Narrator:
Coming up on this episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy.
Dr. Mark Hyman:
I’ve had many issues. I’ve had autoimmune disease, I’ve had chronic injuries, I’ve had mold toxicity, mercury poisoning, Lyme disease, back stuff. I’ve learned how to use these for general wellness, but also to really heal these chronic issues.
Welcome to The Doctor’s Farmacy. I’m Dr. Mark Hyman. That’s Farmacy with an F, a place for conversations that matter. And if you’re interested in how I keep young and healthy, well, that’s what today’s podcast’s about. I’m going to share my own personal health practices that I’ve learned that keep me biologically younger as I get chronologically older, and that are really the key foundation of the teachings and the program that I laid out in my new book, Young Forever, which is out. I encourage you to get a copy right now. So this is a special episode called The Health Bite. It gives you little health bites to improve your health by taking small steps every day that can create big changes over time.
And today I’m going to review a little bit about the mini-series of podcasts we did on the Health Bites the last few weeks because I’m just going to do a recap and then I’m going to share exactly what I do every day, or I try to do every day. Obviously, I don’t do all of it every day, but I want to give you a sense of the kinds of ways of building these practices that we’ve talked about into your life, of translating the science into the practice of how to stay healthy and reverse your biological age.
This is the final episode, so I’m just going to recap for a minute. We’ve talked about how we need to reframe our approach to aging. The way we currently view the last bit of our lives, the last half or quarter of our lives is based on this wrong framework of inevitable, gradual decline that’s filled with pain and fragility and medications, so many, we can’t keep track of, a loss of independence. And all of that is not normal aging. All of that is abnormal aging. So we have to get into this paradigm shift, which is giving us a very different approach to aging, not as a normal consequence of getting older, but as a disease. And this is now recognized as a disease by the WHO, I think the American Medical Association and the coding is not quite there yet, but there’s a conversation in the longevity science world about how what we see as normal aging, all these chronic diseases of aging are actually abnormal aging. They’re not things that are inevitable.
And they’re related to the underlying causes of the abnormal aging, which are called hallmarks. So when we cover these hallmarks of aging, the things in our biology that go wrong that make us age faster. We talked about how to address the hallmarks of aging, the foods we need to eat and what we need to avoid, and the lifestyle practices that we should prioritize and the things we should get rid of and the importance of exercise and what kind of exercise to feel young and also really remain independent, strong, functional. We talked about the new frontier in longevity medicine, all the advances in longevity innovations like stem cells and exosomes and peptides. And there’s lots more. I promise there’s more I cover in the book. Things that are really going to change everything we ever have known and experienced about getting older in our last part of our life.
So today I’m going to put it all together and share my top secrets, what I want to do and what I’m trying to do to ensure I live to be 120 in good health. So my health span is equal to my lifespan. We know exactly how to hack our biology now. The science is there. We know how to do this in order to live our last years that are not decrepit and frail and in a nursing home or not out enjoying the things we love to do, but are full of energy and being vibrant and being independent and full of life. And my new book, Young Forever, is your ultimate guide to understanding and putting it all together. So I encourage you to get your copy today at your favorite bookstore. All right, so let’s dig in, my personal longevity program. How have I stayed healthy at 63 years old?
Well, many wonder how I’ve managed to stay strong and healthy and doing all the stuff I do at 63 while many of my peers are getting a little chubby, winding down. I’m helicopter skiing, improving my tennis game every day, building more muscle, outperforming my 30-year-old friends, riding my bike up the mountain, lifting heavier weights. How do I do that? Well, knowing all the possibilities to slow or reverse aging can sometimes be a little overwhelming or depending on your personality, a little exciting. How do you figure out what’s best for yourself? You have to choose what resonates with you. You have to incorporate what works in your life on a regular basis. You have to build new habits. You can’t do everything all at once. But over time, you can explore a lot of different things you’re going to help support and enhance your health and wellbeing and help you have a long, active, vibrant life.
So remember, I’ve been doing this for 40 years. I’ve been learning and incorporating different things and I’ve come up with what works for me. But I’m going to share with you what the science… And these are science-backed interventions that I’ve focused on. So the first is, what do I eat? Because I think nutrition is the cornerstone of longevity medicine, one of the hallmarks, deregulated nutrient sensing is really above many of the other hallmarks that drives them. Poor nutrition, not enough of the good stuff, too much of the bad stuff. So I follow what I call the pegan diet, which is really a food is medicine approach. It’s a plant-rich diet. It’s high in phytochemicals, it’s high in the right amount of protein for my body and age, which we need more as we get older to build muscle.
