The Longevity Expert: Is There A Link Between Milk & Cancer? + Ozempic Can Really Mess You Up!

1. 0:00 – 2:06

   Intro

   1. SBSteven Bartlett0:00

      What's your thoughts on milk?

   2. MHDr Mark Hyman0:01

      It's problematic. Current dairy is not something we should consume. So you might not know this but...

   3. SBSteven Bartlett0:07

      Ha. That's crazy.

   4. MHDr Mark Hyman0:09

      Dr. Mark Hyman.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett0:11

      One of the world-leading doctors in functional medicine. And an expert in helping people understand how they can live their longest, healthiest life. What are your thoughts on its impact?

   6. MHDr Mark Hyman0:20

      So we have a massive obesity problem, and we don't have any good solutions. And so something comes along that makes you lose weight, that's a huge, attractive thing. But the side effect profile on this is scary. People are not aware that... Ah. And by the way, they're thinking of giving it to five-year-old kids, which is, is terrifying. But we live in a toxic landscape of enticing, addictive, highly processed food, which is why 93% of us have some metabolic dysfunction. We know that causes mental health issues, depression, anxiety, ADD, gun violence.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett0:50

      Shots fired.

   8. MHDr Mark Hyman0:51

      It kills 11 million people a year. But these are not inevitable problems. So for example, I had a kid with ADD who was so bad that you couldn't read his handwriting at 12 years old, but after two months, he went from having severe ADD symptoms to excelling in school. And there's so many things that you can do, but people have to understand that you cannot use willpower to control your food behavior. It's a problem of education. For example, if you eat sugar in the morning, cereal, pancakes, bagels, it's the worst possible thing we can do. Strength training three times a week, 20 minutes, is really key for longevity. And this is really important. We call it the five Fs for getting healthy, but most of us do the opposite. So it's-

   9. SBSteven Bartlett1:28

      Congratulations, Diary of a CEO gang. We've made some progress. 63% of you that listen to this podcast regularly don't subscribe, which is down from 69%. Our goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know. And the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you and enjoy this episode. (upbeat music) Mark, if someone's just clicked on this podcast, can you tell me why they should stay and listen?

2. 2:06 – 6:29

   What Is Your Mission 03:08 What’s Functional Medicine?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:06

   2. MHDr Mark Hyman2:06

      Great question. (laughs) Great question. The answer's quite simple. Uh, you are gonna be able to have a window into the future of your health and the future of medicine itself, and the way to think about things, the way you think about your health, the way you think about symptoms you have, or diseases you have, or your family members have, the way you think about optimizing your health. You're gonna have a window into what the next generation of thinking is about this, a paradigm shift that's akin to Columbus saying the Earth is not flat, or Galileo saying the, the, the, the, the Earth does not, uh, is not the center of the universe. (laughs) You know? These are massive scientific paradigm shifts-

   3. SBSteven Bartlett2:47

      Mm-hmm.

   4. MHDr Mark Hyman2:47

      Or evolutionary theory by Darwin. Think about physics at the turn of the last century, an- and- and how much that changed with Einstein's discoveries of relativity. We are n- now at that stage in biology where we're understanding that, for the first time in history of science and medicine, the natural laws of biology and how the body works.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett3:09

      What is functional medicine? How do you d- Like, I've heard the word before but I've never really understood the true definition.

   6. MHDr Mark Hyman3:14

      Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't particularly like the word, to be honest with you, Steven. I think, I think, uh, it has kind of a, you know, confusing implications for people. But e- essentially, it w- the way I would describe it is, a, a new way of thinking about solving the puzzle of chronic disease, looking at root causes, seeing the body as a system, as a network. It's the medicine of why, not what, not what disease do you have, but why do you have it? It's the science of creating health. How do we create health? What are the things that are impediments to health? How do we get rid of those? And what are the ingredients for health, and how do we provide those? And it's not that big a list. Like, we're biological organisms, right? And so functional medicine is a systematic way of thinking, it's an operating system or methodology, uh, heuristic, let's say, to, to unpack all of your biology and all the inputs, we call the exposome, and make sense of what your personal story is, and, and personalize an approach to diagnose and treatment. So, you know, we always say in functional medicine, you can have one cause that creates many diseases or one disease that can have many causes. So for example, gluten can cause everything from osteoporosis to autism to schizophrenia to rheumatoid arthritis to anemia to hair loss, alopecia. (laughs) I mean, it can cause a million things and it's one in- inciting event. Or it can have, you know, one disease, like depression, that can be caused by many things. Depression's a symptom, right? It's not a Prozac deficiency, right? (laughs) It's caused by many factors. It could be that you had a major trauma or, or a loss. It could be that you're vitamin D deficient. It could be that you're eating gluten and it creates inflammation in your brain. It could be that you're not taking an acid blocker for years for reflux 'cause you have the wrong diet and that causes B12 deficiency. That causes depression. Or it could be because you're eating a lot of sushi, and that has mercury, that causes depression. Or maybe it's 'cause you hate sushi and fish and you don't eat any fish and you have omega-3 deficiency, or you maybe having some resistance in diabetes that can cause depression, inflammation of the brain. So depression is just a name we give to people who share a collection of symptoms. Most of the diseases we have, that we describe as obesity or diabetes or heart disease or cancer, they're not really helpful to understand the true root cause. They're just describing the symptoms. It's descriptive, right? And so functional medicine is a really different model. Uh, it's also could be called network medicine with the... There's a textbook out of Harvard by Boazian and Larkazi that talks about the network biology we have, you know, how we need to think about multi-factorial cause of disease. There's many factors and not just one, and then multimodal interventions, not just one. We're looking for that one cure for Alzheimer's. We're never gonna find it. You know, but a study that looked at multiple interventions of diet and lifestyle and exercise and aggressive treatment of risk factors showed a regression of Alzheimer's. Not one drug, but many different modalities to optimize health. So-It's really, to me, the most exciting time in medicine. It's- it- this- this paradigm shift is happening, it's happening fast, and it's being accelerated through this sort of advent of our- our ability to do deep phenomic diag- diagnostics. So phenomics is essentially the expression of your biology any moment. Your genome is fixed, right? But your phenome is essentially the- the things that y- your body expresses, whether it's health or disease.

3. 6:29 – 13:06

   I Couldn’t Function Properly, My Health Deteriorated Massively.

   1. MHDr Mark Hyman6:29

   2. SBSteven Bartlett6:29

      Was there any personal experiences that made you more drawn towards focusing your life on health and helping people?

