are usually, there's an acronym, ACEs, people who have many of these tend to actually have worse metabolic health. And this actually may be related to changes in the brain that affect metabolism, so really changing our set point for stress thresholds early on in life. And so sometimes we'll have that patient, like you talked about, who's doing everything right. They're eating really healthy, but they're just really not quite making that progress towards thriving that they want. And a lot of those patients, I'm thinking about what is the deep core wounds and what's the set point that's causing you to feel that this world is not a safe place, that is causing you to be inherently hypervigilant. And doing that work even on myself has been so positive because I think what you start to unpack as you go down that journey is that your perception of the world and whether it's safe is very much dictated by your lifetime of experience. I think for those of us who have been on a journey of therapy, and now people are very interested in, of course, how psychedelics can fit into this. And then, you know, other modalities, long-term meditation, deep meditation events and things like this that can really unwind some of those kind of amygdala-based, fear-based responses in the brain. I think there's huge potential there for that to potentially unlock a new level of health because what it's doing is changing the fundamental way you see the world as a place of threat or a place of safety. And unfortunately, I think in our modern world, fear has become a currency that we've used to profit in a lot of ways. If we can get people to be fearful, we can get them coming back for information that assuages that fear. And we see that with social media. We see it with the news. You know, there was that undercover reporting of one of the CNN executives who said, you know, was recorded saying, if it bleeds, it leads, you know, that we need to get people fearful for them to come back and watch. And what that's doing to our stress hormones, to our brain set point, to our desire to have dopamine stimulation to kind of get some pleasure in the face of all this fear, the way that's affecting our cellular biology is profound. I think all of this movement that we're seeing right now towards helping people, towards normalizing mental health care, normalizing psychedelic use is not an end-all be-all, but I think it's interesting how that's now being talked about as a way to really help people unlock some of this chronic fear. I think it's gonna have, could have positive impacts on the body, 'cause if we're living with chronic fear, our bodies are not functioning properly, and many of us are.

Did you live with chronic fear for a while?

I think that the healthcare system, the conventional healthcare system, unfortunately uses fear as a way to control patients in a lot of ways. You think about a conversation between a physician and a patient and it's like, your cholesterol is a little high, you need to take a statin, and the patient might say, well, can I have some time to work on diet and lifestyle? Well, I mean, it's your choice. I mean, I'd recommend the statin right now because obviously I don't want you to have a heart attack, but sure, if you want to try diet and lifestyle. That's the type of thing that's happening every day, where this fear of bad outcomes is, I think, driving very much a pharmaceutical and invasive intervention type of strategy.

And.

I think that that really was unsavory to me because it's very disempowered. It's like, if I can drive fear in a patient, then I can essentially get them to do whatever intervention I recommend.

And as a surgeon-- Medicines, procedures, anything.

Right, exactly. Oh, well, if we don't treat this ear infection with antibiotics, then it could travel to the brain and create a brain infection. And it's like most ear infections resolve on their own without antibiotics. And overuse of antibiotics is causing huge, huge problems with our gut, which then leads to mental health issues and metabolic problems. But if people are scared of the potential outcome that may be very rare, then of course you can kind of get them to do stuff. And I think that I don't think that doctors are intentionally doing this. I think we have an incentive system in Western health care that really drives people towards intervention. But I think that, you know, I also think that with COVID we saw this happen where, you know, this fear of, you know, anyone, you know, being harmed from COVID or, you know, that we, you know, kind of got people to do anything and everything. And we're kind of losing this, We're losing kind of that rational sense of the risk that is inherent in living. We get in the car every day and there is risk involved in that, but we choose to do it. And I think that there's just a lot of sort of fear-based thinking that happens in the healthcare system that unfortunately disempowers patients and pushes them to do interventions more quickly. When I think that there is so much opportunity to help coach them with diet and lifestyle, which takes longer, it's harder, but ultimately it generates health rather than just putting a band-aid on disease. There's no medication that actually generates health. Only diet and lifestyle strategies generate health. And so that should obviously be the foundation of our medical system, but unfortunately we're not very well trained as physicians to know that information or to coach on it. But yeah, to answer your question, I think a large part of my personal journey has been trying to overcome fear.

Really, personal fear.

Personal fear. I think one of the biggest examples of this is my mom just passed away and about a year ago from cancer and just as any normal person, I spent my life fearing my parents' mortality. It's like, oh, this is gonna be horrible and devastating. And I think a lot of people worry about premature loss of a parent. And, you know, I think going through that experience and it actually being a very beautiful transformational experience, it was sort of a surprise. And she had two weeks between her diagnosis and her death.

