← Extend Podcast with Darshan Shah, MD
Extend Podcast with Darshan Shah, MD
158. Dr. Kavin Mistry: Primal Health Design, Biological Aging, and Reconnecting with Human Biology
01:01:54
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- [00:03]
A
Welcome to xtend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah. A podcast dedicated to cutting edge science research tools and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21 and trained and board certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results. When it comes to your health span, we are living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world renowned experts offering you a step by step guide to proactively avoid disease and most importantly, extend your health span. Modern life is pulling us further and further away from the way our human bodies were designed to live. From tech, neck and low back pain to poor sleep, distraction, loneliness and disconnection from nature, all of these things that we do day to day, that we consider just a normal part of life, are actually accelerating our biological aging in ways that you don't even question anymore. In this episode, I'm joined with Dr. Kevin Mistry. He's a neuroradiologist, a longevity educator, and author of the book Primal Health Design. He spent decades looking at how modern lifestyles show up in the brain and the spine. He draws from both his medical career as a doctor and his early experiences around primal tribes in Tanzania. Dr. Mystery brings a unique perspective on how posture, movement, circadian rhythm, food, stillness, tribe and purpose shape the way we age. We're going to unpack what he calls the seven primal connections that support health and longevity. And how modern technology and sedentary living are changing our anatomy and what simple daily practices can help restore alignment with our biology. We also explore grounding, morning sunlight, microbiome, health, flow, state, community, and how to think about AI as a tool to become more human, not less. We definitely cover a lot of ground. So if you're serious about longevity, you need to hear this episode. You can't optimize your health while living in constant conflict with your biology. And you can't reverse the effects of modern life without reconnecting to the fundamentals that made you a resilient human being in the first place. How are you, sir? Thank you for visiting.
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B
Nice to see you, Darshan.
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A
Yeah, so good to see you, Dr. Mistry, here on the Extend podcast and really excited to have this conversation with you. Absolutely. So your background, you're a neuroradiologist so you're a physician that interprets and also does interventions for the brain using very advanced scanning technologies.
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B
That's correct.
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A
That's your day job?
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B
That is my day job.
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A
And how long you been doing that for?
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B
That is going to be 20 plus years now.
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A
Wow.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But you have this side interest in longevity.
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B
Right. And, you know, I get that question a lot, Darshan. And it was interesting when I started radiology residency, right. My first day as a resident, you know, and they pull up a film, it was like a 40 year old. And. And I see all this disease, all this sort of misalignment and all that. And I said, you know, I've studied the normal bio, you know, biology and normal kind of anatomy. And I'm looking at the screen, I'm going, like, what is going on with this guy? And my ghost, senior resident goes, just read the damn film. Right. Like, no question that. But as I. As I became a more senior resident, I started seeing, like I said, wow, people are aging faster.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Biologically than their chronological age. Right. Their age.
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And you're seeing this in brain scans.
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B
And I'm seeing this in brain scans. But we also read spine, so I do brain, spine, ent everything. So I'm seeing people's brains aging faster, their spines aging faster. And I said, shouldn't we be questioning this? Shouldn't be asking the question that, you know, is this normal? Is this par for the course or is this something? Is this a phenomenon? Are we aging ourselves? And if we are aging ourselves, is it due to our lifestyle factors? And then that took me down that rabbit hole to longevity and factors that impact aging, and hence the book how to reverse Biological age. Yeah.
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A
And so that's half your story. The other half of your story you just told me, which you spend some time in Africa as a child, and that's where we're gonna be learning about primal health design. From your experience in that. So talk about that a little bit. Yes.
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B
So, Darshan, that was a very incredible time, you know, and at that time, not that I was studying longevity or not, but I was just experiencing as a child. And so from age 5 to 10, my dad's work, he was with the United nations, took us to Africa, Tanzania, Africa, specifically.
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A
How was this there last year?
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B
Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Wonderful. Yeah. So the main city there, as you know, is Arusha. Right. But little from a distance from there actually is the camp, the site where the Hadza tribe is.
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A
Yes.
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B
And so a lot of his work was going out in the fields and he would take me and I would. Would spend time with these tribes. And there were several tribes, but Hadza tribe was one of the main ones at that time. Not knowing who they were or whatnot, I hung out with the kids. They would take me on these little hunts and things like that. It was just fascinating. I was just so enamored by the experience. Being out in the wild and just doing all this. And then many years later, as I'm questioning all this aging and everything in radiology, I go into this, kind of want to go down this longevity field and want to kind of, you know, educate people on this. And I learned. They said, you know, there is this one tribe that they're finding out that they have very low incidence of chronic disease and, you know, very little mental health disease. And then. And I said, oh, there's the Hadza tribe. They're in Tanzania. Tanzania. And so I look in the map and I go. And I go, wow, isn't that crazy? That's where I was. So, you know, it goes full circle. But phenomenal experience.
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A
Have you been back then?
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B
I want to go.
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A
Yeah, I want to go.
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B
The only thing that was preventing me was the kids were so young and, you know, and so I wanted them to be older. And so my goal was to go back. And at least not that anybody I knew at that time is going to be there, but just to be back in.
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A
They're probably still there because, you know, when I went to first Tanzania, we stayed at this lodge for a safari, and one of the excursions they had was to go to a local tribal town.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so I did that, I think, 20 years ago with my parents. And then last year, I went back to Africa again. I took my kids to the same hotel because I had such fond memories. And I went back to that same little town, and everyone was still there. In fact, my tour guide was still there. And my tour guide has taught his son that I had met 20 years ago how to do tour guiding, and now he was our tour guide. So it was like, you know, the
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B
people, the lineage is fantastic.
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Yeah, they stayed there and, you know, these kids, they had an opportunity to leave, but they. They did. They left. I think they went to Lagos for school, and then they came back and they wanted to come back to their hometown and help it develop and help it, you know, bring fresh water and all these things. So it's really. It's really an incredible society there in Africa.
