Heal In 2025: Top FOODS & HABITS To Boost Brain Health & REDUCE INFLAMMATION | Mark Hyman

1. 0:00 – 9:21

   Protein Needs and Resistance Training as We Age

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

      Something I've been thinking about for a while, Mark, is that all we can ever do is find the right diet that works for us at that point in our life, right?

   2. MHMark Hyman0:10

      Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:12

      And what you're speaking to, and you detail the PROTAGE study in the book, what it shows-

   4. MHMark Hyman0:17

      Mm-hmm

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:17

      ... um, which is very, very powerful. But we're almost making a case, I think, that as we get older-

   6. MHMark Hyman0:25

      Mm-hmm

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:25

      ... potentially we need to increase our protein intake.

   8. MHMark Hyman0:28

      Yeah.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:28

      Is that something you would agree with?

   10. MHMark Hyman0:30

       Absolutely. Even the study that'll most, uh, vegans quote that show that protein is bad for you, show that as you get older, it's actually important that you increase your protein intake. So, you know, what people don't understand is that, uh, the, the recommended amounts of protein are the minimum amount to not get a deficiency disease. So how do you not get protein deficiency, which is a very serious disease? You would have to eat .8 grams per kilo. But that's like how much vitamin D do you need to not get rickets? Probably 30 units. How much vitamin D do you need to optimize your immune system and to prevent cancer and heart disease and all these other benefits? Probably 2,000 to 4,000. Maybe, you know, 10 to 100 times the minimum amount [laughs] .

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:17

       Yeah.

   12. MHMark Hyman1:17

       So I'm not saying you should have 100 times the recommended dietary allowance of protein [laughs] , but you need more than the minimum amount. And for people getting older, it shouldn't be probably .8, it should be more like 1.6. And if you're doing a lot of vigorous activity and strength training, you can even have more. So I, I think, uh, both because there's resistance to the, uh, effects of eating protein, meaning it's, you need to more protein to get the muscle building effect, and the fact that, you know, as we get older, we need to, to make sure our protein needs are, are met. We, we do need more protein as we get older.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:51

       For someone who's listening, Mark, and goes, "Okay, I understand that. Okay, I'm gonna increase my protein a little bit. Um, but I'm not sure about strength training. You know, I like going for walks."

   14. MHMark Hyman2:02

       Mm. Mm. Yeah.

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:02

       Um, uh, "You know, I hear you-

   16. MHMark Hyman2:03

       Yeah, yeah

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:03

       ... but I'm not interested in that. I'm not worried about my-

   18. MHMark Hyman2:05

       That was me. That was me. That was me. [laughs]

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:06

       Yeah. Well, why, why is it so important that people don't neglect resistance training-

   20. MHMark Hyman2:13

       Yeah

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:13

       ... particularly as they get older?

   22. MHMark Hyman2:15

       Yeah. That, that was really, uh, that was me. I, I hated the gym. It was smelly. I didn't wanna go in with all the, you know, big guys who were intimidating and lifting all these heavy weights, and I was a skinny guy. So I just, I just kind of didn't go. And I, and I knew, I recommended it 'cause I, you know, the science was clear. But I just, myself, I was kind of [laughs] resistant to resistance training. And I decided I was gonna do it. And I hit 60, it was, like, in my 59th year, I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna... At 59, I probably should get on it now." And I started to do it, and it was really life-changing. And I think that, that most people don't realize the impact of strength training on your balance, on your mobility, on your function, on your metabolism, on your overall wellbeing, on your hormones. Sex hormones decline as we age, so strength training boosts those. So it has so many benefits that, that i- if, if you wanna live a long, healthy life, aside from cutting out sugar and starch, probably the other most important thing is resistance training. If you just get two things from this podcast, is to understand that you need to dramatically reduce or eliminate starch and sugar from your diet, and to start resistance training in some form. It could be body weight, it could be bands, which I do, it could be weights. But make sure, make sure you work with someone to do proper form and so forth, so you don't hurt yourself [laughs] when you're starting out. But it's so important to do, and there's all these apps, there's YouTube videos. There's no lack of instruction out there. But it is something you should consider essential part of health as you get older. And it doesn't have to be a lot. It can be 30 minutes three times a week. I like to do more, but the reality is I probably only do three or four times a week because I just don't have the time at this moment. But I, when I do, I try to do [laughs] it more and more often.

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:54

       Yeah.

   24. MHMark Hyman3:54

       But, but I think it, it, the, the minimum is very, is very adequate. An hour and a half a week. If you don't have an hour and a half a week to invest in your health and what's going on with your life. In fact, uh, I often use this cartoon in my talks where it shows a doctor telling his patient, "Do you have time to exercise an hour a day or be dead 24 hours a day?" [laughs] You know, so I, I think that's a funny cartoon.

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:16

       Yeah, yeah. Thank you for the clarity there. I mean, a couple of things there. On Saturday, I tend to go to my local parkrun, um, sometimes with my son, sometimes with my family. And at the end of parkrun this Saturday, I bumped into a friend of mine who said, "Actually, Rangan, I heard your conversation with Gabrielle Lyon." I know Gabrielle's been on your podcast. And she said, "I heard it."

   26. MHMark Hyman4:40

       Yeah.

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:40

       "And for the first time in my life, I've actually went and started strength training." She's been doing that for about two months.

   28. MHMark Hyman4:46

       Mm.

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:46

       And she said-

   30. MHMark Hyman4:47

       Yeah
2. 9:21 – 14:39

   Hormesis, Zombie Cells and Telomeres

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:21

      Mark, talk to me about hormesis. There's a chapter on hormesis-

   2. MHMark Hyman9:25

      Ah

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:25

      ... in the book.

   4. MHMark Hyman9:25

      Yeah.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:25

      What is it, and how can we utilize it, I guess, to help us age better?

   6. MHMark Hyman9:32

      Well, you know, uh, I mean, we, we, we've all evolved in a much more stressful environment. You know, we didn't have perfectly controlled temperatures and humidity and air conditioning and heating, and, and we just sort of lived out there in nature. And we had periods where we had access to food, we didn't have grocery stores, or periods where we didn't have access to food. And, and we had to move our bodies a lot just to function, and, and all these are stresses. So hormesis is essentially a stress that doesn't kill you, and it activates these ancient healing pathways, these ancient longevity switches in your body in ways that we now are fully understanding, and I'll just go through some of them. What's a stress? Well, not eating is a stress, so starvation would be considered a stress. So not eating from 6:00 at night to 8:00 in the morning, your body's like, "Oh, I'm a, I'm a little short on food here. That's a stress. Let me kick into gear all these healing systems," like autophagy, which we mentioned before. Um, exercise is another kind of stress. You know, when you lift weights, you're tearing your muscles. When you sprint, you're stressing your mitochondria, and that causes them to rebound and become stronger. Uh, those are two a- examples of hormesis. But there's a lot of other cool ones that are now being used. Hot and cold therapy. Saunas, for example, show a reduction in death by, like, 40-something percent in, in Finland in these large studies. [laughs] Uh, and, and, and in, in, does so by, for example, activating your immune system, by fixing your proteins that are damaged as we age with these, these products that they're produced in a sauna called heat shock proteins. Or cold therapy, uh, cold plunges. Doesn't even have to be a sauna. It can be a hot bath. It can be a cold shower. Most people have a bath and a shower, you know. So I take a cold shower in the morning for two minutes. So it's a really inexpensive way to activate hormesis. If you want to cold plunge and s- splurge on that, great. Uh, and those are powerful. But I just, you know, fill my bathtub full of cold water, and if you live in a warm climate, you can throw a couple of bags of ice in, [laughs] you know, and then sit in there for three, four minutes. That activates these healing things in your body. And there, there are also other forms of hormesis that are phytohormesis, plant foods that have little stress molecules that they make to defend themselves. When we consume those in small amounts, they, they kind of trigger these healing responses, and many of them through these hallmarks of aging. For example, fisetin, which is from strawberries, uh, helps you kill zombie cells, and quercetin also helps to reverse your biological age working on your epigenetics and reduces inflammation. So there's all these compounds that we can consume from plants that do this. And then- There's some other kind of more advanced therapies like hyperbaric oxygen therapy or, or hypoxia therapy, where you reduce oxygen levels. These are stresses on the body, and it can actually help to r- activate longevity pathways. Like in Israel, they did a study in hyperbaric oxygen, and they found that it, it increased telomeres and killed zombie cells more than any other treatment. And these are things that we see as two of the hallmarks of aging that get worse, and it made them better simply by l- lying in 100% oxygen at, at a higher pressure than atmospheric pressure for 60 minutes for, you know, 60 sessions over a period of time. So we have, we have real insights into how-

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:35

      Yeah

   8. MHMark Hyman12:35

      ... these stresses can activate these ancient longevity pathways.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:39

      Mark, you mentioned a couple of terms there that some people may not recognize, zombie cells and telomeres, right?

   10. MHMark Hyman12:45

       Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:46

       So you mentioned that some of these therapies can help with those two things, two hallmarks-

   12. MHMark Hyman12:50

       Yeah

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:50

       ... of aging. But perhaps-

   14. MHMark Hyman12:52

       Yeah

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:52

       ... you could just expand a little bit on what telomeres are and what zombie cells are.

   16. MHMark Hyman12:56

       Yeah. So, so we mentioned these 10 hallmarks of aging, and they're these things that kind of happen as we get older. One of them is, you know, we replicate our DNA, I don't know, some quadrillion times i- in, in our lifetime. And so our DNA has to kind of open up. It, it has to be read, and then it has to close back up. And, and that's regulated by these things at the end of your chromosomes called telomeres. As, as they keep replicating, there's a little bit that gets cut off each time, and they get shorter. They're like the little caps on the end of your shoelaces that prevent it from unraveling. And when they get too short, you end up having, you know, problems, and that shortens your life. Uh, so telomeres are an important m- metric to look at as, as about how we're doing with longevity. The other is zombie cells. Zombie cells are the- also known as senescent cells. And normally, you know, when cells have gone through their normal process of doing what they do, they, they die off, and we have a process to do that in our body called apoptosis, which just means you kind of explode the cell, and you die, and you eat all the parts, and it's sort of a recycling system. But sometimes those cells don't die, and they become zombie cells. And those zombie cells produce all these inflammatory chem- chemicals that, that go all over your body, and then they kind of make other cells zombie cells, and it creates this whole zombie apocalypse inside [laughs] and end up with this state of accelerated inflammation. And that's why we call it aging, inflammaging. So senescent cells are things that can be changed or gotten rid of through some things like hyperbaric oxygen or certain senolytic therapies that, that can be from plant compounds that we can use. So maybe even drugs will be senolytic drugs. We- we're learning more about this as we go on, but these zombie cells are not good for you, and, and hyperbaric oxygen can help to get rid of them, which is great.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:38

       Yeah.