Oh, man.

We had this beautiful time together as a family. She was actually very much on the same page about sort of holistic health as me and knew in her heart that she was dying very rapidly. She chose to stay at home, be with the family. We were all together, had this spectacular two weeks. The hospital system through every possible medium was trying to pull her into the system. It was pancreatic cancer, so it's like, you need a liver stem, you need a liver biopsy, you need a blood transfusion, you need to start chemo immediately. And the reality was she knew I'm dying right now. She ended up dying in two weeks. None of the interventions would have helped. We wouldn't even have had a, you know.

What if it lasted maybe a few more months or a few more weeks, maybe, you don't know.

I actually don't think at all. I think that- Might have caused more.

Stress and more- well, and it was.

COVID, so she would have been in the hospital and we could have not visited her.

Oh, that'd be tough.

So anyways, that experience of seeing her approach, seeing her pure joy in the face, she was just ended her last two weeks very joyfully, was very at peace. We had that time together. She was not just locked in the hospital doing interventions that would not have helped very much. I realized, oh, something I've been fearing my entire life happened was the most transformational growth experience I've ever had. I still feel way more connected to my mom than I ever could have imagined. No one can tell you, oh, you're going to still feel connected until you maybe experience that. And it kind of made me realize, fear is kind of not useful. So I think that something like that, and I think it probably lots of people have their own examples, just kind of makes you realize the futility of living in fear. And, you know, what does it do? It damages your body. It doesn't really change the outcome. A little bit of healthy fear is useful, of course. Like, you don't want to cross the street without looking. But the idea that we should be fearful all the time, like, then that's going to protect us, is such a fallacy. So turning to, stoic philosophers turning to some sort of Eastern texts, Buddhist and Taoist texts, sort of looking into traditions that have thought this way has been a really useful part of my journey and I think needs to be a part of how the healthcare system reforms because we weaponize fear of death as a way to control patients into doing anything we want. And I think fundamentally overcoming your fear of mortality, which is the the only thing we can be certain of in this world. And really approaching that with a sense of awe and a sense of curiosity and a sense of what can this teach us about how to live, I think is an absolute foundational part of what we need to do as individuals, but also the healthcare system, because otherwise we're just using fear as this thing, fear of death as this thing, to just wrangle people into as many interventions and as pharmaceuticals as possible with the off chance that people think it's gonna somewhat reduce their chance of mortality.

So what I heard you saying there was that there is no medicine that can actually make you healthier, is that correct? Or that could actually solve the issue on the medicine itself?

The vast majority of all medications, I probably wouldn't say all on a record, but I would say the vast majority.

Most.

Do not generate health in the body.

They manage-- They don't cure the disease or whatever.

If you take away a diabetes medication from someone, their diabetes is not gone. It's right back there where it was. Whereas if you get someone to really foundationally improve their cellular function, which can only be done through consistent dietary and lifestyle habits, they can truly reverse their disease. But there's no medication that reverses diabetes. There's no medication that reverses heart disease. There's no medication that reverses Alzheimer's dementia.

They just kind of manage the symptoms.

They manage the symptoms, you know, and.

Maybe some relief a little here and there.

Relief, you know, life extension for some of them, but they do not create health. And what health is, Health is optimal cellular functioning. We are just a big bag of cells and each cell needs to be functioning properly for us to have health. What is a symptom? What is disease? That is cellular dysfunction happening on the individual level. If that's happening in mass, that might be tissue dysfunction. If that's happening in a bigger way, it's organ dysfunction and that's when we see symptoms and disease. So we have to really zoom in on what's happening in the cell. And what is a cell is being, getting its information from what you're eating, what it's being built from, which is your food, what stress hormones it's seeing binding to its little cell membrane. You know, what's happening with your hormones, which of course is dictated by stress and by sleep and by exercise and by food. It's the super complex milieu that can only be optimized by the choices that we're making every day, day in and day out consistently. Even by the sunlight we're exposing ourselves to in the morning. And, you know, Andrew Huberman talks about this all the time. But literally the consistent exposure of sunlight first thing in the morning is chemical information to your body through the sunlight's energy to tell your cells how to function. You can't put that in a pill. You know, it has to happen through these millions of years of evolutionary evolved processes. And so, yes, like medications can't with their one pathway that they might be intervening on truly generate foundational cellular health, which is what we need to achieve.