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B
It's incredible. And, you know, it's. What was interesting is these. Apart from the city aspect of Tanzania, these tribes that are kind of like hunter gatherer tribes, people have tried to kind of bring them back into the city and say that, you know what? You know, but they even at some point went back and they said, you know what? This is not working out. We like our way of life.
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Yes.
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B
And it has a lot to do with kind of what we're gonna talk about here is like, what is it that they enjoy about their primal way of living?
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Right, right. And I love it that you now have this perspective as a highly trained physician that's looking at brains, looking at scans of spines, to see, like, what are they doing in their societies that they've brought with them through, you know, generations and generations of living this way, that is protecting them from these aging.
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Absolutely.
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In things that you're seeing. Yeah. So, you know, I wanted to just talk. Just real quick before we start talking about some of these modalities, what was it that you were noticing in the spines of these people anatomically? And was it due to kind of what you see in society now as just being sedentary all the time?
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B
So there are a lot of changes we see in terms of degeneration.
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Right, right.
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B
So one is the malalignment that we see. Right. And the other thing is that sort of advanced degenerative disc disease that we see. And part of it is kind of normal process of aging, but other aspects are due to malalignment because of how we are engaging with modern society, you know, particularly like how we engage with technology. Right. Looking down at our phones. Right. Our neck was not designed to be in that forward head posture for too long. And if you think about how we spend our whole day in that kind of a posture. Right. Looking down, I mean, I'm still guilty. I would just have to remind myself to stay up. But it takes a toll on you. And if you look at the scans, you can see the changes. The modern society and the way we engage with technology is changing our anatomy for sure.
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A
Wow. And, you know, I saw this radiograph once of tech neck where someone was developing, like, a bone spur in the back of their neck. But, you know, I know that's probably pretty rare, but I think you do see a lot of postural abnormalities all the time now with people. And these add up to just aches and pains, too, Right. In the back and the shoulders and aches and pains.
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B
That bony spur, the occipital spur, it's actually fairly common. It is common. It is common. The malalignment leads to the foraminal stenosis, this is foraminar, where the nerve roots exit, right. And each nerve root, you know, it's kind of hitting different parts of your. Your arms and whatnot. So particularly in the neck. And people will start having symptoms. They will start. You know, you could see the incidence of paresthesias and numbness. People wake up with, like, you know, numb fingers, you know. You know, people watching this may even be going through some of these symptoms and you realize that, wow, this is us doing this to ourselves. Just the way we're engaging with technology, which is seen to me is crazy.
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A
So if you were to get an MRI of the Hansa tribe spine, would it show any of these changes?
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B
So I would say from the technic phenomenon, I would say very minimal, you know, you know, again, they are, they are hunting, they're on their feet all the time and whatnot, you know, so their spine would have, you know, kind of different issues, you know, but not the modern societal impact that we're seeing with the population here, you know.
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A
Yeah, it's so, it's so interesting. And it's like this is adding up to this massive industry of spine surgery and, you know, all these things happening now for people trying to relieve pain, but it's really just how we're using our body that's causing a lot of.
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B
It's incredible. I mean, let me ask you this question. What do you think is for radiology? What do you think is the number one indication that we scan patients for? What would you say if you were to.
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A
Back pain?
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B
Yeah, low back pain, low back pain, neck pain, and headache are like the three things that the most common. I mean, obviously people have lesions and tumors and things like that. They come in. That's expected. But these are societal issues that we're dealing with.
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A
Yeah, absolutely. So in these societies, you wrote seven key paradigms to reverse biological age. For these seven paradigms, I assume the tribe, the Hansa tribe, they embody these in their day to day life.
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And part of it came from that. Yes, and yes. And as I started questioning what was aging us in society, and initially I thought my journey, because I'm coming from this medical, anatomical aspect of being a radiologist, I thought it was all gonna be about physical stuff. It was gonna be about alignment and moving and sitting, not sitting too much and everything like that. But as I went down this pathway, I realized that there were much greater dimensions to it. Not just from the physical aspect, but there was the mental, emotional, and really more of an existential component to it. That comes into play.
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A
That's very interesting. I'm looking forward to diving into that with you. Why don't we start. I assume one of these key paradigms is about how we move our body.
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B
Absolutely. And we hit upon some of that, is that, you know, I would say the fundamental premise, I guess, here is that the closer we are to our primal design, the more optimal our kind of aging process is. And the further we get from our primal design, the more we are at risk for premature aging.
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Okay.
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So the question becomes is, what is our primal design?
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What is the primal design?
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B
What is the primal design? Right. And so when we look at, you know, in terms of what is primal posture, you know, and. And I do this in workshops where I'll bring people up and I'll say, okay, let's. Let's figure out what. What does primal posture? What does the optimal posture look like? You know, and you just talk about. Let's just talk about one area. So we talk about our spine as, like, three areas, right? Cervical, thoracic, and lumbar. But if you just look at cervical, for example, most of us engaging with technology have this forward head posture.
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Right?
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Right. But actually, our neck, when we push it back and our ears are aligned with our shoulders. And when you actually do that, you realize that is our primal design. You know, when you do that and you take a radiograph, you'll see how your spine aligns. And it's done very strategically. The design. Right. The primal design is because the load transfer. When you align properly, your head load trans transfers very properly to the rest of your spine. Anytime your year is forward, for every one inch, you add ten pounds to the muscles in the back of your neck. So what happens is over time, one, you age your spine. The second aspect is your neck muscles. At the end of the day, I'm sure you've noticed, right? You get that stiffness in your neck, and you're like, what the heck is going on here? It's because of our alignment, right? So one is that the more we are aligned at these areas, the more efficient our system is, the less tired you are and the less you age, kind of musculoskeletal wise.