3. 14:39 – 21:44

   Co-Evolving With Plants and the Alcohol Question

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:39

      You also, as you've just explained, and I, I really did enjoy reading this section where all these kind of plant compounds can also help us get rid of zombie cells, and y- you mention a few of them there. In that section, Mark, you, you wrote quite a provocative sentence, um-

   2. MHMark Hyman14:56

      [laughs] What's new? [laughs]

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:59

      Yeah, what's new? But it, it was ... It, it really got me thinking. Uh, it was ... It's quite a beautiful statement, actually. You believe we co-evolved with plants to-

   4. MHMark Hyman15:09

      Yeah

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:09

      ... borrow their medicines-

   6. MHMark Hyman15:11

      Yeah

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:11

      ... to keep us healthy. Talk to me about that.

   8. MHMark Hyman15:13

      Yeah. Well, you know, like guinea pigs make, uh, don't make vitamin C. Humans don't make vitamin C. Uh, many other species of animals do. We don't make it 'cause we're lazy. Our biology, we wanna, don't wanna do anything that we don't have to do with our biology to conserve energy. So we've co-evolved with plants to use their compounds as medicines to help regulate our biology, and animals do this. You know, if you see a, a wild animal or a cow that's pasture raised, they will graze on a few major food crops. But then they'll sample maybe 100 other crops, uh, plants to actually activate medicinal properties in those plants for themselves. They're not ... They don't know that, but they, they kind of intuitively figure this out and keep themselves healthy, which is quite interesting. And so the same thing with humans. We've co-evolved with these plants, and e- over 800 species of plants as hunter-gatherers that contain these rich phytochemical compounds that we now are understanding that maybe we thought there were 25,000. There may be a million of these things in plants, and we're starting to catalog them and understand their mechanisms of action, how they work. When we say food is medicine, that's what we mean. We mean inside the food we're eating, there are medicinal compounds that our body uses to activate various pathways. For example, one of the key findings, for example, around longevity was the activation of sirtuins. Sirtuins is one of the four longevity switches that are in the hallmark of aging called deregulated nutrient sensing, meaning how do we sense our nutrition environment, and how do we regulate different processes based on whether we're eating the wrong stuff or the right stuff? And so resveratrol, which comes from grapes, actually works on sirtuins to activate sirtuins, which kicks in this whole system of DNA repair and improving insulin sensitivity and mitochondrial function and helping to reduce inflammation, and it's a really amazing thing that happens when you properly regulate sirtuins. Well, resveratrol is a plant compound that is acting on that pathway, for example. Doesn't mean you should be drinking red wine. I want to be careful with that because we now know that l- uh, alcohol i- in, in, is actually, even in lower amounts than we thought, can be harmful and increase risk of cancer and is, is definitely not a health-promoting activity. It's fine to do once in a while as a recreational, fun thing to do, but it's not something you want to do every day. [laughs] And I think the, uh, the, the ... but the compounds in the red grapes actually do act on this pathway. So that's one example.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:34

      Yeah. But then also, I think we have to acknowledge that I'm guessing in these blue zones where you went to-

   10. MHMark Hyman17:39

       Yeah

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:40

       ... that people are-

   12. MHMark Hyman17:41

       Yeah

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:41

       ... drinking as well.

   14. MHMark Hyman17:42

       Yeah.

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:42

       Right?

   16. MHMark Hyman17:43

       Yeah, they are. Yeah, they are. They're having a glass of wine here and there, but, you know, we have to understand that, that, uh, there is a phenomena in science called healthy, the healthy user effect. And, and this means that it, we can get kind of confused in studies where we see, oh, it seems like people drinking alcohol live longer, or they do this or that. It may be the other things they're doing, right? If, if we're told that, you know, having glass of wine is good for you, then maybe- The people who are drinking the wine are engaging in other healthy behaviors, right? They're exercising, they're eating more fruits and vegetables. They're not smoking. So we, we have to be careful of these biases that are inherent in studying people, where we thought, for example, that, uh, hormones were protective for women against heart disease and cancer and stroke and dementia because of a population study where they found, you know, women who seemed to take hormones had less of these problems. Well, it was 'cause these women were healthier as a group because they went to the doctor more. They paid more attention to their health. They exercised more. They didn't smoke. They ate more fruits and vegetables. That's why they had less heart disease, cancer, stroke-

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:47

       Yeah

   18. MHMark Hyman18:47

       ... and dementia. And when they did a randomized controlled trial called the Women's Health Initiative, it was a billion-dollar study, 160,000 women, they literally had to stop the trial partway through because so many women were dying who were taking the hormones. It's because of, of the bias in the first study that was called the healthy user effect, and that's what's going on when you look at some of the data. Well, yes, the people in the blue zones drink a little wine, but what else did they do?

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:11

       Yeah.

   20. MHMark Hyman19:11

       They weren't exposed to environmental toxins. They had really no chronic stresses. They had deep sense of meaning and purpose and community. They ate foods that were original, like almost heirloom foods. A lot of wild foods. They ate in Ikaria. They had animal foods, but they had animals that were eating all these wild plants that had phytochemicals [laughs] in them. You know, they, they had, uh, natural exercise that they did as part of their life. So what was it? Was it the alcohol, or was it all this other [laughs] stuff?

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:38

       Yeah. Thanks for explaining that. I was just bringing that up to stimulate conversation because, um, I think one of the problems when we look at these blue zones is that we, as I've already mentioned, we take these things in isolation and-

   22. MHMark Hyman19:51

       Yeah

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:51

       ... it's the totality of their-

   24. MHMark Hyman19:54

       Yeah

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:54

       ... experience that leads to it, and we're trying to learn principles. And also-

   26. MHMark Hyman19:58

       Totally

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:59

       ... the truth is, like in the West, most people, certainly if I speak about my, the patient population I have seen, most people are consuming alcohol to de-stress, right? So it's a way-

   28. MHMark Hyman20:11

       Yes

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee20:11

       ... of mitigating chronic levels of high stress. So-

   30. MHMark Hyman20:14

       Yeah
4. 21:44 – 33:15

   Nutrition Common Ground, Phytochemicals and the Carnivore Diet

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:44

      Mark, coming back to nutrition, it's, it's a very confusing topic for many people, right? And I'm always conscious that I never wanna leave people at the end of these podcasts more confused. And I think sometimes that does happen because you speak to someone-

   2. MHMark Hyman22:00

      Mm

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:00

      ... who may have a certain food philosophy, and you speak to someone else-

   4. MHMark Hyman22:03

      Yeah

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:03

      ... with another food philosophy. And-

   6. MHMark Hyman22:06

      Yeah

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:06

      ... they sound very knowledgeable-

   8. MHMark Hyman22:08

      [laughs]

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:08

      ... and they quote research to support their point of view. And so in the interests of moving this forward for people-

   10. MHMark Hyman22:16

       Yeah

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:16

       ... like, let, let's just go, go through what everyone can agree on. We started off this conversation talking about reducing ultra-processed foods. I don't think-

   12. MHMark Hyman22:24

       Yeah

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:24

       ... there's many people in this space who would disagree with that, right?

   14. MHMark Hyman22:29

       No, I don't. I think that's a universally accepted thing-

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:31

       Universally, yeah

   16. MHMark Hyman22:31

       ... that we should... And then, then sugar and starch, in general, are, are really not great for you.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:36

       Yeah.

   18. MHMark Hyman22:36

       I think most people also agree about that.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:38

       Excess sugar, uh, for sure. Uh, you know, I think most people c- can agree with, you know, we're eating way more than we used to, and reducing it, stroke... Eliminating, I think, is pretty hard for most people in the current-

   20. MHMark Hyman22:51

       No, no, I was... Yeah

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:51

       ... environment. But reducing it-

   22. MHMark Hyman22:52

       Unless you're type 2 diabetic and you're really overweight, you, you know, and your metabolism is so screwed up, you know, those people I think do probably need to be on an extremely restricted carbohydrate diet. But once you're metabolically healthy, you can eat more and be more resilient.

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:05

       Yeah.

   24. MHMark Hyman23:05

       And that's the goal.

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:07

       So then w- the third thing, I think we, we, we discussed protein. Now, yes, it's controversial. Um, and it is... You know, as you even admit in your book, it is confusing for people. There's a line where you actually say that, so you understand the confusion.

   26. MHMark Hyman23:21

       Mm, yeah.

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:21

       But the protein study, which was very thorough, does seem to support, um, increased protein intake to help us prevent sarcopenia, particularly as we get older. And I think you've very eloquently explained your, your view is that actually it's easy with animal protein, but if you wanna do it with plant protein-

   28. MHMark Hyman23:41

       Mm-hmm

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:42

       ... you can do it. You're gonna need to supplement. You may need to make sure you're hitting that 2.5 grams of leucine. So I think, again, broad agreement there, I, I, I would say. W- would you agree with that?

   30. MHMark Hyman23:54

       Yeah. I agree. And I agree in terms of plant proteins, you have to make sure that you add extra amino acids or that they're added already to the plant protein, and you have to probably take a plant protein powder, which is pea protein or other forms of protein that may be, you know, pumpkin seed. There's, there's good protein powders out there. But they're not gonna be sufficient on their own unless they're, they have a d- added amino acids to bring the leucine content up to two and a half grams per serving, which is- You know, about 30, 30 plus grams
5. 33:15 – 39:30

   Adding and Removing Foods, the 10-Day Reset and Detoxification

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee33:15

      Mark, there's a, there's a point there, as you mentioned with elimination diets, and I'd really welcome your thoughts on this. These days, for most people, is it more important to focus on what to bring into your diet, or is it more important to focus on what to take out of it?