   3. MHDr Mark Hyman6:35

      Absolutely. I mean, I- I've always been interested. So I don't know why, I think I was... I was visiting my sister at Amherst College and went to the veggie room and had whole grain bread and peanut butter and honey, I'm like, "This is... I wanna be a vegetarian." So I just (laughs) sorta got into it. And then I studied Buddhism, got into that. So I- I think I... All that was sort of seeded in me, and then I started Asian studies and yoga, which is sort of the science of really healing the mind, and Buddhism is healing the mind, so I always sorta got into that. Uh, but th- there was something that happened after I went to work at this place called Canyon Ranch, it's a health resort, and I got very ill. Uh, I had lived in China, and basically was breathing in mercury-laden air, uh, in Beijing in the winter. And I would have an air filter, I would clean it every day, and that air filter was full of mercury (laughs) 'cause it's in the soot, it's in the coal that they burn. They burn raw coal in the city. And I inhaled it every day, and when I got back from China, um, there was something that happened, I got some gut infection and my system just collapsed. One day I was riding my bike 100 miles a day, the next day I couldn't walk up the stairs. One day I had 30 patients and I could remember everybody's name and story and everything without notes and dictate everything at the end of the day with no problem, to not being able to remember where I was at the end of a sentence from where I started, and I couldn't read a book to my kids out loud and actually understand it. I could either read it and try to understand it or I could read it out loud and not know what I was saying. My brain just stopped working. My immune system not working. My gut stopped working. My whole body just collapsed. I developed chronic fatigue syndrome and I felt like I was walking through mud. And it took me years to figure it out, uh, really years. And I got introduced to functional medicine at that time. I heard about it, I said, "This either is lunacy or it's genius," and if it's true, I devoted to finding out whether it's true for me, for my own healing and for my patients, 'cause if it- if it was true, everything was gonna be different. It's like, you know, like discovering the earth wasn't flat. Well, if that's true then everything is different. And so I dove into it headfirst to heal myself and then I started using it on my patients, and that- that feeling of being sick drove me because I was- I was clear that I wasn't crazy. Chronic fatigue syndrome was thought to be a, you know, sort of a psychological disease, and now the data's really clear, the NIH just came out with a large paper, I think last week, talking about the biomarkers in the biology and the immunology and mitochondrial dysfunction and the inflammation and all the things that do go wrong, and I- I knew it was- I wasn't crazy, and I knew I wasn't mentally ill, and I knew I wasn't depressed, and I knew I didn't have ADD, and I (laughs) ... You know, I knew I wasn't getting dementia at 36 years old. And so I- I- I really had to understand my biology internally on a cellular level and reverse engineer my way back to health. And so that forced me, just out of survival, to- to dig deep into the science of what was happening and then to unpack that and then start to use it on my patients. And when I would use it on my patients, I was shocked. I mean, I'd have someone come in with an autoimmune disease they'd had for years and I'd say, "Do this, this and this based on the principles," and they would get better. Or I would say, "Oh, I've had migraines for 20 years," and I would check and they would have a food sensitivity to eggs, they'd stop and it would go away (laughs) , or I would take someone who's had diabetes and put them on a- the- the right approach with f- food as medicine and the diabetes would go away. So I- I would- started seeing all these what I thought were miracles or things that wouldn't change, or treating kids with autism or ADD or... And we can- we can share in the show notes, but I had a kid with ADD who was- was so bad that you couldn't read his handwriting at 12 years old, and after two months he went from having severe ADD symptoms and all these other health issues, and I fixed his gut, I optimized his nutrition, I- I'd get the lead out of his system, I got all the processed food out (laughs) , and he went from being completely non- barely non-functioning to excelling in school, to having perfect penmanship after two months, and I'm like, "Wow, this is crazy." If you just look at the image of this, and we can share it in the show notes if you want, it was like, okay, something is going on here that- that we don't completely understand, and if it's something as simple as optimizing his gut and optimizing his nutrition and getting rid of the- the toxin in his body and the brain could function again, then so many people who are suffering don't need to suffer. And that's really what drove me, was just seeing so many people suffering without need, and how easy it was to fix them once you understood, right? We're at that stage in medicine where the answers are here, the science and technology is here, it's just not applied. And so my whole life has been driven by the passion of trying to relieve needless suffering for millions of people. These chronic diseases that are now accounting for, you know, almost one in $5 of our entire economy, that are bankrupting America and I think the NHS is not far behind us in the UK (laughs) , you know, uh, were- were... These are not inevitable problems. You know, heart disease, diabetes, (clears throat) many cancers, dementia, autoimmune diseases, these are just exploding in the last 100 years. W- they weren't around before, and it wasn't 'cause we didn't live long, it wasn't because of that, it was because something changed, and- and- and what changed was our diet, was environmental toxins, was our microbiome, was our nutritional deficiencies because of the ultra-processed food we're eating. And so I've been driven, you know, to- to both solve problems individually for in- for people with their health, as well as take on the bigger issues of the root causes of our- of our-... chronic disease, which if- it's food, right? And so- a- a- and environmental toxins, and I- and I then realized that I couldn't cure diabetes in my office, right? Diabetes was caused on the farm and the factories and the grocery stores and the restaurants, not in- in my office. And so I really had to go upstream to deal with the root causes of why my patients were sick, 'cause I could change your diet, and I could get them to be better, and I could fix a lot of things, but it- they would just ke- more people would just keep coming in. I'm like, "This is ridiculous." And so I realized I had to do something about it, so I wrote a book called Food Fix, which essentially lays out how food is the nexus of everything we care about, and created a nonprofit where I work in Washington to try to change food policies like child-friendly labeling and medically tailored meals and changing nutrition education and changing our dietary guidelines and changing the kinds of food they ribble through SNAP or food stamps, you know? Why should we be giving, you know, 10% of our $100 billion budget for food stamps for soda, which we know kills people, (laughs) you know? It- so- so I've been kind of working on these issues, both on the macro and the micro.

4. 13:06 – 16:22

   The Food System Is Damaging Our Health.

   1. MHDr Mark Hyman13:06

   2. SBSteven Bartlett13:06

      What- what is the, um, current state of food in your point of view? Because, uh, it's difficult, isn't it? Especially, you know, when we come to America as Brits, um, I feel like we always get fat.

   3. MHDr Mark Hyman13:16

      Hmm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett13:17

      It's very, very difficult to come to Los Angeles or New York, where we frequent as Brits to run the show-

   5. MHDr Mark Hyman13:22

      Yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett13:22

      ... and to not get fat.

   7. MHDr Mark Hyman13:24

      I'm sorry. (laughs)

   8. SBSteven Bartlett13:25

      So, but I'm like, what- what is th- and it's- but it's difficult. Like, you know, I do these podcasts about health and food all the time, but then I- I think, okay, it's all good an- having this all- all this advice, but when you walk outside and you walk into a convenience store, you are doomed.

   9. MHDr Mark Hyman13:37

      Yeah. Yeah, we live in a toxic nutritional landscape. It's a nutritional wasteland, a carnival of- of, uh, enticing, colorful, addictive, highly processed food-like substances that drive our biology in all the wrong ways. And- and so it's very difficult to be healthy in America, which is why 93% of us have some metabolic dysfunction. (laughs) This is according to the, we call it the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey the government does, which is hundreds of thousands of people looking at their blood work over many, many years. And we're messed up, (laughs) like, you know? A- and it's- it's not an accident. It has to do with- with the food we produce, how we grow it, what we grow, how it's processed, how it's, um, made into different food-like substances, how it's marketed, sold in grocery stores, restaurants. So it's very difficult, unless you really know what you're doing, to stay out of trouble in America. I mean, I- I do it because I'm highly educated, but it's very tough, and it's easy to make the wrong choice.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett14:41

       How do you do it?

   11. MHDr Mark Hyman14:42

       Well, I- I'm very sort of religious about, uh, what I put in my body. I mean, I don't eat anything that comes in a package or is processed. I- I just don't. It's- it's a- it's a hard and fast rule. If- if it's ma- basically... I mean, if it's something that's like a can of sardines or a can of tomatoes, obviously, if it's minimally processed foods, that's fine, you know? We've been minimally processing foods forever. Sauerkraut is processed. Yogurt grow- yogurt's processed. That's not bad. It's how it's processed. And- and so I- I eliminate all ultra-processed foods. I won't- I won't even think of it as food. If I go into a store, a convenience store, and I see all these different things to buy, it- it just- it looks to me like a rock. Like, I- the way it pro- that process in my brain, "Well, that's not really food. Why would I eat that?" (laughs) Like, I'm not gonna pick up a rock and eat it. Uh, so I- I try to, uh, cook my own food and, uh, I bring food with me. So for example, today, I had another podcast (laughs) I did earlier, and I knew I wasn't gonna have time for lunch, so I had, uh, earlier bought some snacks, and I actually have, uh, a care package, basically a emergency snack pack, so I don't have a food emergency, in my backpack all the time. So it's like a day's rations, and that was my lunch. So basically, even though I didn't have time to kind of go out to eat today, I- I pre-planned. So it takes a little planning, you know? Like, you came to the United States from the UK, you didn't just like leave your house and go to the airport. You thought about what you were packing, you brought the right clothes, you brought your crew, you wanna bring your cameras or whatever you have to bring. You have- you have to plan. But somehow we don't think we have to do that for our health. We- we have to plan it. And so I'm very careful about planning, and occasionally I'll get stuck and, you know, usually I can find some nuts or something somewhere-

   12. SBSteven Bartlett16:19

       Mm-hmm.

   13. MHDr Mark Hyman16:19

       ... even if they're in oil that I don't like, so it-

5. 16:22 – 18:24

   The Primitive Instinct That Make You Eat Junk Food.

   1. MHDr Mark Hyman16:22

      it's tough.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett16:23

      I- I got told the other day, whi- which helped me s- understand myself, I got told that when we're hungry, especially when it's sort of like late at night-

   3. MHDr Mark Hyman16:30

      Hmm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett16:30

      ... the logical center of our brain, like the prefrontal cortex, is less active, and the amygdala, the sort of emotional part of our brain-

   5. MHDr Mark Hyman16:38

      Oh, yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett16:38

      ... that wants the dopamine is much more active.

   7. MHDr Mark Hyman16:40

      Yeah, yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett16:40

      And it helped me to understand why maybe late at night if I haven't planned my food-

   9. MHDr Mark Hyman16:44

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett16:45

       ... um, I'm much more susceptible to make a bad food choice that I then regret. I'm much more ac- acceptable to lean in for sugar or something that's like-

   11. MHDr Mark Hyman16:52

       Yeah, yeah.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett16:53

       ... super high in carbs or whatever.

   13. MHDr Mark Hyman16:54

       Yeah.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett16:54

       That really helped me 'ca- and this is the- why the planning thing makes a lot of sense-

   15. MHDr Mark Hyman16:58

       Yeah.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett16:58

       ... 'cause I can use my prefrontal cortex, my logic center of my brain-

   17. MHDr Mark Hyman17:01

       Yeah.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett17:01

       ... to make the food choice in the morning-

   19. MHDr Mark Hyman17:03

       Yeah.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett17:04

       ... so that I don't find myself making a mistake.

