Slow Aging by Optimizing These Redox Reactions, with Dr. Monisha Bhanote

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Hello and welcome to the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast. Ed's obviously not with me today, so no star sightings, but. But I have Dr. Manisha Benot. She is a quintuple board certified physician. She's renowned for her expertise in cellular health, integrative medicine, and longevity. And she's the best selling author of the Anatomy of Wellbeing. She masterfully integrates ancient wisdom with modern science through her telehealth medical clinic and global wellness workshops and retreats. She empowers individuals to achieve optimal health and inspires a holistic approach to health and vitality across top online media publications. But more than that, she's my friend and I'm delighted to have her on the podcast today. So, Monisha, welcome. I'm so excited you're here.

Thank you so much.

All right, so we're going to talk about longevity, cellular health. So first question, how'd you get into this?

So I have spent decades looking under the microscope at what I call angry cells. Basically, human cells are examined for disease, whether that is blood cells, whether that is body fluid cells, whether that is tissue cells, from like a colonoscopy, a lung biopsy, whatever that is. In simple terms, when you have disease, your cells are angry. So I have expertise specifically also in cytopathology. I trained in the Upper east side at Cornell, a very well known cytopathology laboratory there. And we were looking at the single cells and how they transform and make disease. So for me, I could literally stick a little needle in you, take out a few cells and go, are these cells happy or are they angry? Right. So that's what I've been doing for decades and decades. And while doing that, part of it was realizing that, all right, you have a diagnosis, which is amazing. I can give you this beautiful diagnosis with this long report. But then people are going, all right, I'm getting treated whether, you know, the worst case of the angriest cells is cancer cells, and I'm getting treated for this. But Then why is the disease coming back? Or, you know, why are we having recurrence 10 years later? Or why. When I'm experiencing reflux and, you know, it doesn't need to be cancer, when I'm experiencing reflux, I'm taking medication for it. But then I'm still going in every six months for a biopsy just for it to progress into something worse. So that's where I'm going. Well, wait a minute. Nobody is telling them that all of this is preventable, right? It's all preventable by understanding how our body works on a cellular level, understanding things like the reado reactions that we are experiencing every single day. You know, these thousands and billions of chemical reactions that are happening and going, all right, where can I take my lifestyle, the things that I'm doing every day, from how I move my body, what I fuel my body with, how I sleep, how I detoxify, how can I take those and apply them so my cells are not angry? So that's what leads me to where I am today.

Okay, and so you mentioned the redox reaction, and I'm assuming most of our listeners are not deep bioscience people. So what's the redox reaction? Can you explain it for the listeners?

Yeah. Okay, so. So we'll do the little scientific explanation of it first, and then we will do the simplified so you can understand what it is. But, like, so when I'm speaking with my patients, I'm talking to them, I always have my little cell model here, right? And we're talking about the cell. And you have trillions of these cells in your body. Okay? So many. But what's happening inside those cells are reactions, chemical reactions. And a redox reaction is basically a process where one molecule inside that cell is losing an electron and one is gaining it. That's the boring science part of it, really. We want to think about it in a more like, how do we put that simply in our body, Right? So if we think about a busy, busy city, let's think about Boston. I was just in Boston last week with you, right? Busy city, a lot going on. There's traffic lights. There's a lot of traffic.

Traffic, just traffic.

Moving cars, and there's people walking and there's buildings using electricity. And it's basically like this, like, city with bustling activity. Well, that's what's happening in each and every one of your cells. These are redox reactions that they're doing different things. They might be removing toxins from your body. They might be making proteins for your body, they might be converting malform DNA and removing that. So there's a lot of stuff going on and there's specific redox reactions. I mean, we have five main ones that we can really talk about and deep dive in. So we understand. But these are just processes happening every day without our control in our body.

So it is really such a great analogy that you're talking about. There's so many things happening here and it really is essentially a symphony of everything working together in an ideal world, everything working together for all the processes to happen properly.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Okay, and now when we apply that to longevity, how does that map on?