   2. MHMark Hyman33:38

      That's a great question. [laughs] I think, you know, um, I think it's both. I mean, you, you, you have to add in all the good stuff, and you have to take out the bad stuff. I mean, if you're, if you're eating, you know, three cups of broccoli a day but having three Coca-Colas, mm, I don't think it's gonna do the same thing as if you get rid of the Coca-Colas and eat, you know, more whole foods. So I think, I think we do need to get rid of stuff, and we also need to add stuff. So they're both really important. Uh, I think, I think the key is, is trying to include more and more of the things that are good for you and slowly eliminate the things that are bad for you, and I think people can get there. Now, uh, what I often recommend, because if you do the incremental approach, you might not see the benefits as, as, as fast, um, is, is a short-term 10-day reset, and, uh, I call it the 10-Day Detox Diet. I've written a book about it. It, it's, it's sort of highlighted in, a little bit in the book about how to do that. But the key is when you, when you kind of remove all the bad stuff, potentially bad stuff, 'cause it may not be bad, right? Gluten may not be bad for everybody. Uh, but, but if you remove all the stuff that potentially is bad for 10 days, your body will get the chance to reset. And what I've seen by doing that, that there's a 70% reduction in all symptoms from all diseases in 10 days. That's migraines, irritable bowel, depression, arthritis. Whatever it is gets better in 10 days. Now, if it doesn't get better, maybe something else is going on. Maybe you have Lyme disease or mercury poisoning or something else causing it. But most of the time, a lot of the ailments that we're suffering from are because of what we're eating, and a short-term reset can be extremely powerful. So you can do an incremental approach if you want, but I encourage people to do a reset because then you go, "Oh, shoot, you know, I didn't realize how much food was affecting how I feel-

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:21

      Yeah

   4. MHMark Hyman35:21

      ... and how much better I could feel in so few days." [laughs] It's not like months or years of doing this to see a result. It's literally days.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:29

      Yeah, that's one of the things I really like in, in the new book, Young Forever, Mark, is that there are some complex things in there if you have the resources and you're able to access them, but the majority-

   6. MHMark Hyman35:41

      Majority, yeah

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:42

      ... are simple things-

   8. MHMark Hyman35:45

      Mm-hmm. Yes

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:45

      ... that we can all do. You explain the science. You know, the science can be complex. It's really interesting to read about it, but actually the practical takeaways are actually not that difficult. And-

   10. MHMark Hyman35:57

       No

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:57

       ... you know, one thing that people will often say, and we'll probably get comments on, on this video, on YouTube, that, yes, but it's hard for us to find a doctor like you, Mark, or a doctor like me, who looks at these root cause-

   12. MHMark Hyman36:09

       Yeah

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee36:09

       ... solutions for people. And I, the one thing I try and emphasize is that 80% of what I'd end up doing anyway is the stuff that we're talking about, right? [laughs] So-

   14. MHMark Hyman36:19

       Yeah

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee36:19

       ... get stuck in and do this basic stuff first, your diet-

   16. MHMark Hyman36:23

       Mm

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee36:23

       ... your movement, your sleep, your stress. Do you know what I mean? And then-

   18. MHMark Hyman36:26

       Mm-hmm. Absolutely

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee36:27

       ... and if that's, if that doesn't work, then we can go in deeper.

   20. MHMark Hyman36:30

       Yeah, and in the book I go through, okay, well, there's quizzes-

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee36:32

       Yeah

   22. MHMark Hyman36:32

       ... so you can identify where your imbalances are, what's going on with you. You can be someone who can self-diagnose what's happening, and then there's guidelines about, you know, what are the specific extra dietary changes or extra supplements that might help, or other things that could be necessary, or even further testing or medical care. So there's a roadmap for you to be the CEO of your own health, to dive deep into the things that are out of balance, and to correct those things, not just to live longer, but to actually feel better now.

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee36:58

       A couple of things I wanted to cover before we ended, Mark. One was you just mentioned the 10-day detoxification diet that you sometimes... You know, you've, you've written a book about it, you've, you've spoken about before. Now, the term detoxification is something that seems to, um, people get triggered by that term.

   24. MHMark Hyman37:17

       Yeah. [laughs]

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee37:17

       Let's, let's put it like that, right? So-

   26. MHMark Hyman37:19

       Well, it like means you're likely to go to rehab, right? [laughs]

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee37:21

       Yeah, but, but if we think about it, um, people understand the term hangover. They understand, right, if they, uh, toxify themselves with too much alcohol, they're going to get symptoms. And they also understand that, oh, if I have a hangover and I drink more water, or instead of having fatty, uh, fried foods, and let's say if I have more whole foods and fruits and vegetables, for example-

   28. MHMark Hyman37:46

       Yeah

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee37:46

       ... then I'm going to feel better more quickly, right?

   30. MHMark Hyman37:49

       Mm-hmm.
6. 39:30 – 47:55

   Biological Age, the Epigenome and Abnormal Aging

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:30

      You mentioned, Mark, biological age and chronological age.

   2. MHMark Hyman39:34

      Yes.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:35

      Please explain for people-

   4. MHMark Hyman39:36

      Yeah

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:37

      ... who, who don't know the difference.

   6. MHMark Hyman39:38

      [laughs] Sure. So, uh, you know, I'm 63. I can't change that. I was born in 1959, and that's gonna progress inevitably toward, you know, however many years I'm alive. [laughs] However, my biological age is my age on the inside. It's not my chronological clock, it's my biological clock. And we now know that we can measure our biological clock and our rate of aging through a specific test called DNA methylations, something relatively new, and it, it tests w- what's called our epigenome. Our genes are fixed. We have 20,000 genes. We can't change that, or 25, whatever. But we have on top of those genes a regulating system. Epi means above. And the epigenome basically is like the piano player that plays all the different keys, which are our genes. We've got 88 keys, but they can play thousands of tunes. You can have rock, ragtime, jazz, blues, whatever, classical, all in the same 88 keys. Same thing with your epigenome, and it can control your biology in real time in ways that either accelerate or reverse the aging process. And now we know that a lot of the interventions that we discuss, whether it's diet and exactly what to eat, how to eat, and so forth, exercise, the types of exercise, stress reduction, sleep, environmental toxins, nutritional level, our microbiome, all these things influence our epigenome and can change it either into something that's causing us to age fast or slow, or reverse our biological age. So if you're eating ultra-processed food, you're not exercising, you're under tons of stress, you're not sleeping, your nutrition's nutritionally deficient, you're exposed to toxins, guess what? Your epigenome is gonna be bad. You will be older than your chronological age, as opposed to younger. So we know through interventions, even short interventions of, for example, eight weeks, we can, of aggressive lifestyle and dietary change with functional medicine, you can reverse your biological age by three years. So in eight weeks, you turn back the biological clock by three years. That's profound.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:37

      In eight weeks?

   8. MHMark Hyman41:38

      In eight weeks, yeah.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:39

      And so-

   10. MHMark Hyman41:40

       [laughs]

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:40

       I mean, that's-

   12. MHMark Hyman41:41

       I'm trying to... I'm 43, I'm trying to get to 25.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:43

       [laughs]

   14. MHMark Hyman41:43

       We'll see how it goes. [laughs]

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:44

       But that, but, but, you know, I think that's a key point here, Mark. When a lot of people think about longevity, right?

   16. MHMark Hyman41:51

       Mm, mm.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:52

       I think there is a slight mismatch in their brain where it's like, well, why should I be bothered about what happens in 20, 30 years? I want to live my life-

   18. MHMark Hyman42:02

       Yeah

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee42:02

       ... now, right? So there's-

   20. MHMark Hyman42:03

       Yeah

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee42:03

       ... there's always been this slight disconnect, whereas what I love about [laughs] the things that you recommend in Young Forever is that, yes, it's gonna slow down the aging process if that's your goal, but it's also gonna help you feel great, like-

   22. MHMark Hyman42:17

       Yeah

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee42:17

       ... straight away, right? So it's, it's not-

   24. MHMark Hyman42:19

       Yeah

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee42:19

       ... something that we can kick down into the future.

   26. MHMark Hyman42:21

       No.

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee42:21

       It's gonna have immediate, it's gonna have an immediate impact on the quality of your life.

   28. MHMark Hyman42:26

       Immediate. Immediate. Yeah, absolutely. Because adding more life to your years, not just years to your life, right? So how do you actually feel good to do what you want in life? That's what this is all about. How do we be a more- ... engage society? How do we become more connected to each other and supportive? How do we actually change this, sort of this inexorable sickness, both biologically and psychologically, that we see in our society? And a lot of it has to do with our biological health. We know that our mental health is connected to our physical health, and a lot of the sort of raging depression, and anxiety, and mental hea- health issues that are exploding across the globe are really related to, you know, our overall stress as a society, but also to the food we're eating. That literally the, the dietary things that we do drive our poor mental health, and that, uh, particularly [laughs] starch and sugar and processed food, and that can be changed, and that'll give us a sense of purpose, and meaning, and ability to do whatever we want.

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee43:21

       You posted a photo on, I think it was on Instagram a few months ago-

   30. MHMark Hyman43:26

       Mm. Mm
7. 47:55 – 1:05:20

   Blue Zone Elders, Purpose, Community and Mindset

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee47:55

      I know as part of the research for this book, you went on your travels. I really enjoyed-

   2. MHMark Hyman48:00

      Yes

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:00

      ... watching you sharing-

   4. MHMark Hyman48:01

      You did

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:01

      ... a lot of these stories on your social media. This is probably-

   6. MHMark Hyman48:04

      Yeah

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:04

      ... I don't know, six, nine months ago. I can't remember-

   8. MHMark Hyman48:06

      Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:06

      ... when exactly. Um-

   10. MHMark Hyman48:08

       Yeah

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:08

       ... I know two countries you visited or two places you visited were Sardinia and Ikaria, I think.