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A
Yep, yep. So it's. It's so true. And, you know, like, I have this conversation with my son every day. Like, sit up straight. Come on. Get your head back. You know, and it's. It's hard because I think, you know, people spend so much time in front of their computer now. It's just you have to remind yourself constantly oh, you.
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B
It's a battle. It's battle. A part of it is also the rounding of the shoulders. Right. Because when we're. When we're watching, because I have to be in front of a screen and I want to lean over and look at it, and it is just. It is hard. It is hard to kind of.
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A
How do you. So, you know, I see these devices now that people can wear. There's like posture reminders, you know, like, it buzzes whenever your posture is not in alignment. What do you think about those? Are there any other techniques you can give people to help stay aligned with their posture?
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B
So the posture alignment reminders and things that. Things you mentioned, I think are good, but at the same time, the. The problem with tech neck and everything like that is that we don't have the strength in the back of our neck to keep it aligned. Right. Or the strength in our back itself to keep the shoulders back. You know, and so it's not a neck issue. It's more of a training issue in terms of strength. Right. And so most. In fact, there is this one orthopedic surgeon, and he talks about all this shoulder pain and all that, and what he said was, you know, a lot of shoulder issues has nothing to do with the shoulder, but it's all with the strength of the back.
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Sure.
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B
You know, and so when we look at primal cultures, you look at these Hadza tribes, you look at these other. They're used to pulling a lot of things. They're hanging. They're, you know, in India. Right. Where people were pulling well water. Right, right. You know, and you could see these women had these tremendous backs. Right. But you look at their posture, it was phenomenal just because of their back strength and their neck strength. Right. So I believe that the best way to handle this is to figure out that what is it from a proactive approach that you can strengthen. And hence, that's what I talk about in the book, is that when you find out what the primal posture is and you can strengthen the right muscles, automatically things start aligning.
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So you can actually work this into your exercise program. It's actually doing strength training with pulling type of motions to strengthen your upper back and your neck and your trapezius
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muscles, including primal movements. So I have a morning routine where I do neck strengthening exercises. I hang to give me that strength in my rhomboids and whatnot. You know, they say, you know, if you could do a static hang for about two minutes, you'll have, like, no shoulder issues. Right. You know, they Say, because you'll have enough strength, it lengthens your spine when you hang. So these are things that we were meant to do, we were designed to do, but we just don't do them anymore.
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A
Yeah, yeah. What are some of the neck exercises that you're doing?
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B
So one of the things, you know, I have certain contraptions that I use to kind of strengthen my neck. But a simple thing that people can do, right? One is that you warm up with neck rolls, which is obvious that people are aware of those, or kind of, kind of do it clockwise, counterclockwise, but then is that you do isometric exercises where you push against your hand in the forward, backward, right and left. And that kind of strengthens all those neck muscles. And it's a good way to start your day because what it will do is, will fire up those muscles first thing in the morning, so you're less likely to, to be in forward head posture or your degree of forward head posture will be diminuted or a lot less than before.
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A
Yeah, got it, got it. You know, moving down the spine just to be a little bit more complete here. I find that a lot of people with lower, like, lumbar back pain is mainly from just sitting all day long is what I see a lot of people that are in sedentary type of jobs seated on a chair all day, and it's pretty incredible. Like, once I get them to do some, you know, deep squatting, get them up on maybe a walking desk, their low back pain goes away.
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It goes away.
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A
Yeah, yeah.
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B
So the third thing, apart from neck hanging, neck exercises and hanging, the last thing I do is deep squat.
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A
Deep squat.
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B
I will, I will drop into a deep squat. And if you can do that in the morning, two minutes, just be in a deep squat, you know? You know, if, if you go to, like, third world countries, they live in the. The toilets force you to be in a deep squat.
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A
Exactly, yeah.
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B
And. And maybe that's a good thing. Maybe, maybe that was a good design. Right? So you just got like, like by default, you're doing a deep square.
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A
Now they have this thing you could buy called a squatty pond.
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B
I have seen that. I have seen that. And I, I just, I don't think my family will go for it, but. For sure. But, but what I found was getting into a deep squat in the morning. That does wonders for you. Because what happens is, as you just said, and I think you even did the episode on sitting is the new smoking.
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A
Right.
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I think as I saw that title and the sitting prolonged Sitting changes the angle of your pelvis in the long run, and that's the big thing that's a problem. And when you change the angle of your pelvis, not only do you get low back pain, but ultimately it's all a chain of force. It impacts also the biomechanics of how your knees operate. So one of the things, the issues with people developing, like, knee osteoarthritis in, like, the medial compartment is because of the way their feet fall because of their pelvic angle. So it's amazing.
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A
That is really important information. So, yeah, a lot of people, you know, as we get older, knee joints are a huge issue. It's one of the biggest surgeries orthopedic surgeons do and injections into the knees and all of this. And what you're saying is that actually the reason people have knee pain is from sitting all the time. And so doing things like deep squats can also help protect their knees as well. Right.
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Because the glute strength changes your biomechanics, which ultimately impacts your knee. And most people don't think the knee issue is anything related to you sitting.
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Got it.
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But there is a direct correlation, you know.
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Yes, yes. So interesting. I'm a big fan of the walking desk, too. You know, I think just the way life is, you have to be in front of a computer all the time. You're a radiologist. You're probably looking at films a lot. And so I think the walking desk has been a game changer for me personally, because I get 20,000. 30. 20, 30,000 steps in a day.
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B
Wow.
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A
And I assume the onset tribe, they're doing a lot of walking, right?
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I mean, crazy amount of walking. I think they're doing, like, maybe eight miles or whatnot with just. Just, you know, foraging, you know, for food and, you know, whatnot. Walking is so ingrained in them, you know, it's not like, you know, and. But that's wonderful if you're getting that. That many steps in.
