These Daily Habits Are Draining Years From Your Life | Gary Brecka

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Balance Theory

Episode: These Daily Habits Are Draining Years From Your Life | Gary Brecka

Host: Erika De Pellegrin
Guest: Gary Brecka (World-renowned biologist & human optimization expert)
Date: November 30, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Erika sits down with Gary Brecka to explore the practical foundations of longevity and daily habits that can either drain or add years to your life. Gary unpacks myths about health trends, highlights the crucial importance of community and purpose, and shares his evidence-based approach to optimal wellbeing, focusing on what is accessible to the everyday person. The discussion bridges ancient wisdom and modern science with actionable steps on sleep, diet, mobility, supplementation, and the hidden power of connection.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The "80/20" (or "90/10") of Longevity (02:20–06:55)

• Gary’s Core Advice:
  “You need to master three things that will cost you nothing: sleep, mobility, and a whole food diet.” (02:20, Gary Brecka)

  • These three areas are foundational, supported by big data, and accessible to all.
  • Sleep: Most neglected aspect—schedule sleep like any other priority (03:10–04:30).
  • Mobility: Movement must be non-negotiable, especially for caregivers/women (06:44).
  • Whole Food Diet: Avoid processed foods—the true common denominator among world’s longest-lived populations (“blue zones”).

• Daily Sleep Routine:

  • It’s essential to “bookend” sleep with routines for going to bed and waking up (05:30).
  • Simple steps: blackout eye mask, cold & dark room, avoid screens at bedtime, breath work, or listening to podcasts instead of staring at a phone (04:44–05:30).

2. Supplementation & Genetic Testing (06:55–13:37)

• Testing Over Guesswork:
  “If you don’t know what you’re deficient in, then you are supplementing for the sake of supplementing.” (07:52, Gary Brecka)

  • Blood vs. genetic methylation tests: Only genes tell you lifelong actionable deficiencies.
  • Tailor supplements to specific gene mutations—prevents trial-and-error overload.

• Examples of Deficiency:

  • MTHFR mutation prevents folic acid from becoming methylfolate—a vital difference, especially for pregnancy support (10:15–11:34).
  • Anxiety and sleep issues often trace back to unresolved nutrient deficiencies linked to genes like COMT (12:49–13:37).

3. Sleep, Anxiety & Genes (12:30–13:37)

• Insomnia and the Overactive Mind:
  “40% of your listeners … lay down to go to sleep tired, but their mind is awake. … This is so simple to solve.” (12:30, Gary Brecka)
  • The COMT gene is linked to “rumination”—fix the deficiency, and the problem is resolved.
  • Sleep medication is not needed—“You need to quiet the mind.”

4. Healthspan vs. Lifespan, and the Medicine of Connection (15:47–20:20)

• Healthspan vs. Lifespan:
  “Lifespan is how many more years you have left … healthspan is how many more of those years are you going to enjoy.” (16:08, Gary Brecka)

  • Focus on quality, not just quantity of years.

• Community and Purpose:

  • “If you wanted to cut a human being’s life expectancy in half … you put them in isolation.” (16:56)
  • Community connection is as predictive as any medical intervention for longevity (18:45).
  • Faith, community, connection—these are “medicine” for mind and body as much as diet or exercise.

5. The Power of Faith, Authenticity, and Overcoming Pain (20:13–24:33)

• Role of Faith:
  “What prayer and faith do is they allow you to believe in a higher power and … defend yourself against your own ego.” (20:23, Gary Brecka)
  • Faith and gratitude measurably improve the body’s frequency and emotional state.
  • Authenticity—“the most attractive frequency a human being can exhibit”—is deeply healing (21:44).
  • Purpose is found by overcoming your own pain: “Find your pain and overcome it. And that’s your purpose.” (23:21)

6. Beauty Habits & the Immune System (24:36–29:35)

• Botox & Fillers:

  • Fillers are resorbed into the bloodstream; Gary is “not a fan of fillers at all” (24:45–25:00).
  • It’s better to focus on balanced hormones, hydration, whole foods—“beauty comes from managing the internal environment.” (25:37)
  • Caution with botulinum toxin (Botox), as it may burden the immune system.