   12. MHMark Hyman48:14

       Ikaria. Ikaria.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:15

       And I wonder, could you paint us a picture of maybe some of the older residents who you met who really challenge that modern assumption that as we get older, we're gonna be frail, we're gonna be sick, we're gonna be sat down all day. We're not-

   14. MHMark Hyman48:33

       Mm-hmm

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:33

       ... we're not gonna be doing much. Because, you know, you shared yourself in your early 60s- ... how much vibrancy you have. Okay, that's fantastic.

   16. MHMark Hyman48:42

       Yeah.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:42

       But paint us a picture from your travels as to, you know, a couple of people who you met who also showcased to us what may be possible as we age.

   18. MHMark Hyman48:52

       Yeah, I think that's a very, very important point that, uh, you know, we need to, to sort of look at cultures where they live a long time, and what are their habits and behaviors, and how are they different? And I think, you know, they, they age very well and live a long time. And now the blue zones are these places around the planet where people are the longest lived humans. The thing is, when they move to the Western societies that, that we come from, they age at the same rate as we [laughs] do. They get old and sick and die sooner. And so really by default, their habits are those that promote longevity. They're not, you know, doing saunas and cold plunges, and taking a lot of supplements, and doing IV NAD, and doing exosomes, and plasma phoresis, and all these kind of cool things that are emerging around longevity. Their whole default culture is, is, is actually automatically providing them with the inputs that enhance health and promote longevity. For example, their diet is, is incredibly, uh, rich in phytochemicals, in, in whole foods, in things that are, are wild, and, and really simple foods that they've eaten for thousands of years.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:53

       We'll be back to the conversation in just a moment. Now, many of us struggle to find time to eat all of these incredible whole foods. That's why I'm a big fan of good quality whole food supplements like this one that's been in my own life for over three years now. It contains over 75 whole food source ingredients, vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics, and can help us support our energy, focus, digestion, and our immune system. Athletic Greens are giving my audience a fantastic offer, one year's free supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first order. You can see all the details at athleticgreens.com/livemore, or simply click on the link below. Now, back to the conversation.

   20. MHMark Hyman50:41

       They exercise as a normal part of their life, whether it's gardening or whether it's, you know, shepherding and climbing up and down the mountains all the day long. [laughs] And it's, uh, the social connections, and the tight-knit family groups, and the social fabric, and the idea that we should just be there to help and support each other is, is really quite important. And, and so when you have these defaults, longevity happens as a natural consequence. Uh, they actually were quite incredible. I met this guy, Pietro, who was 95 years old. He'd just retired, quote, retired from being a shepherd, where he was shepherding his sheep five miles up and down the Rocky Mountains every single day [laughs] from probably when he was, like, 12. And was straight up as an arrow, booming voice, clear eyes, you know, just looked like the average sort of probably, uh, 67-year-old in America. And I'm like, wow, this guy's 95 years old. [laughs] There was, uh, Ele- Eleka who was, uh, almost 90 years old. This woman cooked us a meal from her garden. She took care of this entire, f- I wouldn't call it a garden, more like a farm she had on a hillside, all these orchards and fruit trees, many, many garden beds, animals she took care of. And she did it all by herself. Her husband was, like, 100, so he was, he was sort of chilling. [laughs] But I mean, I mean, he... She just was, was so fit and vi- And I was literally chasing after her going up this hill, huffing and puffing, and she just was like a little mountain goat. And I was like, holy cow, this is impressive. And she cooks all her own food. They raise all their own food. She cans all her own food. She preserves all her own food. And she's, like, 90-something years old. I'm like, this is not what we see in America at 90 years old. We see people in nursing homes or sitting in a wheelchair or rocking chair [laughs] and not doing a whole lot.

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee52:19

       Yeah. Uh, it, it's so interesting to hear that, Mark. And I just wonder for you is, you're someone who's known the science that's come out of the blue zones. You've spoken about it before. You, you've, you, you've known about this for many, many years.

   22. MHMark Hyman52:32

       Mm-hmm.

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee52:33

       Was it different? You can know it with your rational mind, but then you show up and you-

   24. MHMark Hyman52:38

       Yeah

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee52:38

       ... spend time with these people, these families, these elderly individuals who are maybe more active than you are potentially in, you know-

   26. MHMark Hyman52:47

       Potentially. [laughs]

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee52:47

       ... going up mountains, right? You know, what did that do to, how did that influence your writing of this book? Because I, I, I always think about this as a, as, you know, you like me, as someone, we try to communicate these ideas in a simple way to the public.

   28. MHMark Hyman53:02

       Yeah, yeah.

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee53:02

       And we can know stuff with our rational brain, but I think there's something quite powerful about stories and actually seeing people who embody-

   30. MHMark Hyman53:10

       Yeah
8. 1:05:20 – 1:11:51

   Protein, mTOR and Autophagy: Balancing Muscle Building and Cleanup

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:05:20

      I want to talk about protein, Mark. Protein is something-

   2. MHMark Hyman1:05:23

      Ah. [laughs]

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:05:23

      ... you've written a lot about, and I know it's a divisive topic, right? So I wonder-

   4. MHMark Hyman1:05:28

      Yeah, it is

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:05:28

      ... if you could help walk us through it. And, you know, you shared before in this conversation that one of the things you've changed as you have got older is-

   6. MHMark Hyman1:05:38

      Hmm

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:05:38

      ... you've brought in resistance training into your life-

   8. MHMark Hyman1:05:42

      Hmm

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:05:42

      ... which has made a big difference.

   10. MHMark Hyman1:05:43

       Yeah.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:05:43

       So maybe just talk to us about this sort of area and why it's so important for aging.

   12. MHMark Hyman1:05:48

       Well, I think, I think, you know, the protein conversation's super important. I think it's polarized, and it's ideological, unfortunately, but it should be scientific. You know, people think being a vegan is the way to go for longevity. Others think that you should be eating more protein, and I think there's a lot of confusion out there, and part of it has to do with, um, beliefs and ideology, and I'm not gonna get into all that. I do think that you can be a healthy vegan, but it is a lot of work, and you need to know what you're doing, and you need to supplement with certain things that can protect you from the challenges of being a vegan, which is getting adequate levels of certain amino acids for protein synthesis and muscle building, certain nutrients that are deficient. It's not easy, but it's doable. [laughs] So I'm not saying I'm opposed to it, I'm just saying it's, it's a, it's a harder row to hoe in terms of longevity and wellbeing. So when you look at protein, the, the f- feeling is that in the longevity community that we should potentially be vegan because we don't wanna overstimulate a particular pathway, uh, one of the hallmarks of aging, which we call mTOR. Now, this is one of the four nutrient-sensing pathways in our body that samples the environment and the food we're eating and regulates all sorts of biological processes, and this is really the meta hallmark. This is the one that's, I think, the most important, which is how food interacts with our biology to create health and disease or longevity or early death. And so mTOR is- stimulated by protein and particularly by animal protein 'cause it has higher levels of an amino acid called leucine. Leucine is so important for tripping the switch that builds muscle. So I'm just gonna stop for there, for a minute because I wanna emphasize how important muscle is to longevity. Without muscle, your metabolism goes down, your stress hormones go up, you're become more insulin resistant and pre-diabetic, you become, uh, more inflamed, and it's this whole cascade of phenomena that occur because your muscle gets replaced with fat. So the key is to build and keep and increase muscle if you can as you get older, enhance longevity. And that you do, you have to do that by tripping the switch of mTOR to build muscle. The problem is if you do that all the time, if mTOR's always stimulated, you actually don't give your body a chance to engage in one of the most important processes that are important for longevity, which is what we call autophagy. Autophagy means self-cleaning or self-cannibalism or self-eating, literally, like Pac-Man. [laughs] And, and this is a good thing because it, our body has the ability to go and recycle old parts, to get rid of old proteins and old cells and clean them up and actually, you know, build new stuff, which is great. It's like recycling plastic bottles and making clothes out of it, right? So we, we have that internal system in our bodies that we have to turn on on a regular basis in order to clean up and, and prevent rapid aging. So that's a good thing. And the way you s- you activate autophagy is by inhibiting mTOR, which means don't give it food or protein, [laughs] which is a good thing. So what do you do? Do you not eat protein to turn on autophagy or do you eat lots of protein to build muscle? Well, the key is both. You need, like any system, you need sometimes it on and sometimes off. You need to sleep and you need to w- be awake. I mean, it's basically how the body works. So we need overnight to stimulate autophagy by giving ourselves a break from eating, meaning getting no food from dinner until breakfast, so no m- late-night snacking. And you should give at least 12 hours. So if you eat dinner at 6:00, you're gonna eat 6:00 in the morning. If you wanna extend to 14, that's eating at 8:00 in the morning. That's doable for most people. 16 hours is a little bit longer. That can also have benefits. And that gives your body a chance to sort of pretend that it's starving 'cause you're, you're not really starving, [laughs] but your body thinks it's kind of maybe starving. So it starts to turn on all these protective mechanisms that i- that is related to the stress of not eating called hormesis. And so basi- And we can talk about that more. But basically, the idea is when you, when you activate autophagy at night, it's a good thing and it extends life. However, you need to give a good protein load in the morning on a fasted state, probably 30 or 40 grams of high-quality protein. When I say high quality, I mean it has to have at least two and a half grams of leucine, which is almost impossible to get from plant protein unless you eat a huge amount, or, which people can't do, like having, you know, six cups of brown rice or two, three cups of beans. It's hard for people to eat [laughs] that much of that stuff. And, and then you can add the leucine to a plant protein, but you, you actually have to get the leucine to turn on this. So you can have plant protein powders that are supplemented with amino acids or you can just have a whey protein shake or, you know, some animal protein, eggs or chicken or fish or whatever you wanna eat, and that will turn on mTOR and build muscle. And then if you, if you fast and then load up with protein in the morning and do the resistance training maybe before you, you do your protein load, that's the best strategy. And that's how I build muscle, which I basically would, would be in this fasted state. I would work out and do my half-hour band routine, and then I would have a good protein shake with 40 grams of protein and a bunch of other goodies in it to help me build muscle, and it really works. [laughs] And it works even despite the fact that as you get older, you get something called anabolic resistance, meaning your body is more resistant to building muscle, so you have to work harder and take more protein. So as we get older, we need more protein, and we need more h- high-quality protein, and I think that's really the, the, the clear evidence from the scientific literature about what we need to do. But people get into ideological battles about, you know, whether you should or shouldn't eat meat. I think, I think it's really beside the point. The point is how does our biology work? How do we work with it? How do we activate these pathways in the right way, and how do we give them a rest when we need to give them a rest?