   21. MHDr Mark Hyman17:06

       It's so important, Steven, because e- people have to understand that willpower is not the answer. You cannot use willpower to control your food behavior. It's part of your ancestral, evolutionary, limbic, reptile, dinosaur brain. And so when your blood sugar drops, you're gonna eat whatever's in front of you. If there's a vending machine, if there's a donut, if it's cookies, it doesn't matter. Even if you know better, and I- I've experienced this. (laughs)

   22. SBSteven Bartlett17:33

       Mm-hmm.

   23. MHDr Mark Hyman17:34

       You're just gonna eat whatever 'cause it's a life-threatening emergency. Your body doesn't know that there's grocery stores and restaurants. It means you're gonna go out and try to hunt and gather and do something. It's like an emergency. So when you have that food emergency, you- and you don't have the right food on you, you're in trouble.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett17:49

       I- I have that all the time.

   25. MHDr Mark Hyman17:50

       Yeah.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett17:50

       I have this like constant fight- fight with myself where this one voice is like, "Do the fucking right thing." And then my- this other part of my brain is like, "Just today, break the rule," and you know?

   27. MHDr Mark Hyman17:58

       Yeah, yeah.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett17:59

       And- but obviously that voice is louder sometimes than others, and typically late at night it's louder.

   29. MHDr Mark Hyman18:03

       Yeah, sleep deprivation, uh-

   30. SBSteven Bartlett18:04

       Stress.
6. 18:24 – 24:21

   How to Stay Healthy in Today's Unhealthy World.

   1. MHDr Mark Hyman18:24

      (laughs)

   2. SBSteven Bartlett18:24

      Mm-hmm.

   3. MHDr Mark Hyman18:25

      It's not rocket science.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett18:26

      What about for someone that doesn't have any money at all, and so they can't, you know... They don't have the ability to... A lot of the privileges that me and you have?

   5. MHDr Mark Hyman18:36

      Mm-hmm.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett18:36

      What are some of the very basics that they should be thinking about in order to remain healthy in a world where every convenience store is trying to sell you something-

   7. MHDr Mark Hyman18:45

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett18:45

      ... cheap and sugary?

   9. MHDr Mark Hyman18:46

      Yeah. It's a really good, good question. You know, I think, I think the economics of being healthy is a problem. And, and, and we know that there's a huge disparity in health. Um, but it's not only economic, it's education. Uh, you know, I met with a woman who is the doctor at, uh, a clinic in Bed-Stuyvesant, which is in Brooklyn. It's a very underserved area. And, uh, in a very, um, low socioeconomic status group, very unhealthy. And she said, "You know, Mark, did you know the, the number one predictor of health? Is it money? No, it's education." So, even people who are, were wealthy but haven't been educated still have issues. So, for me, it was really about education. And so people can be educated to do the right thing, and it doesn't have to be expensive. And I was part of this film 10 years ago called Fed Up that looked at childhood obesity in our food system and the advent of sugar and marketing and processed foods, and we, we visited a lot of families, and I worked with a family in North Caro- uh, South Carolina in Easley. It's one of the poorest areas in America, and it has the worst, uh, call it the, uh, uh, food deserts. One of the worst food deserts in America. Basically, where there's not a lot of healthy options to choose from.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett19:58

       Oh, yeah.

   11. MHDr Mark Hyman19:58

       And there's something called the Retail Food Environment Index. How many healthy grocery stores are there to fast food and convenience stores? And there was, like, 10 to 1. It was, it was terrible. And this family, you know, was lived on $1,000 a month for food for a family of five. They lived in a trailer. They, uh, were on disability and food stamps. The mother was 100-plus pounds overweight. The father was very overweight, had type 2 diabetes, and was on... Already at 42 years old, was on dialysis for kidney failure, which is amazing, 'cause you sh- usually don't see that 'til later. The, the son was 16 years old and 50% body fat, guy should be 10 to 20, and was about diab- to be diabetic, was pre-diabetic. And rather than kind of... They were part of the movie. I said, "Why do you want to do this?" And they were like, "Well, in order for my dad to get a kidney transplant, he has to lose weight. We're trying. We don't know what to do. We're doing all this low-fat stuff, and we're doing all this diet stuff we have in the house. It's not working." So, I went to their house, their trailer, and I, rather than giving a lecture about what to do, I said, "Let's cook a meal together. But let's, first, let's do an inspection of your kitchen, and let's see what's in here." And so we pulled out everything from the freezer and the fridge and the cupboards, and everything was packaged, boxed, processed. Everything was very high in high-fructose corn syrup, from the peanut butter to the salad dressing. Everything had trans fat in it, which is deadly. And a lot of it said "diet" this. And my basic rule is if it has a health claim on the label, don't eat it. (laughs) You know, it's gluten-free potato chips. Doesn't make it healthy, right? (laughs) Coca-Cola is gluten-free. It doesn't make it healthy. (laughs) So, um, I showed them what they were doing, and then I said, "Let's just make a simple meal." Here's a guide called Good Food on a Tight Budget: How to Eat Well for You, for the Planet, and Your Wallet. And it's made by the Environmental Working Group. You can get it on, on ewg.org. It's free. And i- and, and it was like, how do you choose the cheaper cuts of meat or the, the beans or the grains or the veggies? You know, like onions and carrots and celery are not expensive. (laughs) You know, like a lot of veggies are not expensive. So, we made turkey chili. We made a salad from fresh ingredients. Olive oil and vinegar dressing, not a dressing that was full of chemicals and high-fructose corn syrup and refined oils. We... I showed them how to roast a s- sweet potatoes. I showed them how to stir-fry vegetables. We had some asparagus. They'd never eaten anything fresh. They'd never cooked in the kitchen. The kids came out, were playing video games. They came running in the kitchen, like, "What's that smell?" Like... And it was, like, the roasting of the sweet potatoes. We had this beautiful dinner together. They loved the food. And I was like, "You know what? I don't know if this is gonna work, but you don't..." They didn't even have cutting boards. They didn't have knives. (laughs) They didn't... Like, they literally hadn't... Like, we tried to cut, uh, the, you know, the, um, the onions and the sweet potatoes with a butter knife, 'cause that's all they had was, like, a butter knife. It was really hard. (laughs)

   12. SBSteven Bartlett22:37

       Wow.

   13. MHDr Mark Hyman22:37

       Uh, so I bought them... On the way home, I bought them cutting boards on Amazon and, uh, knives, and I sent it to their house. Next week, the mom texts me. She says, "Mark, we lost 18 pounds this week as a family." A year later, the father lost 45, got a new kidney. The mother lost 100 pounds. The son lost 132 pounds and, and went to medical school. The first guy in his family to go to college, and he asked me for a letter of recommendation for medical school. And they lived in one of the worst food deserts. They didn't have much, you know, economically, and they were able to figure it out. 'Cause eating real food doesn't have to be expensive. You don't have to have a $70 Wagyu rib eye steak, right? (laughs) You can, you can eat real food, and it's just as simple as not eating the ultra-processed food. It's so bad for us, and it kills 11 million people a year. We know this data is so strong. It causes mental health issues, aggression, violence, depression, anxiety, uh, gun violence. I mean, the, the studies are there. I just... I did a podcast on... The Doctor's Pharmacy, my podcast about this, talking about how our food is affecting our mental health, not just obesity and diabetes, but our cognitive function, uh, and ADD and memory issues. I mean, it's all linked to what we're eating. So, we, we have a, a... You know, uh, like I said, the best of times, the worst of times. We know what to do. We have the ability to do it. It's, it, it's just... It's a problem of education, a problem of political will to change the policies that are driving us to do the wrong thing. And right now, there's a bill being proposed in Congress that would limit, as a pilot, ultra-processed food for kids with food stamps.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett24:09

       Wow.

   15. MHDr Mark Hyman24:09

       Which I think would be amazing. (laughs) The food industry is fighting back tooth and nail, right? So, so we're fighting big forces. Uh, the food industry is the biggest industry on the planet.

7. 24:21 – 27:54

   Is Milk Good for Us?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett24:21

      When I was growing up, um, and I was trying to be healthy, one of the things I used to do was chug milk.

   2. MHDr Mark Hyman24:27

      Yeah.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett24:28

      Because I got told that it would make me tall like my brothers.

   4. MHDr Mark Hyman24:31

      Yeah. Yeah.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett24:31

      So I used to drink milk like crazy.

   6. MHDr Mark Hyman24:33

      Yeah.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett24:33

      Straight from the carton, just as many gulps as I could take from the fridge.

   8. MHDr Mark Hyman24:36

      Did it work? Did you, did you grow?

   9. SBSteven Bartlett24:38

      I have no idea.

   10. MHDr Mark Hyman24:38

       (laughs)

   11. SBSteven Bartlett24:39

       I'm still shorter than they are, so-

   12. MHDr Mark Hyman24:40

       (laughs)

   13. SBSteven Bartlett24:40

       ... I guess not. Um, but, but that's one of the big myths that I think a lot of families still believe, that milk is great for our bones and to help us grow. What's your thoughts on milk?