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Yeah. It's super easy because I can get my work.
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B
It's awesome. Yeah. You know, one of the things with. Even with standing, where. What I've seen that is that, you know, and if you're walking, I guess that is that maintaining posture.
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Yeah.
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When you are using a standing desk is also important. So I think one of the things I try to impress people is that even if you have a standing desk, it's also important to how you're standing. If you're standing and leaning over, that, again, goes through the same issue, Right? Yeah.
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A
Yeah, exactly. So is movement another one of the seven key paradigms?
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B
So, first key paradigm is connecting with the body, and we talked about kind of the posture and things like that. Okay. And the other one is how we are connected with the earth in terms of the circadian rhythm of the Earth, as well as connecting with the Earth in terms of grounding and the electrochemical aspect of it, which is a very, very huge aspect which people rarely talk about. We don't talk about contacting the Earth, you know, but we can see kind of like you look at the research on about like earthing and everything like that and what it does to your inflammatory markers and everything like that. It's phenomenal. And part of the health of these cultures, you know, these primal tribes, is that they're in touch with earth every day. And I ask people, you know, when I do a talk, and I usually say, okay, by a show of hands, how many of you have touched ground with your bare feet in like the last, like 24 hours? I'll say about a week. You know, and it's, it's sad, you know, how many people raise their head and I'm like, what a fundamental thing, right? Just touching the earth, right?
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A
Yeah. I think, you know, modern society, it's almost considered dirty or dangerous to go outside without your shoes on. Right. And so not only do we wear shoes, but we wear socks. You have multiple layers of plastic between you and the ground outside.
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B
Or we're totally insulated.
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A
Totally insulated. Completely insulated. Can you explain how the electrochemical forces work with grounding?
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B
So one of the theories, and then there have been several like, kind of like low power studies, you know, that have shown that, you know, one is that the earth behaves like a electron sink. And so that when you contact the Earth, it's sort of like almost like a. It adds negative ions into your system. And it works the same way as that. If you take like, you know, any eating a berry or any antioxidant, it kind of has that sort of effect on your body. But regardless of the kind of biochemical process, what we've seen is in terms of allergies, in terms of inflammation, we know that people who contact the earth and you are in touch with the earth, the wounds heal faster. You know, there was one sort of a low power study where they had these patients in the hospital who were, you know, in the, in the wound wing. Right. I don't know if you may have read that study.
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A
I've worked in one for a very long time in Mayo Clinic in the wound.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, we had a wound floor actually for wounds and we had hyperbaric chambers and all these other things. And one of the things that we had there was a PEMF system as well, electromagnetic field system that was supposed to simulate grounding by creating negative ions in the body.
- [25:15]
B
Right. So there's a grounding mat and grounding system. And that's been shown that some of the studies have shown that that helps with wound healing. So if that's working, what a simple fix is to just get out and put your feet on the ground, you know, and, and so that's one of the aspects of, so connecting with the earth is like physically connecting with the earth. The other is being in sync with the cycles of the earth. Okay. In the circadian rhythm.
- [25:42]
A
Right. Hi, Dr. Shah here. I want to take a minute to talk to you about cellular health. So in my clinics I've actually seen 30 year old people with cells that look like they're pushing retirement. And I've also seen 60 year olds with cells that look like they're 40 years old. So what's the difference? It's really about how fast their telomeres are breaking down. Your cells, you see, are like phones and they have limited cell phone battery, poor sleep, stress, processed foods. All of these things can drain that battery way faster than it should. So this is the reason why I partnered with ima. IMA powers that cellular battery. It's not just another multivitamin. It's a comprehensive 92 ingredient formula designed specifically for cellular health and longevity. I'm talking 900 milligrams of vitamin C. That's like 20 oranges worth of DNA protection, the clinical dose of CoQ10 that you need to power your cellular engine. You also get zinc, selenium, vitamin E, alpha lipoic acid. All of these work synergistically for cellular repair and protecting your telomeres. So instead of taking a handful of pills every day and all these supplements, Im8 actually gives you everything that you need in one scientifically formulated system. And this isn't just a theory anymore. IMAID had partnered with Oxford University, the International Space Station San Francisco Research Institute, and they've done studies and they've gotten this NSF certified to truly power your health. Most people are aging twice as fast as they should. Unfortunately, you don't have to be one of them. Try Im8. I actually have a discount secured for you if you go to DrShaw.com IMA or go to ImaidHealth.com discount DrShaw and you can get 20% off with my discount code. DrShaw, you can also find the link below. Let's talk about circadian rhythms. So one of the things I like to have all my patients do is first thing in the morning when they wake up, go outside and expose their body to the outside environment and their eyes to the sun that's coming out, you know, in the sunrise. And it's very helpful. What I found in elevating people's mood as well and giving energy, and I tell them, like, you know, what's happening there is you're setting your circadian rhythm so that at nighttime, 14 hours later, your cortisol levels drop and your melatonin levels go up, right? And this is just kind of a natural cycle of these hormones. But they're only able to do this if they understand, like, what is the rhythm they're supposed to be in. And the way humans used to understand that is they would get up and get out of the cave and when the sun came out, right? And that's how you would know it's morning. Right. And that's how our biology, to your point, is set in our primal, as primal humans, by that movement of the earth. Right? And we don't do that anymore.
- [28:39]
B
Yeah, we don't do that anymore. And as you said that your, you know, your biology is primal. Whether you're engaging with a modern world or a primal world, your biology is primal, right? So you cannot argue with that. You cannot try to fight that. So when you wake up, the, the only way to signal that biology, that it is daytime. And let's start the day and let's start this, this hormone cycle. Even our digestion follows the circadian rhythm. You know, you said your dad was with, you know, from practice, Ayurved. It's a big thing in Ayurveda, the timing of when you eat with relation to the sun, right? So your body needs to know, okay, the day is starting. So now your cortisol, even your sex hormones, in terms of testosterone, whatnot, they set their. They correlate with this cycle. So like you said, first half an hour, you need to signal your body that it's daytime and get some sun, right? And it has to hit the back of your retina to register and.