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:11:33

       The root cause of our patients' problems, but actually the root cause of many of society's problems from what you're saying-

   14. MHMark Hyman1:11:40

       Is also food

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:11:41

       ... is food.

   16. MHMark Hyman1:11:41

       Yeah, let's go into it. So we've got the chronic disease epidemic. We've got the economic burden. Let's talk about some of the s- social justice issues around this.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:11:50

       Yeah.

   18. MHMark Hyman1:11:50

       And I-

9. 1:11:51 – 1:21:08

   Why Poor Food Choices Aren't Simply Personal Failure

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:11:51

      Well, well, I think what, what will tie in really nicely there is, is something you said, which is, "I realize that for many of my patients, it's not their fault."

   2. MHMark Hyman1:12:00

      Mm-hmm.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:00

      Now, I think that was really poignant because when people talk about healthy food choices, a lot of people on social media, a lot of people in the media will still think it is the person's fault. They know what they should be doing. They're simply not following the advice. They need more willpower. They need to get a grip of their life. It's not good enough. But I guess what you're saying is it's not their fault.

   4. MHMark Hyman1:12:25

      No.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:26

      Why do so many people think it is their fault, and why do you think it's not their fault?

   6. MHMark Hyman1:12:30

      Oh, [laughs] well, that's a great question. So the reason people think it's their fault is because we've been told by doctors, nutritionists, our governments, and of course the food industry that all calories are the same, that calories in, calories out, exercise more, eat less, you'll lose weight. And if you don't do it, it's your fault, that all calories are the same, it's just about moderation, and that, you know, 20-ounce soda with 250 calories is exactly the same as eight and a half cups of broccoli with 250 calories That, and, I mean, even a five-year-old can get that's ridiculous, but that's exactly the message out there. And when all calories are the same, then, you know, there's a sense of, well, just, you know, control yourself, right? Control yourself. It's your fault. But the truth is we know from the science that not all calories are the same, and ultra-processed food calories affect the body, the brain, and metabolism very differently.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:13:24

      So what are ultra-processed foods for people who are listening to this?

   8. MHMark Hyman1:13:27

      It's pretty much everything [laughs] in the supermarket in the middle aisles. It's packaged food. Uh, it's- it's refined foods. It's white flour. It's white sugar. It's high fructose corn syrups, trans fats, all the food additives, the chemicals that are in food when you buy a packaged or processed food. It's basically what's made by the food industry. And the thing-

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:13:45

      It's the opposite of whole foods, right?

   10. MHMark Hyman1:13:46

       Yes. I mean, y- I- I make it really simple. When I teach in churches, I say, you know, "It's really simple to know what to eat. Leave the food that man made. Eat the food that God made." Did God make a Twinkie? No. Did God make an avocado? Yeah. Does it have an ingredient list? It's probably not [laughs] good to eat. Now, of course, there are some foods that are simple ingredient lists. There's sardines, olive oil, and salt, or tomatoes, water, and salt. Or, you know, there's stuff that you can buy-

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:14:10

       Yeah

   12. MHMark Hyman1:14:10

       ... that's canned or packaged that is real food, but most of them are not. And what's true, and this is- this is- this is validated with over in- 300 interviews with food industry insiders, whistleblowers, food scientists. It was done by Michael Moss. These foods are designed to be biologically addictive. They have craving, and experts that work in taste institutes to create the bliss point of food, the, quote, "bliss point of food," designed to create what they call heavy users. These are their internal terms that they use within the food industry. They know actually how to create that perfect mouth feel, that perfect brain hook where your brain is literally addicted. So it's like if I said to a patient, "Listen, I want you to hold your breath underwater for 10 minutes. I'm gonna give you $5 million." Darn right, they're gonna wanna do that, but they won't be able to do that, right? And it's the same thing when we're eating these foods. They alter our brain chemistry and our hormones in a way that affects our ability to control our behavior. And if you shi- if you shut that off, it changes everything. So I'll just tell you a quick story about this woman Janice, who came to our center, um, the Center for Functional Medicine at Cleveland, and joined one of our groups. And she was 66. She had Type 2 diabetes. She'd been on insulin for 10 years. She had a body mass index of 43, which is very overweight. 25 or less is normal. 30 is obese. She was 43. She had high blood pressure, heart failure. Kidneys were starting to fail. Her liver was starting to fail. And she was on a boatload of medications, blood thinners, blood pressure medications, cholesterol meds, diuretics. You name it, she was on it. And her whole life, I mean, she was a very educated woman, but her whole life she had never learned about food. She grew up in a home that all they ate was packaged and processed food. She grew up in a home where they didn't cook, and she was just focused on her career and her life and was doing really great things but was really on her way out. Uh, and we just literally put her on a whole foods l- anti-inflammatory detoxifying diet, basically similar to the 10-Day Detox Diet, the book that I wrote, which is very low in starch and sugar. Within three days she was off her insulin. In three months she was off all her medications. Her blood sugar was normal. Her A1C went from 11 to 5 and a half, which as a doctor, you know, is extremely dramatic. [laughs] And-

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:16:31

       I mean, that- that, just to put it in context for people listening, that's from being a very, very poorly controlled Type 2 diabetic to not actually going into the pre-diabetic range, actually into the normal range.

   14. MHMark Hyman1:16:41

       Normal range, yeah. And then her heart failure, which by the way, heart failure never reverses in conventional medicine. You can manage it with medications. Her ejection fraction was 35%. If it's under 30, you're headed towards a heart transplant, and it went up to 50 after her, [laughs] three months. And her kidney failure, she was on her way to dialysis, reversed, just using the power of food and putting her in a group setting where she was given support and education and knowledge.

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:17:08

       Wow. I mean, that- that is so inspiring for people.

   16. MHMark Hyman1:17:10

       And she lost- she lost over the course of a year 116 pounds, and now has her life back-

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:17:16

       Yeah

   18. MHMark Hyman1:17:16

       ... and is off all medication and saved about $20,000 in co-pays for her medication, and I don't know what her insurance company was paying. [laughs]

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:17:24

       Yeah. I mean, Mark, you have got countless stories like that because you have been talking about using food as medicine for years now, you know?

   20. MHMark Hyman1:17:33

       Yeah.

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:17:33

       I remember before I even got into this, uh, way of thinking, you know, I was reading blogs that you'd been writing and- and thinking, "Wow, this is incredible. I wonder if that will work if I try that."

   22. MHMark Hyman1:17:42

       Yeah. [laughs] It does. It does.

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:17:43

       No, but- but you can see how-

   24. MHMark Hyman1:17:45

       Yeah

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:17:45

       ... impassioned you are-

   26. MHMark Hyman1:17:46

       Yeah

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:17:46

       ... talking about this. But, you know, you mentioned the addictive qualities of foods, and I think it- it reminds me of a conversation I had recently on the podcast with Professor Felice Jacka. Uh, you probably ... You may not know her, but you'll be familiar with her work. She was in charge of the first randomized controlled trial, the SMILES trial that was done in Australia, to look at, um, whether diet can, uh, you know, can improve depression.

   28. MHMark Hyman1:18:11

       Mood and depression. Yeah.

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:18:12

       Yeah.

   30. MHMark Hyman1:18:12

       A lot of study, yeah.
10. 1:21:08 – 1:31:34

    Social Injustice and Food Policy

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:21:08

       You mentioned kids who are growing up in poor environments, so these deprived communities. And we know full well what the research says about people living in, i- in areas of lower socioeconomic status. Is the way the food industry is set up, does it unfairly penalize those with the least in society?

    2. MHMark Hyman1:21:30

       So when we look at the social injustice around food, it's massive. You know, when you look at how the food industry targets poor minorities, it's disproportionate. So they're targeting them with more ads and more marketing, and they're providing their communities with more of these foods such as soda and processed food. And it has a big impact on them. 80- African Americans are 80% more likely to get diabetes. They're, you know, four times more likely to get fi- kidney failure. They're three and a half more times more likely to get amputations. And, and these communities are being targeted by the food industry in direct ways. And, and then there's accessibility. They live in poor environments where there's no grocery stores, where there's, you know, convenience stores and, and no produce stores.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:22:12

       Yeah. So, so for seven years, Mark, I worked in a place called Oldham in North Manchester in the UK. And it was in right at the center of Oldham, and, and the practice was in quite a deprived area, what, what most people would consider a deprived area. Most of my patients were, uh, you know, were, were certainly on very low incomes. Many were working two jobs. But what was interesting is these guys really cared about themselves and their families. They were trying to make the best decisions. And I think it's really important to highlight this, because I think a lot of blame gets put on people who-

    4. MHMark Hyman1:22:47

       No, they're totally trying

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:22:48

       ... who, who are struggling with their health and, and are making certain food choices. But I saw firsthand how ... Well, for ex- for example, I would usually bring my lunch into work with me. On the rare occasion where I forgot to bring it, sometimes I'd think, "Okay, I'm just gonna go and walk a- and buy something." It certainly is not like Santa Monica, where we're, we're cur- we're recording this podcast-

    6. MHMark Hyman1:23:09

       Yeah

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:23:09

       ... which is probably the wellness capital in the world, where it's super easy to buy something healthy.

    8. MHMark Hyman1:23:14

       Yes.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:23:14

       Right? I would walk for about a mile in diameter around that practice, and I struggled-

    10. MHMark Hyman1:23:20

        Couldn't find anything

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:23:20

        ... to find anything, because there were, there was at least seven or eight fried chicken and kebab shops with big signs on there saying something like, you know, "1 pound 99, eat as much as you can." You know, that's what, 2 pounds? That's what, maybe about $3? You ... It's very hard to compete with that. And I thought, I thought, I can give them the best advice I possibly can, but they're moving into an environment where it's simply too difficult day in, day out to make those healthy choices.