   14. MHDr Mark Hyman24:50

       Yeah. So, uh, you know-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett24:51

       It's a controversial topic as well, the subject of milk.

   16. MHDr Mark Hyman24:53

       Yeah. I mean, yes. I mean, the dairy industry is big. Um, our current, uh, secretary of agriculture worked for the dairy industry. It's problematic, 'cause, 'cause the science isn't there. There was a, there was a, a paper called Milk and Health that was published in The New England Journal of Medicine, top medical journal in the world arguably, maybe The Lancet if you're from the UK. (laughs)

   17. SBSteven Bartlett25:11

       Mm-hmm.

   18. MHDr Mark Hyman25:12

       But it, it basically was written by two Harvard scientists that dissected all the scientific evidence around milk and whether the claims were right or not. And just, maybe for the audience in Europe, you might not know this, but in The States you'll remember this, there were all these "Got Milk?" ads. So there were famous people, celebrities, uh, you know, sports athletes, politicians, all wearing a white milk mustache.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett25:35

       Mm-hmm.

   20. MHDr Mark Hyman25:35

       And they were like, "Got Milk?" as a promotion. And, and, and in those ads it would say, "It's gonna build better bones, it's gonna do this, it's gonna do that." And the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, uh, actually, or w- I think it was federal, yeah, tra- said, "You can't do that because it's, it's not true. Like, you have to take those ads out." So those ads went away. And it was the government promoting those ads with the Dairy Council. So there's something called checkoff programs that the government has where it's supposed to support agriculture. Well, the government was paying in part for these ads with taxpayer dollars, and the science wasn't there. And the s- the, uh, dietary guidelines for Americans says that the average American should have three glasses of milk a day, and kids should have two glasses of milk a day to be healthy. You cannot get money in funding for school lunches in America without having milk on the menu. Now, there is no evidence to support this. In fact, there's opposite evidence, that skim milk causes weight gain, 'cause it doesn't satisfy your appetite, that milk can cause cancer, that milk-

   21. SBSteven Bartlett26:40

       Prostate cancer.

   22. MHDr Mark Hyman26:40

       Prostate cancer. That, uh, it doesn't create strong bones. In fact, there's high risk of fracture with high milk drinkers. That it creates a lot of digestive issues for people, it can create autoimmune diseases like type 1 diabetes, it has o- uh, common allergies to, or food sensitivities that people get. Uh, and I remember I was, I was in the, um, emergency room once, uh, when I was working the ER, and this mother comes in with this kid with like, you know, had like his 10th ear infection in a few weeks. I was like, "What happened? Like, when did this start?" "Oh, it started when he was, like, 12 months old." I said, "What changed?" "Well, I stopped breastfeeding and I started giving him milk, and all of a sudden he started getting these ear infections." I'm like, "Oh." This is before I even knew about all this. It was just kind of an interesting footnote. But w- we really have, have to look at the data and be science driven. And the problem is, we're, we're, we have corporate capture in America, where, where the food industry has captured our food agencies, our political, um, system from the FDA to the USDA. We, they spend, for example, half a billion dollars just on the Farm Bill, uh, which has, you know, for example, food stamps and other food programs, child infant nutrition. So it's, it's really unfortunate, but milk is not nature's perfect food. It's only nature's perfect food if you're a calf. (laughs)

8. 27:54 – 29:49

   Are There Health Benefits to It?

   1. MHDr Mark Hyman27:54

   2. SBSteven Bartlett27:54

      I- is there health benefits to milk?

   3. MHDr Mark Hyman27:56

      Yes. So, so that's the other side of it. Now, what milk should we be drinking, right? If we're drinking modern milk, modern milk is from Holstein cows that are almost homogenous in the same ... not homogenized milk, but homogeneous breed. They, they have very few bulls inseminating them. They have, like, you know, a massive insemination program from a very few, uh, uh, bulls that have a limited genetic stock. And, uh, they're what we call A1 cows. So most heirloom cows, most sort of historical dairy had something called A2 casein, which is less inflammatory, less likely to cause gut issues, less problematic for the body. So sheep and goat milk have A2. Certain cows like Jersey or Guernsey cows have A2 in them. And you can get A2 milk, you can A2... You can get ice cream now. (laughs) Um, and, and so this A1 casein's potentially very problematic. So I think the current dairy is not great. And then we pasteurize it and homogenize it, and then we, you know, um, we add growth hormone to, to the cows. That goes in there. We have estrogen that we add into the cows, it's in the milk. We have 60 different hormones in the milk, some of them naturally occurring, but we milk, uh, pregnant cows, uh, and that milk has a lot more hormonal effects. So I think current e- current dairy is not something we should consume. Now, if you have a chance to get sheep milk or goat milk or A2 milk from a cow, that may be okay, yogurts may be okay. And depends on your genetics too. 75% of the world's lactose intolerant, many people have dairy sensitivities. But, uh, I think, you know, if it's, if it's from the right source, it's okay. For example, I use goat whey as my morning protein shake. So goat whey is from goats, obviously. Uh, there's very little casein in it, but it's A2 casein if there's any. And I don't react to it. But if I have regular whey, I do have a reaction. I get congested, I'll get pimples (laughs) or I get regular stuff. So I don't think dairy is n- something we should be consuming in large amounts unless it's certain kinds of dairy.

9. 29:49 – 39:28

   Ozmepic Drugs, Are They Good?

   1. MHDr Mark Hyman29:49

   2. SBSteven Bartlett29:49

      What do you think of, um, this conversation at the moment around Ozempic? It seems like it's just exploded in-

   3. MHDr Mark Hyman29:54

      Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett29:54

      ... culture. I mean, the share price of the company that make Ozempic has gone through the roof-

   5. MHDr Mark Hyman29:58

      Yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett29:59

      ... uh, in a way that I've just never seen in biotech before.

   7. MHDr Mark Hyman30:02

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett30:02

      Um, it, it appears that there's no apparent side effects. Uh, y- if you ask people, eh, th- they struggle to tell you any side effects. But I actually think I saw you make a video about it, if I'm-

   9. MHDr Mark Hyman30:12

      Yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah. No.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett30:13

       ... on Instagram.

   11. MHDr Mark Hyman30:13

       I have a lot to say about it. (laughs)

   12. SBSteven Bartlett30:15

       What's, what are your thoughts on Ozempic?

   13. MHDr Mark Hyman30:17

       Um...

   14. SBSteven Bartlett30:18

       You crossed your arms. Are you gonna get yourself in trouble?

   15. MHDr Mark Hyman30:20

       Uh...

   16. SBSteven Bartlett30:21

       (laughs)

   17. MHDr Mark Hyman30:22

       I'm like, I just like... (laughs) Well, I'm trying not to bang the table, 'cause... (laughs)

   18. SBSteven Bartlett30:25

       Okay. (laughs)

   19. MHDr Mark Hyman30:26

       But-First of all, we have a massive obesity problem. And we don't have any good solutions. And so something comes along that's an injection you can take once a week, that makes you not hungry and bypasses your normal biological mechanisms and you lose weight, that's a huge, attractive thing. And that's why, you know, when Nordisk is the biggest company now in Denmark, it's the biggest, uh, part of the GDP of Denmark. (laughs) I don't know if they'll even allow it in Denmark.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett30:59

       They're the people that make Ozempic.

   21. MHDr Mark Hyman31:00

       Yeah.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett31:01

       Yeah.

   23. MHDr Mark Hyman31:01

       The people that make Ozempic. And, uh, recently, the CEO of Novo Nordisk, who makes Ozempic, publicly said he was getting calls from processed food manufacturers very concerned because their market share was dropping and they were very concerned that it was gonna affect their business. (laughs) Think about that. (laughs) So I think Ozempic is, is effective. It works with a, a natural part of your biology, uh, called GLP-1, which is something your body makes, uh, and we can make more of it by do- doing lots of different things, from certain probiotics and bacteria in our gut to certain foods, uh, to certain ways of eating. But the effect of the drug is very strong.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett31:38

       Just for context, for anyone that doesn't know what Ozempic is-

   25. MHDr Mark Hyman31:41

       Yeah.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett31:41

       ... let's give them some context.

   27. MHDr Mark Hyman31:42

       Well, it's, it's a drug that was fis- first used for diabetes, and then i- it, it works by acting on a pathway called GLP-1, glucagon-like pept- peptide 1, which is just a pathway, and it, and it, and it regulates insulin function, it regulates weight, uh, and appetite. And so it really works to help with blood sugar, but the side effect was weight loss. So it was like, we studied Viagra for blood pressure but the side effect was it helped men with erections. (laughs) So it was like, well, it's like, kinda like that, right?

   28. SBSteven Bartlett32:13

       Right.