- [29:47]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very important. And you know, also, like when we measure blood tests for testosterone levels, we always say the first thing in the morning is when you want to measure it, if at all possible, because that's going to be like your high number, right? So if that's, if that's too low, then we know we have a problem.
- [30:03]
B
Yes.
- [30:04]
A
Yeah, yeah. So as far as setting your circadian biology first thing in the morning, very helpful. What can people do at nighttime to also kind of live in the rhythm of Earth?
- [30:16]
B
And I know this has been talked about a lot, like, what is the optimal nighttime routine? And what I found is that people struggle with two key areas at nighttime. One aspect is falling asleep, and the other aspect is staying asleep. Falling asleep was more of a melatonin phenomenon, as you just mentioned, right? Avoiding blue light. Right. You know, in that. At least that half an hour, preferably an hour before you go to sleep, avoiding like, you know, strenuous exercise or any, like, you know, hiit training or whatnot, right before you go to sleep, you don't want to amp up your system and whatnot so you can have that melatonin increase. But the second part is like, staying asleep. And what I found is that staying asleep is more of a. Just a sort of anxiety issue. Is that. Is that giving your body that. That rest signal that it'. It's really. It needs to kind of recuperate and go into kind of like that rest and recover mode rather than this kind of like analytical mode, you know, and there are different ways of kind of engaging that system. So you want to shift from that sympathetic to that deep parasympathetic tone before going to sleep so you can actually have that rest and stay asleep.
- [31:28]
A
Yeah, yeah. So true. Okay, so we've covered connection to the Earth. What's the next priority?
- [31:33]
B
So the Earth body, food is the next one, right? And food just very quickly, you know, as a, as a food is such a big topic these days, you know, it is. But from a primal perspective, what makes a difference is that we want to feed our body in terms of what the microbiome requires rather than what we feel like eating, right? Eating for vitality rather than eating for, you know, kind of our taste buds, you know, and in a way to sum it up, right? And what I feel that is that we. We've come away from realizing that aspect, right? And if you look at it, what was interesting about the Hadza tribe in Africa was that most people think that these guys probably eat like all this wild game, right? That they're eating, you know, deer meat and all this like that. But actually a good portion of their diet are tubers, okay? And. And yucca is one of the major tubers in Africa. I don't know if you had yucca when you went There.
- [32:36]
A
Yes, I did, definitely.
- [32:37]
B
I actually. That taste, I love it. I love that taste, you know, and, and just because I ate it so much over there. And what's interesting about tubers is that it has these incredible prebiotics.
- [32:48]
A
Right, right.
- [32:49]
B
Which feed the gut microbiome. And so one of the things they found in the Hassa tribe that made them so kind of resistant to a lot of the chronic diseases is that they had a super diverse microbiome. Their microbiomicrobial diversity is phenomenal. Like, you know, I know you. Dr. Gundry talks about this, right. This whole, the whole aspect of microbiome diversity.
- [33:13]
A
Right.
- [33:13]
B
But the, the tubers provide that prebiotics.
- [33:17]
A
Yeah, yucca is so good. And what are some of the other tubers that people can consume as prebiotic?
- [33:23]
B
So there, there are many others. I mean, the one that I like the best was, was, was the, the yucca. And they're also like, you know, anything that comes from the ground. I mean, you know, you want to avoid like potatoes, you know, obviously from kind of like a metabolic aspect. But you know, you know, things like beets and things like that are also have a fair amount of like the prebiotics like that.
- [33:46]
A
And beets are also good because they increase nitric oxide level as well. So another.
- [33:50]
B
Sure.
- [33:51]
A
I think also, you know, with gut health just in general has a lot of attention on it right now. And the reality is the reason our microbiome as a diversity issue is because of ultra processed food, in my opinion. You're not giving any prebiotic fiber with processed food.
- [34:10]
B
Absolutely.
- [34:10]
A
Yeah. And so the problem with microbiome diversity right now is the ultra processed food. And so, you know, I think just cutting out ultra processed food is a massive step in the right direction. And automatically you'll start eating more fiber and automatically you'll start eating more protein. But I think then getting very intentional about prebiotics because prebiotics are tough for people to get and find and put into their diet. And having some access to like yucca or to some fermented foods like yogurts and things can be also very helpful too. Right.
- [34:43]
B
And I would add to that there are some choices now to take like inulin fiber, which is like available in powder form, people can add it to water and it just dissolves and just no taste. But it has tremendous benefits. Yeah, people, people see tremendous benefits.
- [35:01]
A
That's true. You can get these supplements now which are excellent prebiotics. My friend Dr. Rajan just came up with one called loam, which he's mixed Multiple different types of prebiotics together to affect more microbiome diversity, basically giving different bacterias of foods that they like. So supplements are available. But to your point, I also think that like having looking for yucca, if you've never had it, is delicious as a potato substitute.
- [35:26]
B
It works awesome.
- [35:27]
A
It works awesome. Yeah, Very good. Okay, so we cover connection to food. What is the next one that we
- [35:31]
B
need to talk about? So the next is connection with the mind. And this is an important piece because most people think about connecting with the mind in many different aspects. Talk about thought process or cognitive connection and whatnot. But the big idea here is what I say is that this idea of stillness versus illness and it's that, you know, our mind right now, the way you know, if you think about, if you take an inventory of all your thoughts, right, they either fall about some regret of the past or some memory of the past that you're trying to work on versus some anxiety of the future or something that you're planning. So either we are planning or thinking about something that happened in the recent past, but we are rarely in the now in the present, you know, And I think that pretty much sums up the way most people live is because we rarely experiencing that moment or that present that's in front of us. And one of the things I saw in the tribes there is that they were so in the now. You know, when you go hunting, you cannot go hunting by being in the past or the future, right. You have to hunt in the now because you have to respond to subtle changes in the bush and pay attention to the wind and pay attention to the tracks. So that makes you present. And it's so powerful because your biology is most at ease when it's in the present, but when it's not in that present and it's in that kind of regrets of the past and anxieties of the future, you're in more of that sympathetic tone. And so it's connecting with your mind in a way that you can drop into that present and the now.