I use my healthy aging shake pretty much for about an hour of exercise to build muscle. And that’s in the book, the recipe for it. It’s got goat whey and all kinds of other goodies, cocktails of things that are really powerful for upregulating my mitochondria for building muscle. And so I encourage you to check that out. Exercise, what do I do for exercise? I mean, I wish I could do more. It’s something that I like to do more. But I probably do four to six days of aerobic training, probably half an hour interval training. I do different things. I do road biking, mountain biking, tennis, hiking, swimming. And then I use a strength training program that’s based on Tom Brady’s program, TB12, which I like because as I get older, I think you can injure yourself with weights. And I use some weights, but not too much.
But I use the bands and I can travel with them everywhere. And there’s an app you can use, you can buy the bands. It’s TB12, I think is the app, TB12 sports. And I do that three or four times a week for 30 minutes. And it’s incredible the change I’ve seen in my body. I do hot yoga whenever I can get a hot yoga studio, vinyasa yoga a couple times a week and stretching a little every day a little bit, just to keep flexible.
Sleep, I always try to get seven, eight hours sleep. I usually get to sleep by 10, up by six or seven. And I make sure I take magnesium at night. I wear eye shades, I have ear plugs. I make sure I really make a really quiet sleep environment. Also track my sleep with my Oura ring, Apple Watch. There’s really great tools now to track what’s going on. And I can see, oh, I had a late meal because I was busy and my sleep was crap, or I decided to have a glass of wine and oh boy, my heart rate didn’t lower. So it clues me into what my body’s doing and sort that out.
How do I deal with stress? Because just like everybody else, I have a lot of things that are going on and get stressed by different things. And just life itself is stressful these days. But I try to meditate at least once or twice a day. I try to do breath work, whether it’s just deep breathing or more expanded breath work practices. I try to get as much time in nature and wilderness as I can because that really is my medicine. Nature is my medicine. And then community is medicine. So I make sure I commit to making time with friends, people I love, my family, really, really important.
Try to get a massage once a month or more if I can. I actually got this Theragun thing, which is great, and it’s probably the cost of a couple of massages, but then you have it and it’s like you can do it on yourself. Or if you have a partner, it’s quite amazing. I also practice hormesis, which I think is a key part of longevity. So I try to not eat, give myself at least 14 hours between dinner and breakfast, which gives my body a chance to do autophagy, clean up at night at least three or four times a week, but usually at least 12. I never eat within 12 hour between dinner and breakfast. I make sure I include phytohormesis plants like Himalayan Tartary buckwheat, and various kinds of green tea extracts and products. So I just include phytohormesis chemicals from food, which I talk about in the book.
And I also use hot and cold. So after this podcast, I’m going to go work out. I’m going to do some interval training on my bike inside because it’s winter. I’m going to do a half hour strength training. I’m going to put on my steam. I’m going to do a steam, and I’m going to do an ice bath that’s very cold in the winter because my water is cold up here in the Berkshires. And that’s I’m really looking forward to that. And that’s going to be my pre-lunch workout. And I feel like I get so energized by that. And I do it whenever I can. And probably almost every day. I have red light therapy. I have a machine at home, which could be red light therapy that helps me rejuvenate my mitochondria. I talk about that in the book.
I use ozone therapy when I can. I have an office, so I’m lucky I can do it. But I do a tune up with ozone therapy. I use blue blocker glasses at night, which get rid of the blue light at night. I’ve used hyperbaric oxygen in the past. I wish I had one at home, but they’re expensive, maybe they’ll come down in price. But I definitely love that. Also something called cell gym, which is a hypoxia machine. But you can also use a mask, like a hypoxia mask for 50 bucks you can get online. So there’s all these incredible techniques to stress your system. Hormesis is little stresses that don’t kill you but make you stronger. Whether it’s short periods of fasting, whether it’s exercise, whether it’s hot and cold therapies, whether it’s ozone or red light therapy or hyperbaric oxygen, all really helpful.