    12. MHMark Hyman1:23:47

        Yeah.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:23:47

        In addition, they, they I found were very trusting of the government and the supermarkets.

    14. MHMark Hyman1:23:53

        Yeah.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:23:53

        So when I explained to them about certain breakfast cereals that they were having in the morning-

    16. MHMark Hyman1:23:57

        It was all sugar

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:23:58

        ... yeah, they were shocked.

    18. MHMark Hyman1:24:00

        Yeah.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:24:00

        And they said, "Well, Dr. Chatterjee, but yeah, but why are they being sold in the supermarkets? There's a picture of, you know, a heart that says heart healthy on it."

    20. MHMark Hyman1:24:07

        'Cause there's no fat. [laughs]

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:24:08

        No, no, but what's interesting for me, Mark, is that these guys were trying their best.

    22. MHMark Hyman1:24:14

        Yeah.

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:24:14

        They literally were shocked when I was telling this information.

    24. MHMark Hyman1:24:17

        Mm-hmm.

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:24:17

        So when we think that everyone knows this stuff now-

    26. MHMark Hyman1:24:21

        No, no

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:24:21

        ... they don't.

    28. MHMark Hyman1:24:21

        No, no, it's true.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:24:22

        And it is these deprived areas which are getting hit the hardest.

    30. MHMark Hyman1:24:25

        Absolutely. I remember when I was, uh, in the ... helping with this movie Fed Up, which was released a few years ago-
11. 1:31:34 – 1:45:02

    Climate Change, Soil Health and Regenerative Agriculture

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:31:34

       Well, let's get into climate change because it's clearly a topic that is, um, at the tip of many people's tongues these days. It's a very hot political agenda. There have been many documentaries made on, uh, what is driving climate change, but it's also [laughs] a bit like the diet wars in terms of what foods we should be eating. Um, the climate change wars, potentially it can be quite polarizing in terms of, you know, what foods are driving this.

    2. MHMark Hyman1:32:02

       Yes.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:32:02

       And I know ... You know, I don't know how much you've gone into that. You know, what are those foods that are driving it? And I wonder whether we could have ... broaden out that discussion in terms of soil health, regenerative agriculture, you know, climate change. What are the foods that are driving this, and how do we change it?

    4. MHMark Hyman1:32:17

       Yeah, great question. So, you know, I think, I think, uh, we've pretty much gotten into this conversation that meat is the cause of climate change, that, that we should not eat meat and all be vegans, and that would solve climate change. [laughs]

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:32:32

       Would it?

    6. MHMark Hyman1:32:34

       Depends, and it's a more nuanced answer. So factory farming of animals absolutely is a significant contributor to climate change, whether it's 10%, 14%, it's a significant contributor. Why? Because factory farming animals, it's not just about the methane burps from the cows. It's about the way we grow the food that feeds the cows. So we grow a lot of corn through industrial processes that destroy the soil, which use up enormous water resources, that depends on huge amounts of fossil fuel-dependent things like fertilizer, which takes a lot of energy to make, herbicides and pesticides, which are fossil fuel derived. And so we, we have a real problem. And then all the, the, um, factory farming of animals also drives huge amounts of methane into the environment. So you've got this whole problem of factory farming of animals. But as a friend of mine said, it's not the cow, it's the how. So when you look at one of the biggest drivers of climate change, it's the loss of soil. We think of the rainforest, but the soil on the Earth is a far bigger carbon sink than all the rainforests.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:33:45

       Well, let's, let's dive into that 'cause I think a lot of people listening to this will not be familiar with this.

    8. MHMark Hyman1:33:48

       Right.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:33:49

       What does the soil do? Why is soil health so important for the environment but also for human health?

    10. MHMark Hyman1:33:54

        So the ... We have lost huge amounts of soil. So we lose about two billion tons of soil every year, 200,000 tons an hour. We lose farmland the size of North Korea or Nicaragua to desert every year. Soil, if it's healthy, not the soil that we now have in America, because we've lost so much soil. We've lost a third of all the soil on the planet [laughs] for farming because of the way we grow food. We basically till it, and then we pour all these chemicals into it that destroy the organic matter of the soil. Now, organic matter is basically carbon. It's carbon in the soil. How does it get there? Through a very powerful, the most powerful technology on the planet to reduce carbon. It's called photosynthesis. [laughs] It's this ancient technology-

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:34:45

        Can't beat nature

    12. MHMark Hyman1:34:46

        ... [laughs] that sucks carbon out of the environment, what the plants and grasses breathe. They breathe carbon dioxide, and they suck it in, and then they build plant material, right? They build carbon. It goes into the soil. Every 1% of carbon in the soil, of organic matter in the soil, will help to draw down carbon, and it'll also help to restore water in the soil. 1% organic matter in the soil leads to an extra 27,000 gallons of water that can be stored in there. Why are we having droughts and floods and wildfires? Because the soil can't hold the water anymore. So it either runs through it or, or it, it just kinda runs off it, and that leads to this huge amounts of so- of droughts and floods. So organic matter in the soil is the thing we have to build, and we've lost most of it. In fact, we had so many ... In America, we had places with 50 feet of topsoil that's now almost gone because it was built by the bison and the elk, 60 million bison. We had more ruminants running around America than we have cows, and there was no climate change from it. It wasn't that. Because it, they basically grazed the grass in a certain way, moving around frequently. They dug with their hooves. They pooped and peed. And that's what builds soil. It uses natural fertilizer, right?

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:36:03

        Right.

    14. MHMark Hyman1:36:03

        The cows become part of a cycle. And I think, you know, regenerative agriculture is the science of how do we build new soil as a solution to creating a healthy ecosystem, to dealing with our scarce water resources, to increasing biodiversity, which we all depend on, to ... I mean, we've lost 75% of our pollinator species because of all the chemical agriculture. And [laughs] Einstein said that if we lose bees off the face of the earth, humans have four years to live.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:36:30

        So you, so you say it's not the cow, it's the how. So therefore, has your research basically shown that if we go, I, I guess, to more traditional ways-

    16. MHMark Hyman1:36:41

        Right

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:36:41

        ... uh, or, or I don't know, if we have to find newer ways-

    18. MHMark Hyman1:36:43

        Well, it's almost mimicking nature, right? Mimicking how natural herds moved around. These big herds moved around in, in concentrated groups. They would not graze the grass to the nub. They would kinda graze it down halfway. They'd move along. They'd poop and pee. And they kept doing this, and this is what built the soil. So when we look, for example, at life cycle analysis that was done by Qantas of both a- GMO soy burger was actually the Impossible [laughs] Burger compared to a regenerative farm's grass-fed regeneratively raised beef burger. They found that while the Impossible Burger was far better than a feedlot burger in terms of its carbon emis- carbon footprint, it added three and a half kilos of carbon to the environment. So it was net, it was a net add of carbon and greenhouse gases to the environment by eating an Impossible Burger or a GMO soy burger. The grass-fed burger pulled out three and a half kilos of carbon from the atmosphere.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:37:41

        Okay. Okay.

    20. MHMark Hyman1:37:41

        So you wait... So you'd n- basically have to eat one regeneratively raised grass-fed burger to offset the carbon emissions of a soy burger.

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:37:49

        That is-

    22. MHMark Hyman1:37:50

        Mind-blowing

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:37:50

        ... that, that is mind-blowing, actually. That's exactly [laughs] what the words I was gonna say.

    24. MHMark Hyman1:37:53

        This isn't my opinion. This is a, a, a independent scientific group that analyzed both of those systems.

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:37:58

        So, so, so just to clarify that, what we're saying or what, what, what the research you've done is saying-

    26. MHMark Hyman1:38:04

        I've not done the research. I'm just reporting on the research.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:38:06

        Reporting.

    28. MHMark Hyman1:38:06

        Yeah.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:38:06

        Okay. So, so essentially what this research is saying is that an Impossible Burger is better than a feedlot burger.

    30. MHMark Hyman1:38:14

        Absolutely.
12. 1:45:02 – 1:56:34

    Sugar, Starch, Ultra-Processed Foods and Marketing Traps

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:45:02

       If I were to prescribe one intervention to extend life, to prevent and reverse chronic disease, it would be to drastically reduce or eliminate sugar and refined starch from your diet.

    2. MHMark Hyman1:45:16

       Yeah.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:45:17

       Why is that so important?

    4. MHMark Hyman1:45:19

       The idea that sugar and starch are driving the dysfunctions that we see as normal aging, but are really abnormal aging, is, is not really new. We know that underlying all the chronic diseases of aging, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obviously dementia, these are all related to disturbances in our ability to regulate our blood sugar to what we call insulin resistance, where our body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin, and this creates this whole downstream cascade that is like a wildfire on the aging process. It causes you to gain belly fat. It drives up inflammation. It lowers your hormones. It increases cortisol. It increases your stress hormones. It actually also causes abnormal cholesterol, fatty liver, all sorts of problems. It shrinks your hippocampus in your brain, fuels cancer cells. I mean, it is the nightmare [laughs] if you wanna be someone who's healthy and healthy for a long time. I mean, the idea basically is to have your lifespan, which is how long you're alive, be equal to your healthspan, which is how many years of your life you're healthy. And for most people, they're about 20 years short on the healthspan in their lifespan. [laughs]

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:46:33

       Yeah. It, it is incredible. You have been talking about this for years, yet the consumption of these foods, the consumption of ultra-processed foods all over-

    6. MHMark Hyman1:46:43

       Yeah

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:46:43

       ... the globe appear to be on the rise.

    8. MHMark Hyman1:46:46

       Totally.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:46:47

       So can you talk to us a little bit about ultra-processed foods? What are they exactly, and why are they so problematic for our health?