- [37:20]
A
Yeah, very important. I think some of the ways to replicate that probably in modern day society is maybe meditation, breath work, doing some parasympathetic, sympathetic training and doing things that train your hrv. These are all kind of the modern ways of doing this. But you're saying they automatically do it in the Hanza tribe because they're hunting. So they have to be in the moment, in the now, right now. And you see massive benefits to that.
- [37:48]
B
Right. And there's so much, you know, we Talk about this being in this flow state.
- [37:54]
A
Yes.
- [37:55]
B
Right. We talk about this research and a lot of lot has been written about deep work and flow and connecting your mind to a level, paying attention, having focused attention. So you go from attention to deep work to that flow state. And once people experience flow, they realize that, wow, this is this space which is so expansive and because it puts you out of that sympathetic mode into this Paris high vagal tone. And you're in this flow state. And most of us have, you know, I would say even like students going to high school and college. And I talk to my kids, they've never experienced that state of being in flow. But if you look at these primal cultures, they seem to be in that state all the time because they're always just focused on something and they're naturally in that state. Right. So there are ways of dropping into that state.
- [38:50]
A
Right.
- [38:51]
B
You mentioned a couple of things in terms of breath work. A lot of Eastern yogic practices are all centered around getting people to experience this state.
- [39:01]
A
Right, yeah, very true. I think a big part of the reason kids and college students are not getting into flow right now is they haven't had the benefit of practicing it over time due to their devices, because there's never a moment that they're bored or not distracted. Right. There's so much distraction with the device and so much training into multitasking. And, you know, we can't really multitask or, oh, we're just splitting our attention constantly, 30 seconds at a time.
- [39:32]
B
Now they say that all the multitasking, on the average, we're task switching every 47 seconds. So very close to what you just said. But as you said, there's no such thing as multitasking. We're just monotasking very poorly. And so one of the things that works really well is that as I do some of these workshops and what I try to teach people that carve out some time where you can actually get into that flow state, you know, take your job and split it into blocks where you can drop in and actually experience doing one task in a manner that is very, very deeply fulfilling. And you can really sink your teeth into that task because then it won't feel like work because you can actually enjoy that one task. Exactly. And, but, but again, like you said, social media, the. All the, the text messages, slack everything, it just, it just becomes a very difficult to kind of accomplish that.
- [40:38]
A
Now. You really have to turn all that off if you want to drop into flow state because the second something notification comes up, it takes you right out, right? Yeah. So true. This episode was also brought to you by vitaboom. Vitaboom is a revolutionary company that sends you a custom supplement protocol based on your needs. Using blood based biomarkers, you can either send them your latest blood test or they will send you a finger stick test for blood analysis. Vitaboom then curates and ships you an extremely convenient monthly box of daily supplement packs that have your custom protocol in them. What's great is that they also provide all the best brands like Timeline, Tru, Niagen and many others for your custom daily packs. I love mine especially for travel since I don't have to bring 10 bottles of supplements with me and just open up a daily pack for every day that I'm taking my vitamins and supplements. Go to Vitaboom.com and check it out. Okay, so we've talked about the connection to the mind. What is the next connection?
- [41:46]
B
So next is connection to tribe or having that connection with tribe or people and having that emotional connection, you know, and you know, it's, it's a, it's a progression of humans as we've developed, right. Like once is that you're mastering yourself and then mastering of our relationship with others. And we found, you know, you talk about that major Harvard study, right? It says that of all the things that they found that was most impactful in terms of the quality of life, right. And happiness was the quality of the relationships. Right. And so having that ability to connect with others I think is so key. And particularly right now, as AI progresses, the ability to create effective tribes and teams and this culture of trust is becoming so important, you know, and one of the things is look at the primal cultures, you know, especially in Africa and many other countries and whatnot. You look at that just it's so built in to their culture and their way of life to be part of a tribe and this gathering, to sit around the fire, to tell stories, to go out on a group hunt, to eat together. And so as we become this kind of nuclear family and you know, one of the biggest issue right now facing America and I guess all over the world is loneliness, right. And as AI progresses, as technology progresses, people are becoming more and more lonely. And so we're losing this whole tribal aspect and that's really impacting our health and longevity.
- [43:32]
A
Yeah, you know, I kind of worry about these AI models that anyone who's talked to AI, I mean, verbally, it really can replicate a human conversation very closely. Right. And this is just going to get better and better and Better. I mean, it sounds like a real human you're talking to. Right. And so how do you think about the aspect of loneliness and using AI to substitute human connection for people who are lonely? Because I know a lot of scientists are working on this right now. Right.
- [44:07]
B
It's a double edged sword.
- [44:09]
A
Yeah.
- [44:09]
B
Okay. One aspect is that it does replicate sort of human speech, you know, I know one day as I was walking by my son's room and he was, he was scanning his pants and he hits enter and this voice comes on, right? This guy Marco, it's his like digital friend and he's asking Marco, he's like, oh, what do you think I should wear on top of these pants? And Marco, this like, this guy, oh, you know, you should try a light blue shirt or a light yellow shirt. Just like in a very casual conversation, I'm like, what the heck is going on here? You know, And I said, I said, you have to, you couldn't come to your dad. You have to ask Marco for this, you know? You know, and, but again, it's cute and it does provide some, you know, that interaction. But from a biological point of view, if you talk about hormone release in terms of oxytocin, in terms of all these hormones that are released when, when you are talking to a real person, you don't see that, that, that exchange happening. The other aspect is you don't see the exchange in terms of mirror neurons. If you look at the kind of the neuroscience that about mirror neurons, because where we're picking up each vibes from each other and this idea of emotional contagion where if you're depressed and when we get together, there is that exchange where I can actually help you emotionally just from me being in that space.