They don't bring wholeness back to the cell. I guess there's what, some creams or something that might help you heal a cut or something like that, but we're talking about like a chronic illness medication, right?

Yeah, but even if you think about a cut, you know, I mean, A cut is like, it seems so simple, but it's actually so complex. If you think about people with disease, like diabetes for instance, one of the reasons that people with type 2 diabetes die is because of chronic wounds. They have wounds that won't heal. Interesting. Oh yeah, and I know that. Are they internal wounds or external wounds? External wounds. People can get, something that happens with people with diabetes is they often have nerve damage because of the way the blood sugar is affecting the nerves, so then their feet become numb, and then they might get a cut on their foot, they don't feel it, and then that festers, and because of their high blood sugar, their immune cells don't work, so they can't heal the wound.

And then they die from the wound.

And then they get a huge systemic infection that might lead to death or an amputation. So the majority of lower limb amputations are caused by diabetes, diabetic ulcers that are like wounds.

How many people have type two diabetes in the US? Do we know the number?

Oh yeah, well there's 128 million Americans with pre-diabetes, or type 2 diabetes. Of those 30 million have full-on type 2 diabetes.

30 million out of what? 300? What is that, 300 something?

Yeah, it's about 13% of the population.

Has type 2 diabetes.

Yeah, and it was less than 1% in the 50s and 60s.

And pre-diabetic, you're saying 100 million.

Yep. Around that.

What is pre-diabetic mean? Who is someone who might be pre-diabetic?

Well, it actually can be quite surprising. There are lots of young, healthy people walking around who look otherwise fit who have prediabetes and don't know it. 90% of people with prediabetes do not know that they have it. How do you know if you have it? Well, the easiest way to do it is through a blood test. So you basically get a fasting blood sugar test from your doctor, and if it's between 100 and 125 milligrams per deciliter of fasting glucose, that's considered prediabetes. 100 to 125.

100 to 125.

Where do you want to be at? What's a healthy range? So what's considered normal is 100 or below.

100 below.

But I would say that that is way too lenient of a range because what we've figured out is that people in the low end of normal are much less likely to develop long-term problems with like heart disease, stroke, or diabetes. So even if you're in the high normal range and your doctor says to you, oh, your fasting blood sugar is 97, you're great, you're normal.

That's very close to 100.

You see that as a huge red flag. You are metabolically dysfunctional if that's the case. Really where you want to shoot for is about 70 to 85 milligrams per deciliter.

Do people get a test that they can order and do this themselves? You have to go to a doctor.

For sure. What are these? You can actually buy it at CVS or at the pharmacy.

What's it called?

Prick your finger. Or what are these called? One drop. They're called glucometers. Glucometers.

You can just, they're like literally $20 on Amazon.

There's Keto Mojo.

You just prick your finger and then.

It'Ll tell you right away or in a few minutes. 5 seconds, yeah. So then it just tells you what your level's at. What it is. And it's cool to check it actually day to day, like for a few weeks, because one thing you'll find is that, let's say you have one poor night of sleep, like let's say you had a big work thing do and you got six hours instead of eight hours, your blood sugar in the morning might be 10 points higher. Come on. Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

Or let's say you had a really late meal the night before, your blood sugar might be higher the next morning. So what it starts putting together for you is this is very dynamic. If I did these activities day after day, year after year for my whole life. It builds.

I'm building.

Figure out what allows you to be in that 70 to 85 range. Maybe it's a really awesome workout in the middle of the day prior, and getting to bed a little bit earlier, and getting morning sunlight exposure, and doing some deep breathing in the morning, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh cool, my blood sugar is 72 milligrams per deciliter, or fasting for 16 hours or something like that. But figuring out what works for you to stay in that low range and then dial it in for as many days of the week as possible as you can. The other really interesting thing about fasting blood sugar as a test is that, you know, the body, like we were talking about with the insulin resistance, it's very adaptable. And when the body starts becoming insulin resistant, so it's saying we're seeing too much glucose around, we're producing, like we're gonna create an insulin block. What the body does It's like, well, we've got to get this glucose out of the bloodstream. So it starts producing more insulin. So your insulin levels will actually start rising as you become insulin resistant to push more of that glucose into the cells. And so a study in the Lancet, a big medical journal, showed that you can actually keep your blood sugar levels normal for like 13 years prior to them elevating, and all the while insulin is rising. but it's compensating to keep glucose low. Unfortunately, because we don't check fasting insulin in this country, we're missing that window where people are clearly becoming insulin resistant, but their glucose still looks normal on their yearly check. So to just make this concrete, you and I could both go to the primary care doctor and have a fasting glucose of 80 milligrams per deciliter. And so the doctor says to both of us, you're both in perfect health. if I'm really insulin resistant because I'm on that glucose roller coaster and I'm getting poor sleep and I'm chronically stressed and not managing it and I have childhood trauma that I haven't addressed, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff, I could be at 80, but I'm doing that by my insulin being elevated to like 35 or 40, and your insulin might be 2. So your body's not working hard at all to keep your insulin at 80, and my body is having to produce so much insulin. So, I am clearly on the path towards metabolic disease, diabetes, and all the associated conditions, heart disease, stroke, cancer, Alzheimer's, fatty liver disease, gout, infertility, erectile dysfunction, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're in the clear, but our doctor tells us that we're the same. So, this is why I recommend that every patient asks their doctor for a.