   29. MHDr Mark Hyman32:13

       It was like, wasn't designed for this, but it actually had the side effect. And, you know, since obesity affects so many people, there's now two billion people on the planet who are overweight.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett32:22

       So you take this injection...
10. 39:28 – 40:53

    Fruit

    1. SBSteven Bartlett39:29

       What's your, um, position on fruit?

    2. MHDr Mark Hyman39:32

       I love fruit. (laughs)

    3. SBSteven Bartlett39:33

       How much fruit do-

    4. MHDr Mark Hyman39:34

       I- I think it depends, right? So if you're a diabetic, uh, and you're metabolically completely out of whack, um, and you don't have any metabolic resilience, eh, you know, eating a plum might be a problem for you. And now we have continuous glucose monitors, you can track your blood sugar and see. And I've- I've had patients like this, "Gee, I- I- I eat a plum and my sugar goes through the roof, so... But if I ate an apple, it doesn't." So I think different fruits have different effects on you, uh, but for the most part, fruit is full of phytochemicals, fiber, phytonutrients. It does have a little bit of sugar in it. Uh, I would say no fruit juice. I think fruit juice is definitely linked to obesity in kids and other things. But if you wanna have an apple or a peach or a plum, it's fine. I think you shouldn't have it first thing in the morning. I think protein and fat in the morning is important because it- it activates your metabolism and your protein synthesis. If you eat sugar in the morning, which is essentially what we eat in the world today, cereal, pancakes, waffles, muffins, bagels, you know, sweetened yogurts, sweetened coffees, I mean, it's the worst possible thing we can do for our biology. (laughs) It- it- it jacks up our blood sugar and insulin and ends up causing us to gain weight and be hungry and, you know, be craving more stuff. So having, having, um, fruit... For example, you have frozen berries in your... So I had frozen cherries, for example, in my whey protein. That's okay because there's protein in there and it mitigates the effect,

11. 40:53 – 42:45

    When Should We Eat?

    1. MHDr Mark Hyman40:53

       so.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett40:53

       What about eating times?

    3. MHDr Mark Hyman40:55

       When to eat?

    4. SBSteven Bartlett40:56

       Yeah. Have you got any thoughts around when we should and shouldn't be eating?

    5. MHDr Mark Hyman40:59

       Yeah, for sure. I think, you know- you know, we had something called breakfast before, which was breaking the fast. (laughs)

    6. SBSteven Bartlett41:05

       Mm-hmm.

    7. MHDr Mark Hyman41:05

       And now people eat all night, they eat till they go to bed, and then as soon as they wake up, they eat or have something, eh, sugary stuff in the morning, like a sugary coffee, and they don't give themselves a window of fasting, which is critical for our biology. And I wrote about this in my book, Young Forever, where we talked about how do we have our own repair, re- renewal system kick in? 'Cause the body... Think about it, uh, Steven. You- your body, when you cut yourself, heals. The skin closes, it heals. How does it know how to do that? Right? It's- it's so smart. It's got a h- your bones break, it heals, right? (laughs) I broke my arm a few years ago. It just healed, right? What's going on? I'm not going, "Would you please heal in there?" It's- it knows what to do. It recruits stem cells, it recruits repair factors and growth factors, and it- it knows what to do. So the body has this innate healing, repair, renewal, and regeneration system, and we need to learn how to activate it. And most of us do the opposite. We do everything in our power to deactivate it, and that causes disease. So food is the most important thing we do to interact with these regenerative renewal repair systems. It's one- one of the things we call the hallmarks of aging, and there's one called deregulated nutrient sensing, and it really relates to how our bodies relate to food, how our s- nutrient sensing systems are dysregulated by our highly processed diet, by high sugar and starch, and not enough of the right foods. So, so i- in the- in the long answer to your question, you know, it's important to give yourself a break of 12-... hours. So, if you eat at 6:00 at night, you could eat 6:00 in the morning, minimum. But best probably 14. So if you eat dinner at 6:00, eat breakfast at 8:00, that's okay. That's a 14-hour fast. And in that time, your body is doing its cleanup, recycling, repair.

12. 42:45 – 44:36

    Evolutionary Story Behind Fasting.

    1. MHDr Mark Hyman42:45

       And so-

    2. SBSteven Bartlett42:45

       Is there an evolutionary story here?

    3. MHDr Mark Hyman42:47

       For sure, absolutely. You know, when, when, uh, you know, we didn't have grocery stores, we didn't have, you know, whole foods, we didn't have restaurants, we didn't have takeout, we didn't have convenience stores. So we had to go out and find food. And I just came back from Tanzania and visited the hunter-gatherers there, the Xhosa, which is one of the last few tribes that hunt and gather. And we went hunting and gathering, and it's like, man, it's a lot of work to go, you know, dig up some roots and kill a bird in the tree. And like, it was a, it was a project. We ran around for hours. (laughs)

    4. SBSteven Bartlett43:14

       Mm-hmm.

    5. MHDr Mark Hyman43:14

       Uh, and, and so we don't know where we're getting our next meal. And so what the body has had to deal with periods of feast and famine before. And so what, what it's got built into it is a system of conservation and, and repair when we don't eat. And so the system gets activated that improves our, our blood sugar control, that recruits new mitochondria and builds new mitochondria, that reduces inflammation, that activates, um, cellular cleanup and repair processes. So you have all these old cells and damaged proteins. Your body has a little, like, digester, almost like a little vacuum cleaner that goes and sucks this all up, and then di- digests it, and then uses the parts. It's almost like an, uh, a recycling system (laughs) in the body. We need to activate that. And so that fasting period is a time to do that. And we've seen even, for example, we know, for example, concentration camp survivors who live really long. Like, they live 90, 100-plus years old, many of them. And it's because they had this period of deep starvation that had an effect on their biology. And we know this, we know this from many animal studies, that starvation and fasting will extend your life by a third. If you eat a third less calories, you'll live a third longer. Now, it's not fun, (laughs) right? But you don't have to do that. So timing of eating is important. So give yourself three hours before bed for no food, and give yourself at least 12 to 14 hours between dinner and

13. 44:36 – 47:57

    Restricting Your Calories vs Fasting.

    1. MHDr Mark Hyman44:36

       breakfast.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett44:36

       How do we know in the animal studies it wasn't just the calorie restriction that caused the, um, sort of longevity effect, but-

    3. MHDr Mark Hyman44:44

       It was.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett44:44

       Oh, it was the kind-

    5. MHDr Mark Hyman44:45

       It was.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett44:46

       So what if I just restrict my calories instead of fasting?

    7. MHDr Mark Hyman44:50

       Well, you can do that. Uh, I met a guy who was from the Calorie Restriction Society. (laughs) And I said-

    8. SBSteven Bartlett44:54

       There's a Calorie Restriction Society?

    9. MHDr Mark Hyman44:56

       Yeah. Which is based on this, these research in animals, where think about it, if you eat a third less, you live a third longer. So for a human, that would be 120 years old. And I said, "What do you have for breakfast?" He said, "Well, I had five pounds of celery." And I'm like, "Okay, (laughs) you go do that." (laughs) "I'm gonna figure out another way." So, (laughs) you have to eat enormous amounts of, like, low-calorie food just to feel full, right? (laughs) That's why you had all that food. So he, he, he was starving. And, and there are a lot of downsides to starving. You lose muscle, which is necessary. There are certain things that go wrong. And so it's not really the optimal strategy. You wanna do things that mimic starvation. So how do you mimic this period of starvation that d- that causes something called autophagy, which basically means to eat yourself, to basically clean up your cells? It's like self-cleaning or self-repair, right? And, and, and so there's a lot of ways to hack that. You can do it by this longer term overnight fast. You can do it by certain supplements and, and certain medications. Like rapamycin is being studied for longevity, which is a, a drug that's used for, for cancer and for other immune-suppressing treatments. But it works on this pathway called mTOR, which essentially is the activation of cellular buildup, right? It causes muscle synthesis. So if you wanna build muscle, you wanna activate mTOR with protein, which is good, but you don't wanna activate it all the time. So this drug inhibits mTOR, which is what happens when you starve yourself. So it mimics starvation, and then you get this kinda benefit. Or drugs like metformin are being studied, which is another drug that's looking at how do we activate this longevity switch called AMPK, another pathway that's re- regulating your nutrient sensing. So when you have enough- you don't have enough nutrients, this activates.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett46:45

        Mm-hmm.

    11. MHDr Mark Hyman46:45

        But if we're running around eating, well, you can actually take this drug, and it may have an effect. There's a large trial going on now. I'm still agnostic about it. I- I'm, I'm neither pro or against it. I think the data is not in it for me to start taking it or for my patients to start taking it, but it works on some of the- these sort of, uh, starvation-mimicking hacks, let's call them. (laughs)

    12. SBSteven Bartlett47:05

        So starvation is good for us.