- [45:36]
A
Sure.
- [45:36]
B
So this whole idea of mirror neurons, emotional contagion or oxytocin release, none of that happens in the digital interactions.
- [45:44]
A
Very true. Connection to tribe is so important. I mean, also, I think how you form your tribe is a big factor here too because, you know, I always say, like, you want to surround yourself with the eight people that you want to be. Most like that move you in the most positive direction are positive individuals that you feel that they inspire you. And when you're surrounded by the opposite of that, it just drags you down. Right. Toxic people, people that are not doing anything that you want to be doing with your life. Maybe people that don't have the same health goals that you have.
- [46:19]
B
Sure.
- [46:20]
A
The same amount of commitment to bettering themselves that you want to have. And your tribe can really Determine your destiny if you don't curate it correctly.
- [46:32]
B
I absolutely think. I think that you have to. And I like the word, curate your inner circle, you know, and create that tribe for yourself. But I think that having that tribe is absolutely key because there's something to be said about one being independently successful, but then I believe there is a maturity that takes you from independence to interdependence. And that jump, that leap, is very, very important.
- [47:05]
A
Yeah. I think a lot of the tribal cultures, their success completely depended upon their tribe, so they had no choice. Right. If you went off without your tribe, you were probably dead in 48 hours.
- [47:16]
B
Well, and part of it was the roles were split, right? There were people hunting food, There were people picking berries. And then when everybody got together, everybody shared the food. Right. So was one role important than the other? Not necessarily. It was the survival of the tribe was important. Right. And so I think that that aspect becomes. Becomes key as we kind of mature as society.
- [47:43]
A
Yeah, that's so true. Okay. So I think we have to. The. What is the last one? We have two more, Right.
- [47:48]
B
With two more. One is the aspect of connecting with a greater cause.
- [47:54]
A
Okay.
- [47:55]
B
Which is. Which is very, very important. Okay. And one of the things is that, you know, in this day and age, we. We are so much bent on sort of creating my brand and, you know, and maybe even to some degree, my family and my tribe. Right. But rarely are we chasing a cause that is beyond us. And even our team, you know, and I usually like to take. I respect, you know, like Salman Khan from Khan Academy. Right. You know, and what an impressive mission. Right. The guy, he started off this platform just to promote education, and he said that, you know what? Let people be educated. And it's impressive that just the mission was just education. Right. And it wasn't about himself. It wasn't about any particular team. It was about that larger mission. And I think that when you engage with that and in Eastern cultures, there are many different words that are given to that. In India, they call it like, siva. Right. Like is that. But that element that it's not where you're transcending yourself and your self interest from a health point of view is so important because it's so healthy for you, because it puts your ego down and it actually calms your whole system because you're serving without any. Expecting any return.
- [49:17]
A
Yeah, yeah. So being in the mindset of giving at some point, sometimes during the week and the day and the month and the year is so important. And just you don't get anything from it directly, but what you get from it indirectly is massive.
- [49:35]
B
There were these studies where they said that people got more out of giving themselves than when they got the gift themselves. You know what I'm saying? The giver benefited more.
- [49:51]
A
Yes.
- [49:52]
B
Which is phenomenal.
- [49:52]
A
Right.
- [49:53]
B
And so it goes kind of plays into what we're talking about here.
- [49:56]
A
Yeah, that's fantastic. And the last one, so the last
- [49:59]
B
one, I think it's. It's sort of like the capstone on all of this and is. It's something that I think most people don't talk about is kind of coming to terms with the idea that we are finite, you know, and it raises a very interesting paradox, and especially for me when I experience this, is that I believe that when you realize that you have a finite life, you start making many more infinite decisions. In a sense that when you realize you have a finite life, you don't play this win, lose game. You talk about the long game. You talk about contribution, legacy, because you realize that life is short. On the flip side, if you think you have an infinite life, which is how most people think, most people don't think they're going to die or at least, at least don't want to make a note of that or kind of keep that in their consciousness that I'm going to die. So that what happens is then you play the finite game because you think you have an infinite life. You play a finite game because all becomes about win, lose, what's in it for me, you know, what is my take in this, you know, and so, so I think that embracing our finiteness is very important because you then start living at a much deeper level. You start living and you live in the more tomorrow of an infinite mindset. In which I think from a, you know, from a health perspective, you know, when I lost my parents a few years ago and what I realized that is that my dad always had that kind of like that he knew about his finite life and he had that infinite mindset. And once I made that decision for myself, I said, look, you know what I'm going to give Regardless of expecting any return, things change. My resting heart rate went down, my heart rate variability went up. And it was just from this idea of that, you know what, there is nothing to gain in the long run. It's just like how many people are better off because I lived? You know what I'm saying? If I can live with that mindset, it just calmed my whole system down. And I think it's an important piece
- [52:17]
A
for longevity yeah, no, it's so true. It does really manifest itself in how your thought processes occur day to day as well. Because once you start living an infinite life, you realize that it's so much better to just live in the now rather than trying to live in the future or the past all the time. Right?
- [52:39]
B
Yeah. Yep.
- [52:40]
A
That's incredible. How does the Hansa tribe kind of manifest that thought, that last one, about living the infinite life?