Fasting insulin check because you have a sense of what's actually happening under the hood. Have you seen anyone who is, the mind is under so much attack that they've been addicted to substances, they've tried to get off, and they're unable to stay consistent with healthier habits because they had some type of mental condition that was so aggressive that they were just like, I need to drink, I need to smoke because I've tried the other way and it doesn't work. Or have you seen people who have been successful time after time if they're able to follow the challenging practices consistently to improve the quality of their brain.

So, I would say they're simple practices. I've seen people- It's challenging for people to- I've seen people both ways.

Yeah.

Right.

And often it takes enough pain for them to change. But sometimes like losing their kids. But sometimes even when they lose their kids, they don't change because their brain has been highjacked. I mean, I don't know if you're like me, but one of the reasons I never did drugs is I never wanted something else to control my life.

Yeah, it was one of the reasons. I also never wanted to make an excuse if, because I would see people, especially playing football in college, guys would get drunk after a game, and then they would, they would not be well the next day at practice. That was one. I was like, I want to have an advantage, but then people would do things and they're like, cheat on their girlfriend. They'll While I was drunk, I'm sorry. I was like, if I cheat or do something bad, I want to own it. I want to be responsible for being a jerk or being a or whatever I did, as opposed to blaming a substance that did that thing.

So you want to be in control. Absolutely. Of your whole life. And that's what I want. I don't want anything else controlling me. And if you know these things are potentially addictive. It's like playing Russian roulette. It's like, I would never play Russian roulette. I'm like, that's stupid. you know, why would I increase my chance of trouble? I mean, you know, to think you're invulnerable.

What about the wave of plant medicine use and normalization of plant medicine, the people saying it's transformation of transformational work, helping them heal their pain of their past, helping them overcome trauma, helping them break through things they've never been able to mentally break through with? this work of ayahuasca, plant medicine, all these different things. What are your thoughts on that in terms of brain scan results?

Well, I actually did a study with ibogaine, which is one of the plant medications.

It's like an ayahuasca or?

It's like ayahuasca and it wasn't good from a brain perspective.

Really?

But I think it's gonna be an interesting, exciting part of psychiatry. And there are lots of studies that's just recently legalized. Not now, but in two years in Oregon. They legalized what?

Plant medicine? Plant medicine.

In Oregon. Mushrooms. Oh, they are.

Psilocybin.

In Oregon.

Yeah.

Microdosing.

Because they're so smart. The problem is, I wish, so the big innovations in psychiatry now are magic mushrooms and marijuana and more medications. And I'm like, how about diet exercise and learning how to not believe every stupid thing you think? Don't you think we should at least start?

There's three simple things. Let's start.

And sleep. Let's start with brain health. But I think it's going to be an interesting, exciting thing. But, you know, psychiatrists were really interested and excited about Valium. And they were really interested and excited about cocaine. Freud used cocaine. And they went, oh, they're interested and excited about marijuana. And they go, well, the brain has cannabinoid receptor sites. Well, the brain also has benzoreceptor sites and that didn't work out well. And the brain also has opiate receptor sites and that didn't work out. Well, we should be finding ways to naturally increase opiates and that's exercise.

Well, people say, well, plants are natural. You know, and this has been happening for centuries with our ancestors.

And cocaine is natural.

Right? Right.

I mean, just because... Sugar is natural, I guess. Sugar is natural. Right. I mean, is it helpful? That's the question.