Yeah, absolutely. So, so let me tell you about the five main redox reactions then, because if you understand those, then you can go, oh, I can live a lot longer because I can get this part of my body, these cells to work. So the one that we're doing every day is cellular respiration, right? We're breathing every day, right? And we're fueling our body. So when we eat something and we breathe, right, These are just everyday processes. The glucose that we have from our food and the oxygen from the air that we breathe converts into something called ATP energy for the cell, right? It's that simple. So when we're thinking about it from a perspective of like, I think about, like nowadays, I'm hearing from a lot of women, oh, I'm so fatigued. I just don't have the energy to do all the things that I need to do. And we'll definitely get into some of the solutions, but I want them to understand what's going on here, right? So think of your. And I'm sure people have heard of this analogy before, right? Your car and I talk a lot about this in my book, right? We take such great care of our car, we take it in for an oil change, we get it washed and detailed, and if there's snow out, we make sure we get the underside cleaned, otherwise it won't work as properly, right? So the same thing is happening in our body. We need to give it proper oxygen, clean air, oxygen, as well as proper proper fuel or glucose in order to create this energy. When anything along that pathway gets altered, we're not producing the energy we want. That's why, you know, kids who have younger cells who maybe have not been exposed to some of these environmental toxins that we have, you don't really hear them complaining about energy. It's as we get older, because what happens is the cell that's. There are different human cells in our body. Have gone through a time where they just haven't had the ingredients they need for these processes to work. So one is cellular respiration that we're doing every single day.

I just want to point out that it is not sufficient in the world to simply go for your annual visit once a year. That is not what we're talking about. We're talking about an ongoing invested behav. Get into your health and you do what your health needs. It's not like once a year, check, we're done. So just to. Just to bring it in, because I had this thought that people are like, oh, that's like my primary kinda, except your primary, you know, all the time.

I think we're both of the same philosophy where we're talking preventative, like there is no choice. Nowadays you have to choose preventative medicine. You have to be proactively taking care of your body regularly and not waiting for disease to. For yourselves to be angry, basically.

So what you're talking about is A, much easier to prevent, and B, if you don't prevent, you're going to need to react. And it's always costs more, takes longer and takes much more energy. So it's easier to actually get into the habit of preventing rather than reacting. But I always say to my patients, they're like, should I do it? I'm like, I don't know. What's your philosophy? If your philosophy is wait till something's bad enough and then react, no, you know, you're not bad enough. But if you feel like you want to stay vital, vibrant, healthy, alive, able and interested in intimacy till you're at least 100, then, yeah, now's the time. And it's always a good time to intervene. Now is always the right time.

No, absolutely. So, and then the next one would be oxidative stress, which. That one's like my favorite. Right. So when we're thinking of antioxidant defense, you know, in practical terms, if you really want to think about how somebody is aging, you look at their skin, right? Because we can see that on an external factor, aging, it happens on our skin, but it also happens deep in our cells, right? So when we're getting premature graying or premature wrinkles and all this kind of stuff, that's an external representation of what's happening internally at that cellular level. And oxidative stress, we are exposed to every day from, once again, environmental toxins, pollution, you know, smoking, radiation, all these different things. And we need to counterbalance that with antioxidants. And when I'm Working with patients and we're testing their antioxidant levels. They are beyond depleted. So that's another thing. So we got antioxidant defense system. And then the third aspect, and I know you're, you're very familiar with this, is really detoxification of the liver, right? So the liver, think about it like this. You know, when we go and we filter our water, we're cleaning our water so we can drink clean water, but our liver is essentially like a filter. It's cleaning our bloodstream and it's removing things. Whether that's a medication that you took or something else, alcohol, you know, whatever you're exposed to, it's cleaning what the body doesn't need, right? So that is also another kind of chemical reaction, redox reaction that's happening in the body then, which, you know, we have seen quite a bit of an increase in immune related diseases. The immune response is a fourth type of redox reaction. And this is where my friends called macrophages or phagocytes, you know, another type of cell go and kind of gobble up and clean up all the pathogens. Now they, they are extreme, basically essential for fighting infections. The problem happens is when they're cleaning up, they can also cause collateral damage when it's like so much going on. So when, when you have an infection, something bad is happening and there's a team that goes in and cleans it up, right? So now we can think about the city of Boston and there's something bad going on in a building and we've got to go in and we've got to take out the bad guys, right? So now a healthy immune system that knows what it's doing is not confused because has all its cellular reactions and everything working optimally will go in, take out the bad guys and boom, it's all done. Now if we have a team like the bad boys from this movie, what they go in and do is they will clean it up. There's no doubt they will clean it up, but they will leave an aftermath of, you know, damaged building, you know, where it's like a city that needs to be rebuilt again, right? So, and that's because there's this overproduction of reactive oxygen species, right? So now once again, back to chemical reactions. But that's really what's happening. And people don't realize because, you know, if you actually understand it from like a practical perspective and you go, oh, okay, if this is happening, how can I take care of it so I don't age as fast as Everyone else. Right, so that is the fourth one, and then the last one is simply redox signaling. Right. And that is cell to cell communication that's happening. So it's kind of like text messages going on between your cells. And are they communicating with each other and are they knowing what to do? Right. So do they know that they need to replicate? Do they know that they need to die off or have apoptos? Those. Those are the basics. I mean, that's what's happening billions and billions of times on this deep cellular level.