• The “Immunofatigue” Theory of Aging:

  • The leading anti-aging thinkers agree that “immunofatigue”—overwhelming your immune system with toxins—is what ages you most.
  • “The greatest defense we have and the greatest tool to live a long, healthy, happy life is our immune system.” (28:25)
  • Promote a parasympathetic state (rest & digest) through breathwork, grounding, sunlight, community, faith, purpose, connection.

7. The Future of Life Expectancy (30:03–31:38)

• The Fork in the Road:
  “If we don’t change what we’re doing now, [life expectancy] will be 10 years shorter.” (30:03, Gary Brecka)
  • Rising data and early detection could enable lifespans up to 120–150 for those who adopt these principles.
  • Increases in the past came from sanitation and hygiene, not just medical advances.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Sleep is like the most bullied thing in our schedule. It's like the, the stepchild of our schedule…”
  (03:20, Gary Brecka)

• “We eat hordes of this type of [processed] food. We snack with empty calories. But moving to whole foods … that's the secret to longevity.”
  (04:08, Gary Brecka)

• “The worst thing you can do is … ask ChatGPT what a great supplement is.”
  (08:35, Gary Brecka)

• “There’s so many of your listeners right now that are struggling with things like anxiety. No one’s ever really told them what it is. … The distance between them suffering daily with anxiety and never having it enter their life again very often is supplementing for deficiency.”
  (09:44, Gary Brecka)

• “Isolation is being disconnected … Community and connection truly is medicine.”
  (18:33, Gary Brecka)

• “The most attractive frequency that a human being can exhibit is the frequency of authenticity.”
  (21:44, Gary Brecka)

• “Find your pain and overcome it. And that's your purpose.”
  (23:21, Gary Brecka)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:20 – Gary outlines the three pillars of longevity accessible to all
• 04:44 – Importance of sleep routines, practical tips
• 06:44 – The trap of the caregiver syndrome in women
• 07:52 – Benefits of genetic testing for targeted supplementation
• 12:30 – Sleep and anxiety linked to genetic deficiencies
• 16:08 – Healthspan vs. lifespan defined
• 18:45 – Power of community and the toxic effects of isolation
• 20:23 – Gary’s faith journey and frequency as medicine
• 23:21 – Transforming pain into purpose
• 24:45 – The unseen consequences of fillers and botox
• 27:34 – Immunofatigue and the real enemy of aging
• 30:03 – Predictions on future life expectancy

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Tone & Language

The conversation is both down-to-earth and richly evidence-based, blending practical advice for everyday listeners with cutting-edge longevity science. Gary speaks with clarity, approachability, and conviction, using analogies (like “sleep as the stepchild of our schedule,” or the plant/nitrogen story) to demystify complex topics. The host, Erika, maintains an open and relatable tone, often referencing her own life and thoughtfully guiding the discussion towards the audience’s experience.

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Practical Takeaways

• Prioritize the basics: Sleep, mobility, and whole foods matter more than exotic biohacks or expensive treatments.
• Test, don’t guess: Use genetic methylation testing to craft a supplementation plan grounded in your own biology.
• Structure your sleep and routines: Small, consistent changes make a big difference.
• Embrace connection and purpose: Your social world and sense of meaning are lifesaving medicine.
• Manage your internal environment: True vitality and beauty start on the inside, not with quick fixes or surface treatments.
• Future-proof your health: Adopt these habits now to stay on the right side of the coming longevity revolution.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Gary Brecka]

40% of your listeners right now have a sleep pattern where they lay down to go to sleep tired, but their mind is awake. So as soon as they go to lay down in bed, they're exhausted. But as their environment quiets, their mind wakes up. And this is so simple to solve.

[Podcast Host (Intro/Outro)]

Gary Breca is a world renowned biologist and human optimization expert.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Helping people transform their health and unlock peak performance. Do you have any thoughts on the impact of things like Botox and filler on longevity?