So what about magic mushrooms or mushrooms are microdosing this? You know, I've heard mushrooms are good to eat, you know, food mushrooms.

Well, I actually make, I have a supplement company called BrainMD, and we make something called Smart Mushrooms. I put a scoop in my shake every morning. It's got lion's mane and cordyceps. and Rishi, and they have both immune system benefits and cognitive benefits. And I feel at 66, every bit as sharp as when I was 20.

So what's the difference between those mushrooms.

Versus the hallucinogenic effects?

What else in the brain when we hallucinate?

It activates, it actually turns on some of the limbic or emotional parts of the brain. And if you're doing it in a therapeutic environment, you might be able to reprocess some of those painful memories in a different way. You might be able to separate from them, get a different perspective of them. But there are other ways to do that that might not have side effects. Like there's a treatment for trauma I like called EMDR. I studied that in police office.

I hear amazing things from this.

So helpful.

And that does a similar strategy of.

Activates your emotional brain and then calms it. So I did a study with police officers who had PTSD from being involved in shootings. And most police officers don't want to be involved in shootings that it becomes traumatic for them if they hurt someone and like soldiers in war, and they were all off work. And on average of eight EMDR sessions, they all went back to work and it calmed down the emotional parts of their brain. So that's pretty exciting. There's another technique I use called Havening, which is bilateral hemisphere stimulation. That's what EMDR is. You bring up the trauma, get your eyes to go back and forth, and that trauma connects to another trauma, which can connect to another trauma. It's really interesting. But havening is just really simple. It's thinking about the trauma. I want people always to go into their pain, not away from their pain. And so, for example, I told you my dad died May 5th last year. And a couple of days later, I'm at my mom's house and we're just going through paperwork. I mean, it's what you do after somebody dies. Somebody, some idiot, had a picture of my dead father in the mortuary, in that stack of papers. And I'm just, and all of a sudden I find it and it hits me and it just bothered me. And a couple of hours later, I realized it was bothering me. It was circling in my head. And so I teach my patients this. It's Havening. It's like, think about what's bothering you. and for 30 seconds, stimulate both hemispheres of your brain. So as I do this, it's stimulating that side. If I do that, stimulate while you bring up the trauma and do that like up to six times. And after the first time, I'm like, that's the last picture my dad will ever see.

Wow.

And it was okay. And then I did it twice more and the picture became my favorite picture. of my dad because he was at peace. And I slept like a baby that night. And the picture never bothered me again. It's just simple. And there's these simple techniques that everybody should know. Why do you have to be sick to learn how to be well? Shouldn't we have, and we have a high school course called Brain Thrive by 25. that we teach kids how to love and care for their brains, their minds, their relationships and be purposeful.

How much does alcohol, smoking or marijuana or psychedelics actually affect lifespan? Do we have enough research on this yet or?

Well, we do on tobacco smoking. Obviously, it's very clear that's a decade off your life. And what's interesting is that what we're learning about these various things that you can do to hurt yourself or to protect yourself is that what's happening is that your body is aging at a different rate. So smokers, you can measure it, are older biologically than people who've never smoked. That's why they look older too. Wow. We can measure that now in my lab. If I took your blood, I could tell you how old you are biologically, not just chronology.

I want to do that. I saw you post this on Instagram that you're like 46.

Is that right? Or you're 42? Or what is it? I went down to, what was it, 44? I think. Okay.

It bounces around, but it's usually a decade younger than I thought I was.

So.

So what do you do? You take a blood sample, like.

And then you what? Measure the blood. There's two ways of doing it. There's one company that I advise called Inside Tracker, and that's what I use. I've had that too. Yeah. You've done that? Yeah. Yeah. So they come. to your home or you donate and then you get this readout of, I think it's 40 different parameters and they use an algorithm and tell you how old you are. So I'm 42 or something like that. I'm in the top 2% of people my age for youthfulness. So I'm happy with that. Just dust it off, a little brag over there.

I like it, yeah. Yeah, well, you better be if you're researching this and the top scientists in the world on this.

Oh, yeah. I don't like to brag. That's not what Australians and scientists do. But what I do want to say is I use my body as an experiment. Yeah. And trying to be a role model. And I've been optimizing my lifestyle for 20 years now based on this feedback from InsideTracker for the last 12-13 years. And you can see the graphs of things going out of the optimal zone and then I make a change based on science and it comes back or even better.

So we know from smokers that their biological age is older when they smoke is what you're saying, right?