So what are some of the things. When you think about these five behaviors occurring in your body millions of times, billions of times every day, what is, what are the things to do to improve your chances that it's going to go right, and minimize your chance of chronic disease?

Oh, there's a dozen things you can do and I. You can pick one, you can pick them all. But let's. Let's start with some of them. Right? So always I go to lifestyle perspective. Right. So what are we doing every day if we are thinking about lifestyle? I would love for you to think first about mindfulness. And what I mean by that is you don't have to meditate. I know some people just do. They cannot get into this meditation space. So you can be mindful with doing anything. And the purpose of mindfulness is really to reduce the amount and production of your stress hormones like cortisol. Because if you can reduce those cortisol, you can decrease the amount of reactive oxygen species that you are creating, which then will reduce this imbalance in these redox reactions. Right. So we're not just meditating to like, you know, sit in a space, face and, you know, look cool, which it does look cool, but we're doing it so it literally seeps into each and every one of our cells.

So can you achieve that from. From breath work? Can you achieve it from going for a walk outside or for going to the gym? Like, what. What's the line in terms of what will and won't accomplish that?

So for everybody, it's going to be different, right? Like, it's kind of like you need to know what your triggers are. Your TR triggers are required for you to have self awareness, right? So for you to go, all right, is my trigger. Being in traffic is my trigger. Walking into the office every day and building in tools there. Like, I know when I used to drive into the hospital, I would sit in the doctor's parking lot for like 10 minutes before I walked in and just do breathing exercises with my Eyes closed because I knew what the day had and I'm going, all right, I got to keep this, this cortisol down because you're always bombarded with stuff and really dropping those things in and protective times throughout the day. Going for a active meditation, which would be like a walk, right. And just doing a walk where there's no external like factors involved, like you're not listening to something, you're not talking to somebody on the phone and you're just really being present with yourself. So and then breathing of course is, is really the easiest one for people to start. You know, where it's focused breath. Right. Because technically if you're focusing on your breathing and there's so many different types that we can, you know, if we're talking about Nadi Shodhana, which is alternate nostril breathing or the 47 8th breath, you know, any of these types of box breathing, there's so many different types. Pick the one that you like because if you're focusing on that, you can't focus on the stressors in your life. Right. So that is definitely one way to reduce the reactive oxygen species and kind of balance those redox reactions that are happening. So that's one. Mindfulness meditation.

Okay, so what are some of the other lifestyle practices that improve the redox reactions?

Absolutely. So meditation is one. If you don't want to meditate, that's okay, that's fine. Exercise, right. We are living in a sedentary lifestyle, right. And when we are sedentary, that is not good. It's creating this redox imbalance again. So really exercise will help create that new balance that you want. So and it will also help get rid of the excess things that are created in the, you know, I'm using this word redox quite a bit, but, but I want you to realize there's other chemical reactions going on there as well. Right. So really exercise will boost your antioxidant defense systems. So any kind of exercise and you don't need to all be going to hit training and orange theory, you know, even if it's just a walk every day. Right. We need to move our body.

Yeah, I had read that actually, I had read that a 10 minute burst of exercise, whatever it is, three times a day is as effective as 30 to 40 minutes all at one stretch. So you don't. So it doesn't have to look a certain way and it doesn't have to be a certain way, it just has to be. Right, like just get it done.