    13. MHDr Mark Hyman47:07

        Y- yeah.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett47:07

        Which-

    15. MHDr Mark Hyman47:07

        I mean, yes.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett47:09

        In moderation. (laughs)

    17. MHDr Mark Hyman47:09

        And yes, I would say you have to be careful because, you know, people go really to the extreme. They go like, "I'm gonna not activate mTOR, because activating mTOR cause me to age faster and prevents autophagy and it builds cancer and it's bad. So I'm gonna become a vegan, and I'm gonna eat less calories." And eventually what happens is you lose muscle. So it's, it's like Goldilocks. You know, you need both mTOR activation and mTOR ambition. You need to take a breath in, and you need to take a breath out. You need to be awake, and you need to go to sleep.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett47:41

        Yeah, it's got to balance, yeah.

    19. MHDr Mark Hyman47:41

        That's

    20. NANarrator47:41

        (laughs)

    21. MHDr Mark Hyman47:42

        ... your heart needs to beat. It needs to relax. It's just how the body works.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett47:45

        Difficult conversation as well because of it can provoke disordered eating.

    23. MHDr Mark Hyman47:49

        Yeah.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett47:50

        Um, various eating disorders-

    25. MHDr Mark Hyman47:51

        Yeah.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett47:52

        ... which are obviously extremely bad in terms of health outcomes.

14. 47:57 – 49:06

    What Are Blue Zones, and the Importance of Studying Them?

    1. MHDr Mark Hyman47:57

       Yeah.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett47:58

       Blue Zones. You visited some Blue Zones, haven't you?

    3. MHDr Mark Hyman48:01

       Yeah. Mm, I have.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett48:01

       What are Blue Zones, and, uh, what did they teach you about the nature of being healthy?

    5. MHDr Mark Hyman48:07

       Well, well, my friend, Dan Buettner, basically came up with this concept of the Blue Zones after visiting these areas in the world where people had extremely long lives. And somebody on the map circled them in blue ink, which is why they're called Blue Zones. (laughs)

    6. SBSteven Bartlett48:23

       (laughs)

    7. MHDr Mark Hyman48:24

       And, and, uh, I visited Icaria and also Sardinia.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett48:29

       How many of them are there?

    9. MHDr Mark Hyman48:30

       Uh, there's five. There's Okinawa, Japan, uh, Loma Linda, California, and, uh, Nicoya Peninsula in-... uh, Costa Rica. But there are many more. I mean, I was in Turkey, and I saw villages where (laughs) people were very, very old. And, and so th- those are the ones that have been studied.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett48:45

        How old are we talking?

    11. MHDr Mark Hyman48:46

        Well, I mean, one couple there was, like, collectively 210 years old. (laughs)

    12. SBSteven Bartlett48:51

        Oh, wow. Okay.

    13. MHDr Mark Hyman48:52

        So, they lived to be 100, 105, 109, 110. I mean, uh, Emma Morano was 117 when she died. Uh, you know, and she... (laughs)

    14. SBSteven Bartlett49:03

        Mm-hmm.

    15. MHDr Mark Hyman49:03

        And, and, uh, so, so, th- cur- th- the question is,

15. 49:06 – 53:18

    Starvation Is Good for Us.

    1. MHDr Mark Hyman49:06

       you know, what is different about these areas? And what's different is that, you know, they're very isolated and remote. So, they haven't been burdened with all the modernization of our food system. They still grow their own food. I mean, I visited this couple. He was, I think, uh, 90 ............................ He was, like, 97. His wife was a young 87. (laughs) And they had land and a farm they lived on. Uh, he, he was more chill, but she was out there showing us around at all the fruit trees, the olive trees, the garden she planted. I mean, this massive mini-farm that she managed herself on the side of a hill, which she was running up faster than I could get to, her (laughs) at 87 years old, cooking everything from scratch, all... It wasn't, like, organic, but it was because that's just what they did, all right? They used all heirloom animals, like sheep and goats. So, they had heirloom sheep and goat with-

    2. SBSteven Bartlett49:58

       What's heirloom sheep and goat?

    3. MHDr Mark Hyman49:59

       Meaning, it's not like some industrialized, hybridized cow-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett50:03

       Okay.

    5. MHDr Mark Hyman50:04

       ... that's producing this nasty milk, which we shouldn't be drinking. It's they were having goat milk and goat cheese, but their goats were eating wild plants that have phytochemicals. Some of those, you know, cheeses and goat milks have actually higher phytochemicals even than green tea, which has a lot that comes from, for example, catechins, that you can get from the goat milk, which is from the goats that are eating the plants that have these compounds that benefit their health. They're also active. Like, um, Petreo was, like, um, 95 years old, and he was in Sardinia. And he had to hike five miles a day up this extremely rocky, mountainous terrain to herd his sheep. At 95 years old. I mean, what... Most 95-year-olds aren't hiking the mountains, right? (laughs) I mean, he was booming voice, stood up straight, eyes clear, not hunched over, um, funny as heck, sang me a song. (laughs) You know? Uh, and, and then, you know, so they move naturally. They have amazing food, phytochemical-rich food, uh, food that's, you know, it's, it's rich in all these plant compounds that are found to connect to longevity. For example, uh, in, in Korea, I was sitting with this guy who was making, uh, milking the goats, and, and we were making goat cheese together.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett51:16

       Oh.

    7. MHDr Mark Hyman51:16

       And he, like, he gives me this tea. I'm like, "What is this?" He said, "Oh, this is wild sage tea." And I looked at it, and he said, "What is it?" I said, "What is the plant?" I looked it up, and then I looked up the plant, and I analyzed, you know, wha- wha- what it was. And turned out it's, it's an extremely phytochemical-rich plant that has a lot of these same longevity compounds in it called catechins that, you know, we don't drink a lot of. Green tea has it that you can get from, from Japan, for example. And then, um, you know, uh, we, we, we, we just basically see that not only do they have good food. They have the, the activity. Um, they, they have very low levels of stress. There was one guy, Silvio. I'm, I was having dinner with him, and he had this mountainous, uh, f- uh, kind of area that his whole family had had for years. And they had about 200 sheep and goats. And they had a little kind of restaurant they started for people to come. And so, they basically had the family cooked, and you had everything from the, from the farm. And I said, "Silvio," after dinner, I says, "Silvio, do you, do you have any stress, like, in your life?" And he looked at me like, "Stress?" Like, like, he didn't under- almost under- didn't understand the word. I'm like, "You know, when things are difficult, and you know, hard things are hard, and, and get... You feel stressed." And he's like, "Oh, oh." He said, "Yeah, well sometimes at night, a goat will get out, and I'll have to go get it." (laughs) And I'm like... "And sometimes, you know, when the goats are, you know, giving birth, I have to go get up early at night." (laughs) So, I'm like... (laughs) So, they have very low levels of stress. And then they also have something which is really important, which is community. So, they, they have a sense of belonging and connection. You know, I met, uh, Julia, who was 100 years old. Uh, well, sorry, 103 months, she told me.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett52:53

       (laughs)

    9. MHDr Mark Hyman52:53

       (laughs) "I'm 103..." I guess it's like when you're five. "I'm, uh, five and three-quarters."

    10. SBSteven Bartlett52:56

        Yeah, yeah.

    11. MHDr Mark Hyman52:56

        She's like, "I'm 103 months." (laughs) She counted the months. And, and she was still working. She was still making stuff for weddings and doilies and all things. And she didn't have any kids, but her niece and her nephew, uh, invited her to come stay with them. And so, she was living with them. Or another guy, Carmine, had lost his wife, but he was living with family members, and was m- running this big garden at 86, and animals

16. 53:18 – 56:15

    Loneliness Is Killing People.

    1. MHDr Mark Hyman53:18

       and sheeps and rabbits. So, they all are part of a community. They have gatherings. They celebrate together. There's a sense of belonging. There's no nursing homes. There's no loneliness. Loneliness is, is the new smoking, really. I mean, we have an epidemic of isolation and loneliness in America, and increasing around the globe. And, and it's, it's, it's lethal. It's like smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett53:37

       How do we know?

    3. MHDr Mark Hyman53:38

       How do we know that it's dangerous?

    4. SBSteven Bartlett53:39

       Yeah.

    5. MHDr Mark Hyman53:40

       There's so much science (laughs) around this. The evidence of, of this is, is, is immense. In fact, the surgeon general of America just released a statement about this, and an initiative to redress loneliness because it's such a driver of not just unhappiness, but actual disease and death.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett53:55

       Why are we- why are we so lonely? What is it that's happening? Do you think it's... What is it, the internet? Or is it-

    7. MHDr Mark Hyman53:59

       Oh, yeah. I mean, think about it. We used to, you know, rely on each other and communities to, to live like, like they do. For example, I'm like... I said, you know, "How did it work, Silvio? When you have all these sheep, how do you manage?" "Well, you know, I have, like, all my friends. They come over. And when it's time to shear the sheep, they come over, and they help." And it's just that i- life is just naturally connected. And you go over to someone's house. You walk down the street. You, you know, you sit in the café. You just, you have a neighborhood. You have a family. We've lost that. We're all mobile. We're all moving around. We are all disconnecting from our families. We're, you know, online most of the time. You know, f- we have face- we have Facebook instead of actually face- real face-to-face time. I mean, it's great to sit here with you in person, right?