All right, now what do I take in terms of supplements? Well, I always have the basics. Vitamin D, fish oil, a multivitamin. I take a B complex for homocystine because of my genetics. I have a high homocysteine, which means I can’t methylate, which is important. I take a little magnesium at night and I use basically a multivitamin for the gut, which is called Gut Food, a product that I created with my team. Just go to gutfood.com. You can learn more about it. It’s basically prebiotics, probiotics, and polyphenols. And then I’m a geek, so I pack in my longevity stack. I take NMN about 900 milligrams a day, which is a great dose of NMN with a bunch of other things in it. I take HTB Rejuvenate, which is basically from Big Bold Health. It has quercetin, bioflavonoids. So quercetin is really great for longevity. I use combinations of supplements analytics, I call [inaudible 00:10:44] with curcumin and green tea and [inaudible 00:10:48] and pterostilbene, which is like a [inaudible 00:10:50] product.
I take something which has got broccoli extract in it called OncoPLEX. And I also use Mitopure or RENUAL from Pure Encapsulations, which is basically a compound that comes from pomegranate that helps build muscle and creates mitophagy, [inaudible 00:11:05] little creatine, or amino acids to help build muscle in my shake. So that’s my stack. It’s a lot. I don’t expect everybody to do that, but I’m very committed to this. So you can look at my book and I guide you on what makes most sense, what you can start with. That’s pretty simple. And then I explored a lot of advanced therapies. I’m really curious about the space. And I’ve invested a lot in my own health. Not quite like this guy who spent $2 million on reversing his biological age every year. I can’t have that budget for that, but it’s pretty cool.
And I’ve used myself as a Guinea pig from stem cells to exosomes. And I’ve had many issues. I’ve had autoimmune disease, I’ve had chronic injuries, I’ve had mold toxicity, mercury poisoning, Lyme disease, back stuff. So I’ve learned how to use these both for general wellness, but also to really heal these chronic issues. And remember, these are things that I have chosen to do, knowing the potential risks and the more research is needed. And each of us has different appetites for risk and exploration and budget. But I’ve used peptides, exosomes, stem cells, plasmapheresis, all kinds of cool stuff to clean your blood. And they’re great. And I’ve noticed huge differences.
And also I’m lucky because one of the other key things that have to do with longevity is meaning and purpose. And that has been a real gift that I’ve been able to, through my own suffering, been drawn to learn and teach about functional medicine. And that has given my life a lot of meaning, a lot of purpose, and to serve others as a doctor and author, host of this podcast to try to bring information for people. I also have a nonprofit where I try to change the food system, which I know might be silly. But somebody’s got to do it. So I have a nonprofit called The Food Fix Campaign that actively works to create a healthier, more equitable food system and uses food as medicine approach to change policy and focus on regenerative agriculture to change how we grow food as well. So that’s really important.
And then I’ve also worked really hard on my mindset, mental health and worked with life coaches and friends and exploring different spiritual traditions. Every week I have a men’s group I gather with six of my closest friends. We’ve been friends for almost 40 plus years, and we just meet every week and hang out and check in. And really, it’s really beautiful to be seen and be known in that way. So I encourage people to make an investment in time with the people you love and care about.
So I’ve been cultivating a community for a long time and I have a beautiful community of friends and colleagues, and so I’m blessed in that way. But it’s taken work and investment and time. So I encourage you to make that effort because that is a huge factor in longevity. It’s meaning and purpose and community.
Okay. So that’s it. That’s my life. Everything I do to feel younger now so I can have a great life and enjoy things and be able to give and do the work I want to do and enjoy my friends and family and contribute to what I want to contribute to making the world a better place. So that’s what I’ve covered in these Health Bites on this Health Bite series on longevity.
And I’ve also covered it in greater depth in my book, Young Forever, which is out now. And again, the nitty gritty science behind longevity, all the new and exciting research, everything you need to know about testing, self-assessment quizzes that tells you where you’re out of balance, what exactly to do to give yourself a longevity tuneup, and of course, my step-by-step Young Forever Longevity Program. Young Forever is I think my most comprehensive book. It’s super easy to get through. It’s digestible, but it’s a really beautiful resource for people who want to learn how to upgrade their health, how to optimize their health, and how to actually improve your health span and your lifespan. It’s really the culmination of my life’s work. I couldn’t be more proud of the book. Make sure you get your copy today. It’s available in all the major bookstores in person, online, and your support means a lot to me. So I hope you’ve enjoyed this Health Bite series on Young Forever. That’s it for today. Be sure to share this with your friends and family and we’ll see you next time on The Doctor’s Farmacy.
Speaker 3:
Hi everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you’re looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you’re looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It’s important that you have someone in your corner who’s trained, who’s a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.