Absolutely. Just the body is meant to move. Move the body. The body gets a little angry, but really what's happening is the cells get angry. So, like, when people are experiencing things like joint pain or stiffness and that kind of stuff, it's because you haven't moved the body and the body fluids. Now, instead of being nice and moving, they're stuck. And as we age, they get more stuck because, well, frankly, our cells get confused and they become stiffer. So our fibroblasts, which are living cells in our tissues, they. They. They get a little angry, too. So that. That would be. So mindfulness, some sort of meditation, some sort of exercise. And this is where you. You really make it personalized. And exercise can be something like dancing. If. If you like putting on music and dancing in your kitchen, that's fine. Call it exercise. It's moving your body. We don't need to get dressed up in a cute little outfit, go to the gym, and we need to move our body. We've already talked about breathing exercises, and the one thing I want to keep in mind is that those breathing exercises, in addition to lowering stress, they also improve oxygen supply. So most of us are really breathing from this upper half of our body. We're not doing deep diaphragmatic breathing. And oxygen is necessary to kind of fuel all the cells in the body, right? So that's another place breathing comes in and can reduce oxidative stress. So, like, I know, because I do this often at the gym is when I'm working out with my trainer, and I'll be like, oh, you know, my heart rate's going up, and I'm feeling a little, like, loopy dizzy, you know, because my heart rate's going up. And she's like, you forgot to breathe, Monisha. And I'm like, oh. So then the next set, instead of just doing it, I'm like, every breath, you hear every breath, right? Because we do. We forget to breathe. And then that next set, oh, all of a sudden, I'm not dizzy, right? Because now there's blood flow going to my brain, there's oxygen going to my brain. So it's really that simple. Another one, sleep. Okay. And sleep is really important because once again, when you're sleeping, you know, these little angry cells that are here and the misfolded proteins that are in here and the DNA, that's just not doing what it's supposed to do. Your body is repairing oxidative damage when you sleep, right? So when you don't get that sleep. And I know there's certain stages in our life you know, perimenopause, menopause, our sleep, we're staring at the ceiling at three o' clock in the morning, right? And you're aging a lot quicker, right? So really making sure you have taken all the precautions and tools, whether that is getting your phone, your tv, your pets out of your room, you know, making your environment proper and conducive for sleep, whether that requires a sleep mask, whatever it is, lowering the temperature in the room, all of those things will play a difference. I have a specific meditation that I listen to every night. It's 30 minutes long, I'm out, I think like within 10 minutes. Like I can never get through it. Like I'm always somehow stopping at like the same, same point. But it is, you know, it's vital for, for sleep and recovery there. And then another one is nutrition. Okay, I'm not going to get into diet wars. Everybody has their preference in diet and it should be personalized. Your diet should be personalized. But what I want you to do is really think about the food you eat and how you feel after you eat it. So be mindful with your food, see how, how you're digesting. Are you feeling bloated after it? Do you have headaches after it often? I find when I'm doing blood testing for people that the ingredients, when we're thinking of antioxidants like things like vitamin A, vitamin C, glutathione levels, that kind of stuff people are very depleted in. And part of that's going to come from your diet, right? So removing, you know, I think we can all agree, remove all processed food, remove fast food, remove poor quality oils, you know, and if we can start there, you're already winning the game, right? And then, you know, when you want to go to the next level and be like, all right now I, you know, I want to be showing up at my 30 year reunion and looking better than everybody else. Now we go to the next level, right? And then another overlooked thing is social connections. I think social connections are so critical for one, lowering that stress response. But also another thing that will help with that redox balance is oxytocin. And when we are in happy, loving relationships, whether that's with our partner, our friends, even our pets, we are releasing a chemical that our body loves, right? So rather than releasing cortisol when we're at work with our colleagues that we don't like, you know, we need to make sure we're balancing that. So those are some basics I think, you know, there's a number of Others, you know, from managing your time to reduce stress, hobbies. I'm finding often that depending on the generation you're in, some people have spent so many years raising a family and now everybody's out of the house and they're like, I don't have any hobbies. Well, think about what you really enjoyed. Find a hobby, because that will also decrease your aging span. Right. So, and these are all things like that you see when it comes to, like the blue zones, there's community there. Right. They're eating clean food, it's not processed food. They have those social connections. I'm sure they're not thinking about redox reactions, but I know they're walking and they're moving their body and they're sleeping and you know all these basics that before you go and say, oh, I need to take the latest anti aging stem cell and this supplement and all, none of that's going to work without having this set up.