    10. MHMark Hyman1:46:56

        Well, historically, you know, we've evolved eating foods in their original states, in the complex matrix of fiber, vitamins, minerals, protein, fat, and carbohydrates, and they're in a rich array of phytochemicals and other matrices that make our bodies be able to m- manage and handle these things. Ultra-processed foods are essentially food-like substances that are made from highly processed ingredients from some commodity crops, soy, wheat, and corn mostly, that are then turned into all shapes, colors of chemically extruded substances that no- bear no resemblance to their original form and cause all sorts of havoc in our biology. Aside from all the preservatives, you know, additives, thickeners, artificial sweeteners, things that are also problematic for our health, but just, just the processing of the food itself in a way that pulverizes it into something that isn't resembling food at all and then reassembles it in a way that actually is harmful to our biology. It's quickly absorbed. It sends signals to our biology that we're not getting any real food. [laughs] In fact, people who eat ultra-processed food, if given, you know, compared to a, a... And this is a, a controlled trial where they gave people either ultra-processed food, or they gave them whole food in the same amount of food. They could sort of eat as much as they wanted. The people who ha- had the ultra-processed food ate 500 calories more a day. That's basically the equivalent to gaining a pound a week or 52 pounds a year. So it's no wonder we're such an obese society increasingly in the UK. I think the United States has you beat a little bit [laughs] but not by much. I think, uh, the, the reality is that this, this ultra-processed food is driving so much of, of, of the challenges we see in our society. For every 10% of your diet that's ultra-processed food, your risk of death goes up by 14%. And in America, 60% of our diet is ultra-processed food. In kids, it's almost 70% of their diet. This is just a, a deadly combination that not only causes long-term problems of, you know, shorter lifespan, and we're seeing our life expectancy go down, but also immediate problems of, of all sorts of conditions that we now know are related to the starch or sugar, whether it's fatty liver in kids that need liver transplants or kids who are, you know, having heart attacks at 20 years old because of this. I mean, it's, it's, it's really pretty frightening.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:49:11

        You said that for every 10% increase-

    12. MHMark Hyman1:49:14

        Hmm

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:49:14

        ... in ultra-processed foods, your risk of death goes up by 14%.

    14. MHMark Hyman1:49:19

        14%, yeah. That's from the Global Burden of Disease study. Huge study of nine- 195 countries. Uh, you know, 11 million people die every year from eating the wrong food. That's more than smoking or wars or anything else. It is the number one killer in the world today.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:49:35

        So Mark, despite all this knowledge, why is consumption still going up? What's going on? Is it an individual problem?

    16. MHMark Hyman1:49:44

        Yeah, yeah [laughs] .

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:49:45

        Or is it the food industry, right?

    18. MHMark Hyman1:49:47

        Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this is, this was my last book, which was, uh, Food Fix, where I mapped out the problems with our food policies and our food industry, and how everything that we're doing is fostering the, this, the production, the growing, the production, the marketing, and the sale of these ultra-processed foods in ways we've never seen in human history. And, and that's really what's, what's driving it, and I'm working hard on my nonprofit, the Food Fix campaign, to change those food policies to address, you know, food marketing to kids, for example. And Boris Johnson, uh, thankfully he, he got, uh, wise once he got COVID that food was related to his poor health [laughs] and that he understood that the reason he ended up in the ICU from COVID was because he was in poor metabolic health, and that was because of the starch and sugar in processed foods. And he then started to restrict marketing and, and other kinds of initiatives that actually were trying to lower the consumption of sugar and ultra-processed food, which I think is great, but that needs to happen, you know, globally. In America, you can, you know, the, the effect of this is not just on, on aging, but is on everything. If you look at America, it's 4% of the world's population, but it was 16% of the COVID cases and deaths, which means we have a 400% increase compared to what we should have in terms of our population. Why is that? Because COVID hit a population that was pre-inflamed, that was metabolically unhealthy, and that was at high risk for having complications and death from, from COVID. And that's why we're, we're [laughs] not because we have a crappy healthcare system. We spend more than any other country by double, and yet we, we did the worst.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:51:19

        Yeah. In your experience, Mark, and you have been, you know, you've seen tens of thousands of patients over maybe, what, three decades now, a long, long time.

    20. MHMark Hyman1:51:27

        Yeah. I'm scared to say that I started medical school 40 years ago this, this fall [laughs] .

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:51:33

        Well, one of the reasons I, I actually love talking to you, Mark, is because you have been a practicing clinician for so long. You know, you have-

    22. MHMark Hyman1:51:41

        Yeah

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:51:41

        ... real-world experience with patients. And as much as-

    24. MHMark Hyman1:51:45

        Mm

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:51:45

        ... we both enjoy talking to researchers-

    26. MHMark Hyman1:51:47

        Yes

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:51:48

        ... it can be very, you know, very interesting-

    28. MHMark Hyman1:51:50

        Absolutely

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:51:50

        ... to learn about new research, but I think there is something special, certainly for me, about talking to-

    30. MHMark Hyman1:51:54

        Yeah, yeah. Yeah
13. 1:56:34 – 2:04:33

    Why Longevity and the Functional Medicine Approach

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:56:34

       I just wanna ask you though, why this topic, right?

    2. MHMark Hyman1:56:38

       Mm.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:56:38

       You know, why, why the topic of aging? And, and perhaps you could also share where you are in your life. You know-

    4. MHMark Hyman1:56:45

       Yeah

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:56:45

       ... if you're happy to share your age.

    6. MHMark Hyman1:56:46

       [laughs]

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:56:47

       You know, why, wh- why, why is this so important for you?

    8. MHMark Hyman1:56:50

       Well, you know, I always joke everybody's favorite radio station is WIFM, What's In It For Me? [laughs] And I'm, I'm 63, so I'm interested in what's in it for me, 'cause I don't wanna age poorly. I wanna be vibrant and do all the things I love to do, whether it's go skiing or gallop down the beach on a horse, or go for a long bike ride, or do whatever I wanna do. I don't wanna be limited, and I wanna be able to enjoy life fully, and travel, and do all the things that, that really give me joy and make life meaningful. And to be able to show up and do the work I wanna do in the world, and to be engaged, and focused, and healthy, to be able to actually show up for the people that matter in my relationships, to, to be in contribution. And so in order to do that, I have to be healthy. And so I'm very interested [laughs] in the topic of how you stay healthy as we get older. But I also find... And by, by the way, biologically, according to new metrics that we can use to measure our biological age, I'm only 43, so I still, you know, I'm still pretty young. And the truth is, uh, I, I wanted to focus on this topic of longevity and longevity science because unlike other disciplines in medicine, this is a relatively new field of research. And because in the past we thought there was nothing we can do about aging, that we actually just need to, to actually stop worrying about it and deal with the disease of aging, instead of actually having the, the, the things that we ne- know we need, we can actually do something about. And from a functional medicine perspective, I found the, the longevity science kind of being almost a representation of the truth that we've known a long time in functional medicine, that their body is a system, that there are underlying root causes of disease. That if we wanna really deal with all these diseases that we see, the 155,000 diseases that are in our international classification system, that we need to sort of go back to understand root causes. And in longevity science, there are 10 hallmarks of aging that have been discussed that are underlying all the disease of aging. So heart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia, the aging process itself, frailty, all those things we now understand are not normal processes. They're abnormal processes that are resulting from disturbances in these fundamental systems or functions. And, and when they go wrong, we call these the hallmarks of aging. But we can intervene with these things, and they're very much in the functional medicine kind of framework of the body as a system of dealing with root causes. And so I thought by focusing on longevity science, I could help to elucidate what I thought were the flaws in it, [laughs] which is that it didn't go far enough to look at the causes of the hallmarks. So the hallmarks of aging are the causes of all the diseases in aging. What causes the hallmarks in the first place? And that's where functional medicine comes in, to be able to be a detective and find out where the imbalances are and how we can correct them so we can positively influence these hallmarks of aging.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:59:38

       Yeah, Mark, w- since we last spoke, there's, there's a lot of new listeners to this podcast, and-

    10. MHMark Hyman1:59:44

        Mm

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:59:44

        ... some people may not be familiar with the functional medicine approach.

    12. MHMark Hyman1:59:50

        Yeah.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:59:50

        So you, you sort of outlined some key tenets there, which are really interesting. But I wonder if you could just-

    14. MHMark Hyman1:59:56

        Mm

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:59:56

        ... give an overview for people who think medicine is medicine.

    16. MHMark Hyman1:59:59

        Yeah.

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:00:00

        Maybe for someone who's never heard about the difference before, how do you sort of briefly summarize the, the key differences between-

    18. MHMark Hyman2:00:07

        Yeah

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:00:08

        ... conventional Western allopathic medicine and the functional medicine approach?

    20. MHMark Hyman2:00:14

        Well, you know, functional medicine is really what will be medicine. It's our, a whole view of biology that's shifting from a reductionist disease-based model to a systems model of understanding the body as an interconnected network of biological systems that we have to treat as a whole. And functional medicine from, from the perspective of the patient is about not treating all the individual symptoms and diseases separately, but really treating your whole system. And I'll just give you an example that illustrates the, the clear difference. This is a patient that I talk about in the book, Young Forever. She was, uh, about a 50-year-old woman business executive coach who had all sorts of problems. Psoriatic arthritis, which is a terrible condition of the skin and joints. It's quite, uh, kind of de- debilitating. And she was on a drug that cost $50,000 a year [laughs] for this, an immune suppressant. She also had terrible irritable bowel syndrome and bloating. She had been on lots of antibiotics and steroids. She also had reflux. She had depression. She had insomnia. She had migraines. She also had pre-diabetes, was overweight. And so rather than, you know, treating all her diseases separately, which were being done, right? She saw the psychiatrist for her depression, the endocrinologist for her pre-diabetes, the neurologist for her migraines, the gastroenterologist for her GI symptoms, the rheumatologist for her psoriatic arthritis, and she was given the best possible treatment by all these physicians. They were excellent physicians doing exactly what we were taught in medical school, and what is exactly the current state of treatment for each of these diseases. However, she was [laughs] not better. She was marginally improved, and her symptoms were mostly or partly managed, but she wasn't better. And so rather than saying, "Well, I'm just gonna, gonna up your dose of these drugs or that drug," so I'm gonna get to the root cause. And all the diseases that she had were all inflammatory diseases. Her diabetes, her prediabetes, her weight issues, her migraines, her depression, her psoriatic arthritis obviously, her gut issues. These are all inflammatory. So from a functional medicine perspective, we go, what's causing the inflammation? And I joke and I say I'm an inflammologist [laughs] which is, uh, actually what we need to be if we're studying longevity because the whole process of aging is called inflammaging. And so rather than treat all these things separately, I said, well, her gut is where 70% of our immune system lives. She's having terrible gut symptoms. I can guarantee you she's got a leaky gut. She's got probably bacterial overgrowth, yeast overgrowth, and a leaky gut, and lots of food sensitivities and reactions. So what I did was simply put her on, uh, an elimination diet. I got rid of all the sugar, processed food, gluten, dairy, obviously alcohol, and get her on a whole foods diet with good proteins, lots of good fats, lots of fruits and vegetables. And I said to her, you know, "Take a fish oil, a vitamin D, probiotic." Super simple regimen of supplements that, that I thought she needed based on her history. I, I said, "Don't stop your medication, but just continue to do this and we'll check back in and go over everything in about six weeks." So she came back six weeks later. She had stopped all her medication, including that $50,000 drug for her psoriatic arthritis, and I didn't tell her to do it, but she stopped everything.