Yeah, well, that's one test. The Insight Tracker test is what I do routinely every few months. But there's a new type of test that my colleagues and in my lab we've developed. It's called the DNA methylation test. It's also known as the Horvath test named after my friend, Steven Horvath at UCLA. The way to think of this is if you've ever heard of the epigenome. I've heard of that. These are the control systems that control our DNA. It turns out that that system you can measure, it's chemicals on your DNA that change over time predictably. And we've just developed a way to measure that 100 times cheaper than it was before. And I'm gonna bring this test to the public. So, that's cool. People can test their biological age. At home or something?

It should be a cheek swab.

That's what we're developing.

So, you don't have to prick or take blood or anything. You do a cheek swab.

Exactly. And then you ship it in or something? Yeah, you'll put post it in, and then you get, hopefully just a week later or less, here's your credit score for your body. That's cool. And then even better, here's how you. How do you slow it down or reverse it based on everything we know about you. Wow. That's cool. We'll take you on that journey. So do this.

Eat this, swallow this. That is cool.

I gotta take that test. Yeah, well, you can get on the.

Wait list if you want.

Okay, there's a website because we are taking. names right now. We may do some studies with early adopters too.

That's cool. Where's the list?

It's called Tally. T-A-L-L-Y tallyhealth.com and the reason I'm excited about it is it's very hard to focus on what works because we have no idea. You exercise, you hope that it's good. Is it too much, too little? If I eat this, does it help me? We need a dashboard for our bodies and that's what these give you.

That is really cool. Okay. So, We know that smoking makes you age biologically. That's why it makes you look older smoking. What about drinking alcohol? We've talked about wine and the substance in wine that could be supportive, but alcohol in general, does that affect biological age and aging?

Well, it all depends on quantity. One glass a day, most doctors would say, especially if it's red wine. It's fine. And the alcohol actually can help with the cardiovascular system, reduces bad cholesterol, and more importantly, raises the good cholesterol HDL.

This is for red wine.

And the alcohol in white wine does a little bit of good too.

But beer.

So beer will raise the levels of uric acid, which is a breakdown product of a protein breakdown product that you can pee out. But if you have too much beer and other types of food that contain a lot of this type of protein, you will raise your uric acid level. So why does that matter? It's becoming very clear that if you have high uric acid levels, your body will age faster.

We just had Dr. David Perlmutter on who has a book about uric acid talking about this is one of the root causes of poor health and aging faster and things like that. So, I'll talk to him a lot. You talk to him a lot?

Yeah, yeah, I actually was one of the first people to read his book before it came out.

Yeah, it's really good.

It blew my mind. I now measure my uric acid levels. You can get little test strips. You can just buy them on Amazon.

You just pee on a stick.

You just sit on it and 10 seconds later you see.

You see your levels.

Uric acid levels.

And so the lower the level, the better. The higher the level means there's risk for What?

Everything, according to David, it's really bad for cancers and heart disease mainly. But I think he's right that it's a sign of accelerated aging.

The higher the uric level, the faster you're gonna be aging.

Yeah.

And a larger amount of consumption of alcohol, specifically beer, I'm hearing, raises that level.

Beer in particular has a lot of the chemicals in it. that will raise uric acid, unfortunately. And that's from David Perlmutter. He gave me a list of foods. I said, so beer on there?

Like, oh, that's so... Now, is there any benefit to beer in biology, in science? Does it help you improve the quality of your health? Does your brain get better? Does your body, your system get better? Does it make you younger at all? Or are there no benefits to beer biologically and in your brain?

There are benefits because there's alcohol in there and a little bit of alcohol is good for your cardiovascular system.

But there's other things that's good for your cardiovascular system too, right? That you don't need.

So beer on the list of alcohols is at the bottom for health. Got it. Mostly, unless it's full of sugar, like those very sweet wines I think would be a problem. But beer does have a lot of vitamin B, B group vitamins, B3, tons of it.

But you can get that in other ways too.

You can.

So, what can you do? I mean, you gotta live as well.

Right, right.

I don't prescribe a life that's prolonging and feels longer. You gotta live a little.

Right, right. Enjoyment, the enjoyment of the richness of life, yeah.

Right, though I am trying not to drink alcohol these days.

I've never been drunk in my life.

Yeah, amazing.