Yeah. I always say to people, you have the foundations of your health and if you dishonor them or if you don't acknowledge and take those into account, the best supplements in the world are pretty useless if you abuse your body. And so. Right. So eat, sleep, eat, sleep, move your body, move your bowels, have good relationships with people, have a purpose, have a future you're living into. Those are the foundations. And then deal with the functional medicine, things that are out of whack from a functional medicine approach. Make sure your gut health, your liver health, your adrenal health is in balance. And then you get to, how do you optimize? Because you can't do it without the basics, which it sounds so boring. And honestly, Monisha, every podcast we have, it comes back to these conversations, literally.

It, it is, it's because everybody's trying to get to the end, like, and they want to get to the top of the mountain, but they forgot that there's steps there in order to build that mountain. Right. So, and you're gonna fall, you're gonna fall. And without having that foundation there. It's critical. I always say to people, like, I describe supplements, like, say, for example, you're going Christmas tree shopping and nobody goes and buys a brown sickly tree that's sitting in the corner. You buy like the biggest, like the, like, maybe if it's like a, you know, a blue fur, whatever it is like this beautiful smelling tree that's lush. Why? Because that one's going to hang your decorations better. It's, it's, it's not going to droop it's going to be like looking great. And those supplements are your decorations. Your body is that foundation and that foundation is what you fuel it with. I know, I know. I see your book the Dirty Girl behind you.

Right.

It's the soil. It's. It's our terrain. It's. It's. What are all these things we are putting in our body and exposing our body to that's going to build that beautiful foundation? A message that is also critical, and we touched upon it a little bit, is that everything we put in our body and on our body is going to influence the way our cells function. I have a hashtag. I call it hashtag cell care. Right. This is the time to really take care of your cells. You only have so many of them. And before they get confused, angry and die off or go rogue and create things like cancer. Right. So medication will affect it. I'm thinking of, you know, younger girls who have been on birth control for decades, you know, because that was just what we did. Well, a lot of them now are depleted. And B vitamins, right. Because they weren't told that, oh, you're taking this medication, you might need to replenish with this because your body is utilizing this based off of these chemical reactions. Same thing with glutathione. If you're taking certain medications, your body is getting depleted. This happens with each and every medication, from things like steroids to pain medications to the things that people are taking regularly. And that's when they are often not getting tested. And that's where functional medicine comes in. So I don't consider functional medicine as an alternative. I think of it as a necessity to really look at the body as a whole. Right. So for me, it functional falls under the integrative. We're looking at the holistic person from all of these places and yes, that will deplete you. So we need to know what your body needs in order to replenish it 100%.

I love how you said it. So tell me where people can find out more about you and we'll make sure to put all of this in the show notes.

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm easy to find. My website is doctorvanote.com my social media is Dr. Benon. And if you want to come hang out with me in person, where we kind of put all these practices into play, I do have retreats that I do worldwide, which is kind of a fun way to take your mindless habits and really turn them into intentional lifestyle rituals around cellular health and longevity. So. And of course Gut health, because that's critical as well.

This is great. Thank you for being here, sharing a pearls of wisdom. B, you know, the seminar, the in person retreat that you have coming up, I think sounds amazing. So people who are looking for a transformation, I think that would be the great thing to start with. And my book, of course, where can they buy it?

This is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, all the book retailers, the anatomy of well being. And I've really simplified the science in there so you can understand. All right, this is what's happening. But now these are the steps that, that I can go take. Whether it is, you know, this type of nutrition because my body's feeling a lack of this, or it's this exercise. And no, you don't all have to go to the gym to do what I'm saying in this book. Right. And I also go through all the detoxification pathways in there. So think of it as a handbook. It's not one of those you read and put down. This is, this is kind of the, the, the book you didn't receive because you weren't told. You needed to learn how your body worked. Right.

This is the reference manual for Life for Health.

It is, absolutely. Thank you.

Okay, well, thank you for being here. We'll make sure everything's in the show notes and then for the listeners, thanks for listening. Be sure to rate us if you like the show. Rate us five star. Don't rate us two star or four star. Write us five star and be sure to tune in again. So thanks for listening to the Feel Freaking amazing podcast. Our guest today is Dr. Monisha Bonoat, MD, FCAP, a B O I M. She's wicked smart, as we say in Boston. So, Monisha, thanks.

Thank you so much.

Wendy, were you inspired and empowered today?

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