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:03:23

        Yeah.

    22. MHMark Hyman2:03:23

        Her symptoms were completely gone from everything. Her skin was cleared up, her joints were cleared up, her migraines were gone, her depression was gone, her insomnia was gone, her... She'd lost 20 pounds. Her irritable bowel, her reflux was gone. I also gave her stuff to reset her gut, a n- non-absorbed antibiotic and an antifungal that got rid of all the bad guys in her gut that were causing all this inflammation. So this is a case that I really focused on the root cause, which was her gut, to treat all these other problems. And when we got her gut healthy, everything else went away. So when you create health, when you create a healthy system, take out the bad stuff, put in the good stuff, the body has a chance to repair and renew. And that's what's really the, the exciting part, uh, Rangan, about the longevity research, is that now we understand that the body has this extraordinary ability to renew, repair, rejuvenate, and reverse our biological age. Just as our skin-

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:04:11

        Yeah

    24. MHMark Hyman2:04:12

        ... has the ability to heal when we cut it, our body has that innate healing system. We've just done everything possible to interfere with it-

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:04:20

        Yeah

    26. MHMark Hyman2:04:20

        ... to impede it. And the book Young Forever is really a roadmap in how do you, how do you actually activate these ancient embedded healing systems in our body that can reverse our biological age and make us younger as we get older?

14. 2:04:33 – 2:22:02

    Global Reach, Consumer Action and Food as Medicine

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:04:33

       I saw this on Twitter recently actually. Someone, I can't remember who it was, who wasn't a huge believer in organic food actually tweeted something, I, I wish I could remember who it was, and said, "Actually, you know what? I was wrong because I didn't realize the implications it had on those individual farmers."

    2. MHMark Hyman2:04:50

       Oh, yeah. Of course.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:04:50

       "And I was just thinking about my own health." And, and that's a separate story which i- if, if we had time we can go into. But he said, "Actually I realize how selfish I was being, because actually the implications for that individual farmer is huge."

    4. MHMark Hyman2:05:03

       Huge.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:05:03

       And I, and I think-

    6. MHMark Hyman2:05:04

       And their kids, you know? The data's been looked at, but the pesticide exposure in these, in these groups has led to a loss of 41 million IQ points in these kids. We're literally sacrificing the minds of our future generation. We're destroying the intellectual capital of our society.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:05:24

       I think that this appears to be... I think it's a, a global problem. But from what I see, and, and I'm interested as to where the bulk of your research has been on this, is this more of a problem in the United States than anywhere else in the world?

    8. MHMark Hyman2:05:42

       Well, like, the United States, it leads in many things, but it's not just the United States. It's everywhere. It's global. 80% of the world's Type 2 diabetes in the developing world. China and India are number one and two in diabetes. We're seeing, you know, Africa being inundated with the fast food companies taking over. It's aspirational, it's a, a sign of affluence to eat at KFC in Ghana. You know, it's... A- and they, they are controlling the, the, the narrative and manipulating the science all around the world. In Malaysia, you know, they're partnering with, quote, "nutrition scientists" to produce research that shows that their products are healthy and-

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:06:15

       It, it's, it's interesting. I just had a thought as you were talking about that these, um, so-called developing countries, which I guess is a, in many ways a misnomer now and [laughs] very soon I think China and India are gonna, are probably gonna be more developed than we are here.

    10. MHMark Hyman2:06:29

        Yeah.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:06:29

        Um, but I remember as a kid, when I used to go to Calcutta in India every, every other summer we'd go for six weeks, 'cause my family, you know, all my aunts and uncles-

    12. MHMark Hyman2:06:38

        Calcutta. Wow. That's a rough place.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:06:39

        Yeah. So, well, it's, it's a beautiful place actually, and we, you know... But yes, there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of poverty.

    14. MHMark Hyman2:06:46

        Poverty.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:06:47

        A lot of problems there. But I remember as a kid going there, and in the summer, in our, our British summer, you know, in July and August, um, the schools were still running. So I'd go see my cousins but they'd be going to school. I remember in the morning breakfast would be served, and they had proper meals.

    16. MHMark Hyman2:07:06

        Yeah.

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:07:06

        So, you know, meal would be prepared. So there'd be, like, two or three vegetable curries, maybe a bit of fish, maybe some chapati breads, maybe a bit of rice. But they had a proper meal before they went to school.

    18. MHMark Hyman2:07:20

        Yeah.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:07:20

        And I used to think, "This is, this is so different," because, you know, I have a quick bowl of cereal-

    20. MHMark Hyman2:07:25

        Yeah. [laughs]

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:07:25

        ... um, that takes two minutes to prepare. I- if that.

    22. MHMark Hyman2:07:28

        Right.

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:07:28

        Probably takes 30 seconds to pour the milk over-

    24. MHMark Hyman2:07:30

        Yeah

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:07:30

        ... and eat that. And I didn't really realize the significance of it at the time, but now as I reflect and now when I go back, I've not been for a few years, but-

    26. MHMark Hyman2:07:39

        Oh, yeah

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:07:39

        ... culture has changed.

    28. MHMark Hyman2:07:41

        I remember. Yeah.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:07:41

        What you said about the middle classes aspiring to this Western way of living, now they're too busy. Now they don't want a proper meal.

    30. MHMark Hyman2:07:49

        No.
15. 2:22:02 – 2:28:07

    Schools, Cooking Skills and Practical Ways to Act

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:22:02

       I wanna talk about schools. So I'm a father, as you are. I've got two young children. They're both at primary school at the moment. And what's interesting for me is that while my kids are a bit younger, you know, they're currently nine and six, I was okay at sort of, I wouldn't say controlling, but I could, I could sort of control in many ways-

    2. MHMark Hyman2:22:22

       Yeah, you make their lunch, you feed them breakfast, you feed them dinner

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:22:24

       ... what they were eating.

    4. MHMark Hyman2:22:25

       Yeah.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:22:26

       And as my ch- children are getting older, particularly my son now who's nine, and he's been exposed to more and more things, it's getting harder and harder. So this may be controversial to some, but I'm going to share my view on this. So on the final day of school last year, before the summer break, a lot of the teachers brought in Haribos for the kids.

    6. MHMark Hyman2:22:47

       What's that?

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:22:47

       Uh, so Haribos are a very popular food ma- certainly in the UK, of sweets. Uh-

    8. MHMark Hyman2:22:51

       Oh, okay

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:22:52

       ... candy, basically. I'm su- uh, I don't know if they're here, or you must have an equivalent here.

    10. MHMark Hyman2:22:55

        Yeah, probably.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:22:55

        But these are bags of sweets that are very, very common. Now, the reality is my kids don't eat that stuff because I've never given it to them. Um, now, you know, a lot of people will probably say, "Well, I've... You know, that's too brutal. You need to expose them to this sort of stuff." And, you know, I, like all parents, am trying to do the best that I can.

    12. MHMark Hyman2:23:13

        Mm-hmm.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:23:13

        This is what I consider to be the best decision. Maybe time will tell that I was wrong, but I'm certainly trying to do the best that I can.

    14. MHMark Hyman2:23:18

        You should have given them more junk food? [laughs]

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:23:20

        No, but it's about trying to teach them a balance. And I just think the norm in society is so skewed away from health at the moment, that fitting in with what is quite a sick society, I don't think necessarily is biologically normal. I don't think it's the, the right thing. And so I'm trying to protect my kids as much as possible. Now, Jamie Oliver has been involved with trying to change various things in the UK. I helped him with his last campaign about junk food advertising-

    16. MHMark Hyman2:23:48

        Mm-hmm

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:23:48

        ... and I think that's something that is different in Europe compared to America.

    18. MHMark Hyman2:23:51

        Yeah.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:23:51

        We do have some regulation around it. Maybe it's not perfect-

    20. MHMark Hyman2:23:54

        Mm-hmm

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:23:54

        ... but there is something still there.

    22. MHMark Hyman2:23:56

        Mm-hmm.

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:23:57

        Now, at the last meeting, I was down at, uh, uh, in Jamie's office where a lot of opinion makers were there. We were, we were discussing this. There was this whole idea of schools being a safe zone-

    24. MHMark Hyman2:24:09

        Yeah

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:24:09

        ... came up.

    26. MHMark Hyman2:24:10

        Yeah.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:24:10

        And for me, I really like that. It's something I've been talking about for years, that-

    28. MHMark Hyman2:24:14

        Essential

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:24:14

        ... that essentially a school or a hospital or even a prison, right? But, but let's get back to schools, particularly schools. I think schools should be the model educationally, but also health-wise. I genuinely don't see why there is a case in 2019 and 2020, why, when we're facing this chronic disease epidemic, when in the UK, one in three kids leave primary school to go to secondary school at the age of 10 or 11 are either overweight or obese. I find it very hard to justify the case now where any school should be serving these sort of, uh-

    30. MHMark Hyman2:24:56

        Yeah

Episode duration: 2:35:37