Never been drunk. I don't find it amazing because I just never found the I never had the desire to do it. I tasted some when I was 16 and I was like, I don't understand why I would ever drink this. Plus it was also for me, maybe that's one of the reasons in your mind I look younger, I look like I haven't aged more, is because I found it as an advantage in sports. When everyone else was drinking, I was like, oh, it's weakening their immune system, it's making them slower. Mentally, this will give me an edge. in athletics. They were hung over after games in practice and I was like, I'm gonna be sharp. And so I just kept on with it. I was like, this is just gonna make me sharper. Now, I have my other vice. I use, you know, sugar in other ways is my vice. So I'm not perfect, but does alcohol make you look older, too?

In excess.

In excess. Gotcha.

Yeah, yeah. So a little bit every day is okay. A little bit. But most doctors Physicians would say if you overdo it, you will age. And actually what you do as a researcher is you look at people who live a long time and compare them to either their twin, which has been done, or family members. Interesting. Yeah. And actually how you live your life has a massive impact on how long you live. There's a twin study. They took identical twins, genetically identical, in Denmark and they said, okay, let's look at them through their life. And there were massive differences in how they looked and how long they lived. And when they went back to see what the causes were, they could figure out, first of all, that 80% of their lifespan was determined by how they lived, not their genetics.

You mean the way they felt about themselves, the people they hung out with, their environment, the activities they took on, or what do you mean?

Well, mostly their lifestyle, what they ate, did they smoke, do they drink, do they exercise? Those that do- Did they sleep well, all that stuff? Right, and those that did all the good things, the same genetics, twins born the same day, one could live 10.

Years longer than the other. Now this is what I'm curious about, were these twins hanging out all the time? Or were they, because usually when you're hanging out with someone all the time, you pick up the similar habits, right? You pick up a similar lifestyle habit as your parents, as your partner, and you kind of eat the same things. It's really hard to be like, I'm gonna drink every day and I'm not gonna drink every day if you're living.

Together and in the same room, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I wonder how that is. Maybe they. They got separated at Birth or something. Interesting. But it does tell you a lot that the fact that 80 of our future health is in our own hands is. Is liberating. It's really. Because often we think, oh, it's not going to make a big difference. It really makes a big difference how you live your life every day. Focus on that. And one thing that I do is I look at my future self and I ask myself, What's that guy saying to me today if he could speak to me? What's he saying?

Please don't eat that.

Exactly.

Please don't drink that anymore. You had enough, like you're gonna hurt.

Me in 10 years.

That's how you need to think about it. It's coaching yourself 10, 20, 30 years out.

Right.

It's interesting, I asked David Perlmutter, I said, what are some things you wish you would have done sooner to improve the quality of your health? And he was like, flossing. He was like, and I didn't go deeper into that, but I remember him saying that. I was like, there's wisdom in whatever it is. Maybe he had some gum issues or something he had to deal with at one point that was really affecting him for a year or two. I don't know. I'm just making this up. But if he can go back, he'd be like, I wish you would have done this better so I didn't have to suffer later.

Right? Yeah.

What are the things you've done or you're doing now that your 10 year old self will be so happy?

For.

But if he was in front of you right now, he'd just be hugging you and high-fiving you non-stop the things you're doing that he will appreciate in 10 years. And then what are a few things that he's gonna say? Man, I really wish you wouldn't do that right now.

Oh, yeah. Okay. All right, so let's see. So I'm. So I measure myself so I can speak scientifically, not just that it makes me feel good. It's the. The one meal, one main meal a day.

He would be grateful for.

I'm sure of it. And as a result, I'm leaner and, you know, more ripped. I hate to say that.

You look lean.

I am lean.

You look really lean.

I've gone shredded over the last two years from 150 pounds to 133. Yeah.

You look leaner even from when I, the first time I had you on, your face is leaner and chiseled.

Yeah. I don't think I can lose any. I want to lose anymore.

Yeah.

I need to go back to to the gym and do a little bit more.

So the one meal a day, but you weren't doing one meal a day.

What, five, ten years ago? No, I only started during the pandemic. Yeah, this is new for me too. It's hard, actually, when you begin. Very hard. You feel hungry because you've got those crashes that make you really hungry and you've got this hormone called ghrelin that makes you hungry. But once you get through that, it takes about three weeks. So anyone who tries it, make sure that you don't give up. early. Just power through and then your liver will wake up.

One main meal a day.

So that's one. The other thing I think that he will be happy is don't eat sugary foods. Oh, man. Yeah. Don't eat that cake. So at a restaurant, when they say, do you want dessert? I always say no. But then I'm hoping that someone at the table orders what I want. Yeah, but that's all you. All I I need to taste it. I don't need to fill myself with a cake.