    8. SBSteven Bartlett54:36

       Mm-hmm.

    9. MHDr Mark Hyman54:37

       Instead of being on a Zoom call. (laughs)

    10. SBSteven Bartlett54:38

        (laughs)

    11. MHDr Mark Hyman54:38

        And it's, it's something we've lost. And we've, we've lost the value of relationships and our culture of achievement and success. And it's just kind of disconnected us from what really matters, which is, is the human community.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett54:51

        Is there any way back for that?... do, do you think? Because I was thinking about this the other day.

    13. MHDr Mark Hyman54:55

        I do.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett54:55

        Listen, I've talked about this, uh, once or twice now, but I tried the Vision Pro the other day.

    15. MHDr Mark Hyman54:58

        Oh, you did?

    16. SBSteven Bartlett54:59

        Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, incredible in terms of the technology-

    17. MHDr Mark Hyman55:04

        Yeah.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett55:04

        ... but terrifying in terms of the potential implications over the long term.

    19. MHDr Mark Hyman55:08

        Yeah, you're just gonna wear that out all the time and forget about everything else, right?

    20. SBSteven Bartlett55:09

        Exactly. And it was, it was incredible. Like, the fact that I can, I can l- just sit there and just... The things I do with my hands that are on my lap impact all of these massive screens in front of me. You can see when... again, when you play it forward, that this is gonna get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and cheaper-

    21. MHDr Mark Hyman55:25

        Yeah.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett55:25

        ... and more accessible. The apps are gonna get better. And then, you know, we think about, well, that's gonna mean for loneliness.

    23. MHDr Mark Hyman55:30

        Yeah.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett55:30

        When I could go hang out, you know, with my friends in a virtual world, and do my work in a virtual world, and date in a virtual world, w- watch pornography in a virtual world, and all of these things.

    25. MHDr Mark Hyman55:39

        No, I still like hugging and holding hands. How do you do that? (laughs)

    26. SBSteven Bartlett55:43

        (laughs) You can't do that in there. Are, are you ho- like, are you hopeful for us being able to turn around the loneliness and isolation epidemic?

    27. MHDr Mark Hyman55:50

        I mean, it's a tough one. I think we have to, you know, rethink how we live and what we do and the communities we build. And I think there are efforts of that happening all around. So just e- at the same time we're seeing this epidemic of loneliness, we're also seeing, you know, a lot of initiatives of community building and connection and belonging. And so, there's a lot of these communities that I'm involved with that are happening. And, and I know... I'm on the board of something called the Belong Center, which is really about addressing loneliness and creating ways and mechanisms for people to connect and be with

17. 56:15 – 59:23

    We Need Systemic Solutions for Our Health Problems.

    1. MHDr Mark Hyman56:15

       each other in real time.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett56:16

       I think it needs to be a systemic thing. I think it a lot... with a lot of the issues we've talked about relating to longevity and diet, the best answers are probably gonna be the really tru- truly systemic ones that come from how we design societies.

    3. MHDr Mark Hyman56:27

       Yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett56:27

       Like, reg- regulation and policy, and-

    5. MHDr Mark Hyman56:30

       Absolutely.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett56:30

       ... just how we design cities and green spaces-

    7. MHDr Mark Hyman56:33

       Yeah.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett56:33

       ... and libraries, and communi- community centers, and all these kinds of things.

    9. MHDr Mark Hyman56:36

       Yeah.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett56:37

        That seems to, uh, yeah.

    11. MHDr Mark Hyman56:38

        You know, I, I, I did a, um... I, I realized this was a problem a long time ago, and I, I went to Haiti after the earthquake, and I, I went helping there when it was just a disaster, one of the first medical teams on the ground. And, uh, in that process, I met Paul Farmer, who was an s- incredible visionary doctor from Harvard, who went to Haiti and helped solve the problem of TB and AIDS by building community health workers. And he then went out to build a network of community health workers of over 11,000 globally. It was a model for the Clinton and Gates Foundation. And what he realized was that we didn't, didn't have a lack of the right science or the right medicines to heal these problems. We c- we know what to do with TB and AIDS. It was, it was, you know, a, a lack of people being able to do the basic things that they needed to do, like get clean water, or have a watch to know what time it was. And so, he built this network of community health workers and realized that community was medicine. And so, he, he was their neighbors. And so, I, I came back from that very moved, and I realized that chronic disease was also an issue, that, that chronic disease was, wasn't, wasn't con- infectious, but it was contagious, right? You're more likely to be overweight if your friends are overweight than if your family member are overweight, right? That your social networks are more important than your genetic work- networks in determining your health, right? You're, you're basically... You look around at your five closest friends, it's probably kind of the way you are too (laughs) , right? And, and so I realized that we needed to use the power of community to transform our health and our behavior. And, and, and I can tell you what to eat and what to do, but if all your friends are doing the opposite, it's gonna be hard, right? So I, I created a program with Rick Warren called the Daniel Plan, a faith-based wellness program, where we got 15,000 people to sign up in the first week, had a quarter of a million pounds were lost in the first year. We created a book called the Daniel Plan of how to do this in community. So it was, it was... We called it the Five F's for, for getting healthy, right? It's faith, friends, food, fitness, and focus, which is your mindset. So (laughs) -

    12. SBSteven Bartlett58:36

        Mm-hmm.

    13. MHDr Mark Hyman58:36

        And, and it was amazingly effective. We scaled it to a thousand churches around the world, and, and it really was helping people in small groups do this together. So there, there was no health coach. There was no nutritionist. There was just, you know, me and another doctor. And we basically created this program which could be delivered in a curriculum that people did in small groups together. And this church, the Saddleback Church with Rick Warren, had an infrastructure already of groups meeting every week. So we just hijacked (laughs) that and put the curriculum in there, and people did it. And, and it was really powerful. And we've seen that now at Cleveland Clinic where I work, and we've done that with, with groups there as well.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett59:11

        That last F, focus, do you... is that an umbrella word also for purpose?

    15. MHDr Mark Hyman59:17

        Purpose.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett59:18

        Because I-

    17. MHDr Mark Hyman59:18

        Meaning and purpose, yeah.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett59:19

        Yeah. From reading your work, I, I came to learn that purpose is a sort of longevity

18. 59:23 – 1:00:57

    How to Add 7 Years to Your Lifespan.

    1. SBSteven Bartlett59:23

       factor.

    2. MHDr Mark Hyman59:23

       100%. Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett59:25

       Uh, to what extent?

    4. MHDr Mark Hyman59:27

       I mean, the data is really clear. I was... a r- a recent paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that those who had meaning and purpose lived seven years longer.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett59:36

       And what do they mean by meaning and purpose in that context?

    6. MHDr Mark Hyman59:38

       It's whatever your meaning and purpose is. It could be you wanna be there for your grandchild. It could be you're a scientist and you wanna make a discovery. It could be that you, you're a novelist and you wanna write your next novel, or your-

    7. SBSteven Bartlett59:50

       So it's not a job necessarily?

    8. MHDr Mark Hyman59:51

       It's, it's not... No, it doesn't have to be. I mean, for me, you know, my purpose is ending needless suffering for millions of people through the power of this new thinking and model, and, and the new company that I co-founded, Function Health, is, I think, the tip of the spear that's going to be able to do that at scale by empowering people with their own health data, giving them an AI co-pilot to up-level their health, and to help them understand what's going on in real time. And to me, building that, creating that, scaling that, getting people access to things that are, are really hard to get t- for people, that it's not happening in your doctor's office or your healthcare system, not happening in your annual physical. You're not getting the latest science and medicine. So how do we accelerate that change? So for me, that, that, that drives me every day. It gets me excited to wake up, and I'm very passionate about it. Of course, you know, I'm also passionate about my friends and my community. I'm passionate about my health. I'm passionate about having fun, you know (laughs) , like, uh, and doing things that I love. So I think, you know, it, it's really important to design your life in, in terms of your values. What do you care about? What matters to you? What makes you come alive? What gives you energy? What takes away your energy? And, and focus on those things that, that take you

19. 1:00:57 – 1:02:49

    Retiring Is Detrimental to Our Health.

    1. MHDr Mark Hyman1:00:57

       to where you wanna go.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:58

       Why would not having a purpose make us die earlier?

    3. MHDr Mark Hyman1:01:02

       I mean, you see it all the time, Steven. I mean, you look at, you know, when people retire, literally in, in... The retirement age here is 65, which I'm gonna be this year, which is a little scary to say that (laughs) , but, uh, y- you know, I'm just getting started. And, uh, people think... Well, you know, you, you look at people who retire that the death rate happens so fast. Like, people who retire, die, die. Like, they... Uh, there's a much higher death rate. If, if for example, you're married and your spouse dies, and you've been together your life, whole life, you're likely to die very quickly after that.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:33

       Is there stats to support that?