- [52:46]
B
So I believe the way it plays out for them is that they are hunting this game all the time. Right. They're out hunting. And I think on one level, they do realize that there is an animal that has to give up their. His life to feed you. Right. And they also understand that at one point, they are also going to, you know, be a sacrifice in a way, because they're, you know, like that. And so I think because they see death every day. Okay. And not in a morbid way. You know what I'm saying? They're hunting for food, but because they see death every day, they're constantly reminded that, hey, I am very finite. I am finite. So let me make the most out of the day today. Right. Let me live in a day. Tight compartment. Right. And I think the fact that we are so sterile, we are rarely exposed to death.
- [53:43]
A
Sure.
- [53:43]
B
Okay. So that we just don't. Then we don't have that perspective anymore.
- [53:49]
A
Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. So, you know, you've learned all of these primal behaviors that, thank goodness we still have some inklings of these through African tribes that are still living this way. And maybe you can say some of this has translated over to some of these blue zones where people are also going out into nature and maintaining community. But the world is progressing so fast. And when you look at the rise of AI and how much you can do with it, people are spending more and more time on a screen at home interacting with AI, interacting with their social media, less time with real people, less time outside, more time staying up late at night, waking up early, you know, waking up early to get more done. It's such a grind culture that we live in now. I mean, how do you reconcile this? Like, the world is going in a different direction. It has been for decades, and it doesn't seem to be stopping. But we know that all of what we're doing there is potentially very negative to our health. How do you reconcile that?
- [54:58]
B
And I think you can see it. One, you can look at AI and I see two camps and one camp. They're sort of anti AI. They said, you know what this is very harmful for us. Let's just stay away from this technology. And then there's one camp that wants to kind of adopt AI and do everything that AI offers and everything like that. But I think you have to take a moderate approach. One is that I don't think AI technology is bad. I'm glad that we have AI. It automates a lot of the mundane tasks. But my question to individuals is that if AI is able to do a lot of your mundane tasks and you gain some of that time back, what are you going to do with that extra time? And I think how you play that game, if you can take that extra time to actually do a lot of the analog things that you never got to do before, you can actually leverage AI to become more human. And that, I believe, is the secret, is that you can use it as a leverage to actually better yourself as a person. And one of the things I see that when I tell people is that if you gain that time back, invest that time back into finding out if you're in a job right now, and let's say AI frees up 20% of your time and you get the productivity back, you can actually put that time back into things that give you passion. What is it that you intrinsically, what is your inner drive? What is your passion? In my case, it's maybe about education, thought leadership, it's about bringing some of these discoveries to the common public here. But I could take that time and now invest in things that. That drive my passions. Right. You can take that time creating more quality relationships. You can, you know, and. And so it's really, I think that we have to change the paradigm as to using AI as a leverage to be more human. And that's where the power play is.
- [57:10]
A
You know, that's such a great optimistic look about this. And I think you're right. Gaining the time back don't fill it with just more technology. Technology, right, Exactly. Use it to get your life back. Because we've given up so much of our life to technology already. Wow. This is a beautiful conversation. Dr. Mistry, is, you know, you're teaching these courses all the time for people based on the Primal Health design. Have you seen people break through and make major changes in their life, either in their health or their spirituality or their. The way they look at just life in general?
- [57:46]
B
What I see is that every individual is different. And hence. So I have a Primal Reset program. It's kind of video course that people can go through. Right. And what I tell people is that, you know, Ultimately, when you start designing your life, most of us, I see our life, I call it a life bridge that, you know, when you look at like a suspension bridge, it has these two pillars, and the whole bridge is sort of resting on these two pillars. Right. And the two pillars in our life, I believe, is the way you start your day and you end your day, you know, because really, that's the only thing for most people that's in their control. Because during the day, all hell can break loose. And, you know, you're dealing with so many things I'm sure, you know. Right. Like as you're a busy professional and for same as myself, but I have a control over how I begin my day and my end my day. And that's what I focus on teaching people, is that let's design those bookends, let's design those pillars. And if you do that properly, will you optimize all seven connections? Maybe not, but let's start somewhere. Okay. Let's optimize our physiology to some level. Let's optimize some level of our psychology in terms of stillness and things like that. And slowly. And what I've seen in the feedback is that people start realizing that they are more alive when they start putting in these things the middle of the day. They feel like they've lived more that day, which I think is a bigger win than any kind of biomarker, I think, is that if you feel more alive and you feel like I lived well today, it's a win for me.
- [59:21]
A
That's so true. I'm a huge fan of morning routines and night routines. Everything that happens between the morning and night routine is not routine. You lose complete control of your day, of your decision making, of everything. But you're absolutely right. The two pillars of the suspension bridge you have full control over. Right?
- [59:39]
B
Absolutely. And I think that once you. And if you can systematize that, then it becomes just a habit and a routine and your body craves that, you know, and sort of just fine tuning those two bookends.
- [59:54]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Dr. Mishi, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and talking to us about this model that you've developed and comes from. So much I could tell, love for humanity that you want to put this out there. So you really are, you know, living in sync with the universe and I appreciate you making that happen.
- [60:11]
B
Pleasure, Darshan. I enjoyed this conversation and yeah, I just, I appreciate all the work you're doing and your background. I know you're adding a lot of value to people. So just Glad to exchange ideas here.
- [60:25]
A
Thank you so much. Where can people find you? The book is called Primal Health Design. It's available on all bookstores. Amazon, of course. And where can people find you?
- [60:34]
B
My website is kavinmysterymd.com and I have all the resources there and kind of like free downloads as well as the Primal Reset program link on there if people want to engage with the course and do something like that.
- [60:46]
A
Great. And how do you do live courses as well?
- [60:49]
B
So right now I have a video course, but we are going to be doing live courses in Philly area, Philadelphia area.
- [60:56]
A
Okay, good. Well, hopefully I can make it to one of these. Thank you Dr. Misty.
- [60:59]
B
It's really great pleasure.
- [61:01]
A
Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you like this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best and it's always important to seek their guidance.