Gotcha. Because you still want to enjoy your life and live a full life, but you don't want to in 10 years be like, why do they eat cake every day?

It's not worth it. Yeah. Really? Your future self will thank you for it. Lifting weights, I know you do that, so I need to do more of that. I got a standing desk, so most of the day I'm standing, which is great. Again, you have to get used to it. You'll feel tired for the first a few weeks.

Yes.

Your legs will. I'm now mostly focused on eating plants.

When did you start that?

That's recently.

Eating mostly plants.

Yeah, I've switched. I love meat. I wish that I could eat more. But you just got to look at the science. There's some really good studies of thousands of people who just look at how long people live and what they eat. And, I mean, it's not even an argument.

But there's so many people that bring in the argument, well, all these people have cured these diseases or whatever, you know, gotten rid of these things from meat only. But people make the argument, right? Like you see it online, people making the argument for meat, meat, meat. So where are they finding these research studies of people living longer on an only meat diet?

I don't know.

But you're not seeing them. You're not seeing studies of anyone that lives over a hundred that all they do is eat meat.

Well, there might be one person or two, but when you look at 10,000 people, what they eat, it's the vegan and the pescatarian that win out.

In the blue zones, right?

Yeah, and the numbers are something like that. You drop it down to you've got 88% less chance, or actually it's 12% chance for most diseases. So most diseases are protected by these diets. Really?

Wait a minute, 88% less chance of what?

Of dying at any one point in the age range of the study, which.

Oh, wow. Which is by eating by being a pescatarian.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's vegan pescatarian. Those are the best. Then above that would be actually pescatarian was better than vegetarian. A little bit of meat seemed to help, but it has to be fish.

What's the omega-3s in there, right?

Yeah.

And. And particularly a lake acid is good. which is found in avocados and olive oil. That activates one of the protective enzymes that we study in the lab. Which acid? OLAIC, O-L-A-I-C. What is some of that.

But not a lot of it.

It's a monounsaturated fatty acid or a MUFA. If you have a bit of olive oil, there's a supplement online that I get that has high levels of oleic acid in it that I take every day. Okay, cool. With the DHA and EPA, all that stuff, yeah. All that good stuff.

Yes.

Okay. So that's my fish intake.

Pil.

You don't eat fish. You eat very little.

Well, you know, I'm evolving my. My diet. So I've. I've gone from a Mediterranean diet over the last 10 years to the last two, three months to all plant-based no dairy and. Yeah, no meat. And I'm just seeing what happens to my body. I'm measuring things. It's an experiment. Yes. It's not a philosophy. And if things don't work out biologically, I'll go back. I mean, I'd love to go back to a steak. I'm Australian after all. But, you know, I'm driven by science and that's all that is.

Yeah. Okay, so you got these four. Was there another thing that your future self would thank you for? One meal a day, don't eat sugary foods. That's gonna be one of the most challenging for me. Lifting weights, eating mostly plants. Was there anything else?

Get control over psychological stress.

Oh, yeah. why is this so important?

Well, the main problem is you have high levels of cortisol when you're stressed out psychologically. And it's clear that people who have high levels of, really high levels of stress are chronically ill and even it accelerates gray hair. That's actually a fact. It's not just a myth. You really are getting older if you have stress.

Really? So this scientifically. proven that if you're stressed out all the time or more frequently, you're gonna get older biologically.

Correct.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah.

And can you reverse gray hair without dyes?

Yes.

Really?

Well, not routinely, but there are examples of that. There are some drugs that have shown in the clinic that make hair go gray from gray to Brown. The best example I can tell you is that when people are stressed out, let's say they're in the banking world and they're losing their minds, you can find hairs that start to turn gray. Okay? So you look at them and they're a little bit gray at the bottom. Oh, good, turning gray, okay. Then they get given a vacation and they go away for a couple of weeks. And guess what happens to the hair shaft?

It gets brown.

It's brown again.

Come on.

You can find these gray brown segments of hair. Interesting. In people. Yeah. And what they tracked it down to was that the cells that make the hair pigment start to shut down, but they can be reinvigorated. But I suspect once you've been gray for a number of years, it's really.

Hard to reverse that.

It's hard to reverse that, yeah. But, you know, I'm the first person to say aging is not unidirectional. In my lab, we're driving it forwards and backwards at will. It's not really difficult anymore once you figure it out.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple podcast as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.