    5. MHDr Mark Hyman1:01:34

       100%.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:35

       Hmm.

    7. MHDr Mark Hyman1:01:35

       100%.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:36

       That's crazy.

    9. MHDr Mark Hyman1:01:37

       Yeah.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:39

        Why? What happens? You know, I, I, I mean-

    11. MHDr Mark Hyman1:01:40

        Well, I mean, I, I-

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:41

        ... when everything just stops, you stop moving, you get depressed, you-

    13. MHDr Mark Hyman1:01:43

        Yeah, you get depressed, you stop moving. I had, I had a patient who had the most beautiful relationship. I, I, I... O- o- it was such a deep love, and they were together for, like, 40 years. And his wife got breast cancer, and she just didn't make it. And when he died... And he was a healthy guy. He was fit and healthy, ate well. He went into heart failure, like literally heart failure. His heart couldn't pump and he, he had a true medical condition that showed up on scans and imaging. (laughs) He was in trouble. And I was like, "Wow." You know, I looked it up and, and there's actually evidence for emotional shock and loss, heartbreak. Literally his heart broke, and that caused his heart to literally break physically, not just emotionally. And we were able to get him back and fix it by dealing with that emotional heartbreak, and by using energy healing and a lot of other things with him that, that helped him c- overcome it. But that's when I was like, "Wow." You know, the mind... You know, listen, Steven, the biggest, uh, and most powerful pharmacy in the world is between your ears, (laughs) you know? And it can do all kinds of stuff.

20. 1:02:49 – 1:05:22

    The Role of Trauma in Our Longevity.

    1. MHDr Mark Hyman1:02:49

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:49

       Trauma.

    3. MHDr Mark Hyman1:02:50

       Yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:51

       Does trauma play a role in our longevity?

    5. MHDr Mark Hyman1:02:52

       100%. I mean, you know, um, it's, it's amazing how in medical school we just did not learn this, but there, there, there's such a link between trauma and everything in your life, but particularly disease. There's a questionnaire we use called the ACE questionnaire, adverse childhood events, and it basically asks you a series of questions. You can look it up online. You can link to it in your show notes free, and it says, "Well, were your parents divorced? Was there alcoholism in your family? Did your parents fight in front of you? Did anybody hit you? Were you sexually abused?" And it just goes through this whole list of, "Were there any family members in prison?" You know? And, and the higher your score, the more likely you are to have health issues, be obese, have autoimmune disease, get cancer, get heart disease, get diabetes. It's really striking. And so trauma, it, it is registered in your body. And there's a book called The Body Keeps Score and Caroline Myss, who was a sort of a mystic said, you... You know, your biography becomes your biology. And it works the other way too from up down, right? Your biology can become your biography if you're eating crap and you're, um, nutritionally deficient and you have all these health issues and mercury poisoning. Well, that can, kind of, affect your mental health too in your story. But, but we know really clearly that your trauma is influencing your biology. And so we have to, we have to deal with this in medicine, whether it's depression, or whether it's autoimmune diseases, or whether it's other health issues. And we now have an incredible revolution in psychedelics which is for the first time showing us that we have treatments for things like PTSD which really were very hard to treat. You can give people a sedative, you know? (laughs) But that was it. And maybe some therapy which barely worked, if that. But you, you start to work with these, these compounds that change the structure and function of the brain which is really amazing to me. It's not just, uh, like a normal drug where you take the drug and you have to keep taking it. Imagine if you took Ozempic once and you would stay losing weight forever, like-

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:50

       Mm-hmm.

    7. MHDr Mark Hyman1:04:50

       ... right? (laughs) It's like taking these psychedelics, you know, once or twice and it changes your physiological functioning and your brain response. It changes compounds in your brain like BDNF that grow new brain connections and repair and heal things in your brain. And so we're seeing new ways to deal with trauma that I, I feel really exciting. And MAPS is an organization, um, the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies. You can share that link. But it's, it's sharing all the research about treating depression, anxiety, trauma responses, PTSD, relational issues,

21. 1:05:22 – 1:10:22

    The Power of Psychedelics.

    1. MHDr Mark Hyman1:05:22

       I mean-

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:22

       What do you think of psychedelics? Have you tried them?

    3. MHDr Mark Hyman1:05:24

       Yes, I have.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:24

       Which, which ones have you tried?

    5. MHDr Mark Hyman1:05:27

       You know... (laughs)

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:28

       Not all of them. Which ones haven't you tried? (laughs)

    7. MHDr Mark Hyman1:05:30

       Um, I haven't, uh, tried ibogaine.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:34

       Oh, okay, yeah.

    9. MHDr Mark Hyman1:05:34

       Uh...

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:34

        It's quite strong addict- it's for addiction, right?

    11. MHDr Mark Hyman1:05:36

        Yeah. Um, but, you know, I grew up in the '70s, so, uh, mushrooms were... Psychedelic mushrooms were a big part of my, my awakening, uh, and, and my personal journey. Tried, uh, LSD, I've tried peyote, I've tried ayahuasca, I've tried bufo. I've tried pretty much all of them 'cause I'm just... I'm sort of an adventurer in my biology-

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:58

        Mm-hmm.

    13. MHDr Mark Hyman1:05:58

        ... and, and my mind. And I can tell you that they really helped me. Uh-

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:01

        Which one helped you the most? And, and give me a-

    15. MHDr Mark Hyman1:06:05

        (sighs)

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:05

        ... a story of how it helped you. My girlfriend's actually in, uh, in Costa Rica right now serving ayahuasca, and I spent a year and a half, um, investing in and... We took a, um, psychedelics company public called Itay Life Sciences.

    17. MHDr Mark Hyman1:06:19

        Yeah.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:19

        So I worked in-

    19. MHDr Mark Hyman1:06:20

        Yeah.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:20

        ... in partnership with MAPS and Compass Pathways.

    21. MHDr Mark Hyman1:06:23

        Yeah.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:23

        We, w- w- at Itay we invested in Compass Pathways which is... So I'm quite heavily-

    23. MHDr Mark Hyman1:06:28

        Oh, you're very into that? Yeah.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:29

        Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've... Um, yeah, I spent about a year as the... A year and a half? About a year as the creative director of the company purely because I, I just was interested.

    25. MHDr Mark Hyman1:06:36

        Yeah.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:36

        So I invested about seven figures in the business, then I joined as a creative director to stay close, and then I... My, my contract was basically to leave on the day of the IPO.

    27. MHDr Mark Hyman1:06:45

        Ah.

    28. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:45

        So IPO'd on the NASDAQ, 3.4 billion, and I left the next day basically.

    29. MHDr Mark Hyman1:06:50

        Amazing, man.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:51

        Yeah.
22. 1:10:22 – 1:17:00

    Healing Journey to Overcome Trauma.

    1. MHDr Mark Hyman1:10:22

       and-

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:22

       Your sexual health or your int- your sort of romantic-

    3. MHDr Mark Hyman1:10:24

       Not my sexual health but more my romantic relationships. (laughs)

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:26

       Okay.

    5. MHDr Mark Hyman1:10:27

       And even sometimes work relationships, where I, I really developed a, a, a pattern. And my... It was also trauma that I had from my mother, who was a wonderful woman, but she was a child of deaf parents so she had to become their parent. And she basically was a p- what you call a parentified child, and she was the adult, so she never had a childhood. And then she did the same thing to me. She made me her therapist 'cause she was depressed and in a bad marriages and chose men who were broken 'cause she thought love was taking care of broken people. And so, I developed this place where I just felt this big hole and emptiness in my heart, and I couldn't really overcome that. And so I did a lot of work, did medicine journeys, I did lo- a lot of different kinds of therapy, and I was able to really break through and release that. And when I did, it was like, it was like literally the programming changed. You know how, you know how you have a little voice in your head all the time? (laughs) Sometimes a very annoying voice in your head, and it just says stuff all the time that, you know, you- you just wish it wouldn't? Or it- it dictates your behavior in certain ways that you wish it wouldn't? Well, I- I never thought this was possible, but literally that voice changed, and what it said changed, and how it was in relationships changed, and it was physiologically different and I didn't have that sense of trauma. And I had another friend who had the same thing, and he had, you know, a mother who was a, a yeller and a screamer and, and it was traumatizing, couldn't tell the truth and wasn't honest because he was afraid he was gonna get attacked and hurt. And so he was that little boy and so he had this part of his brain that wasn't working, and we, we helped him get MDMA therapy, uh, which is... You know, MDMA is, is a compound that, that isn't like a psychedelic but it- it has effects on PTSD. And he said it was like that part of his brain just turned off and he stopped having that feeling and was able to tell the truth and speak what he felt and, you know, it was powerful.

Episode duration: 1:43:56