[Gary Brecka]

When you put filler into the body, where do you think that's going? It doesn't magically come out through the skin, it's resorbed into the bloodstream.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

So the average life expectancy has almost doubled in the last 200 years. What do you think the average life expectancy will be in 200 years from now?

[Gary Brecka]

If we don't change what we're doing now, it will be 10 years shorter. We've all heard of broken heart syndrome. An older couple that's married 40, 50, sometimes 60 years, one spouse passes away. How quickly the second one goes beyond, because they were instantly isolated. And one of the things that we knew in the mortality space that's not up for debate is if you wanted to cut a human being's life expectancy in half, and I mean in half at any age, you put them in isolation. There's so many of your listeners right now that are struggling with things like anxiety. No one's ever really told them what it is. The distance between them suffering daily with anxiety and never having it enter their life again often is. If you were listening to this podcast, you had a limited budget, but you said, I want to do some things that make the greatest impact. You do three things.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

All right, Balances. Welcome back to another episode of the Balance series. Today I'm joined by the wonderful Gary Brecker. Gary, welcome to the show.

[Gary Brecka]

It's so great to be here. It's such a pleasure to be sitting here.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Likewise. Everything you kind of represent things that you value. What you love to speak about is a top. The topic of longevity, it's not something I have dedicated a whole episode to. So I'm actually really excited to invite you on and have a chat about it today.

[Gary Brecka]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Where I want to start. So you're obviously really well known for this topic. You've worked with incredible people like Dana White. You have done protocols at that kind of level. A lot of people that listen to this show are your everyday person. The mom, the business owner, the person working a 9 to 5. What's the 8020 when it comes to longevity for them, people who may not have pockets and time, like maybe some of your A class, you know, clients.

[Gary Brecka]

Sure.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

What does that look like for everyday?

[Gary Brecka]

I'll tell you what, even the 9010 is. You need to master three things that will cost you nothing. And we have data on this. The big data proves that we need to master these three areas of our life. And if we do, which will cost us next to nothing, then everything else is just icing on the cake. And that's our sleep, our mobility, and, and a whole food diet. You know, if you look at blue zones, for example, there's no continuity between diets. So people are looking for the dogmatic diet that extends life. Is it carnivore? Is it keto? Is it paleo? Is it pescatarian? Is it vegan? Is it vegetarian? Is it raw food? It's none of those things. It's the absence of processed foods. And so if you were listening to this podcast and you had a limited budget, but you said, I want to do some things that make the greatest impact on how many more years I have left on this earth, on how many more healthy years I have left, and specifically on how I feel today. My mood, my emotional state, weight gain, water retention, sleep, focus, concentration. You do three things. You draw your attention to your sleep. I mean, sleep is like the most bullied thing in our schedule. It's like the, the stepchild of our schedule, right? We late dinners, push it around, early flights, push it around. But the truth is, if you learn to schedule meetings and travel around sleep and exercise, so many more things will fall into place in your life. And these are, these are things that can not only not add to your budget, but can actually save you money in your budget. True, your whole food diet is less expensive than a highly processed diet. Highly processed food is designed, sometimes chemically engineered to circumvent our own glp. One response. So we eat hordes of this type of food. We snack with empty calories. But moving to whole foods, many meat, fish, chicken, eggs, avocados, coconut oils, olive oils, nuts. Whole foods that your great grandmother would recognize. That's the secret to longevity. And then secondly, you know, drawing your, your attention to sleep. Do you have a routine to go to sleep? If I asked you what time you normally go to bed, could you tell me?

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

10:30.

[Gary Brecka]

Good. That's all right. You're already there. What time do you get up?

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Well, I just have a four month old baby, so that one is dependent on her.

[Gary Brecka]

Okay. So that's a variable.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Prior to that was seven. I do. I'm big on having a morning routine and a night routine.

[Gary Brecka]

So good. And it's so important. And most people just don't have any structure around going to sleep. We have a routine for exercise, for getting our kids to school, for what we do once we get to the office. But we don't really think of something like sleep as something that should be structured. And simple changes like investing in a $15 cotton eye mask to block all of the ambient light. You'd be shocked how many, how little candle wattage it takes to raise your cortisol level and wake you up. Sleeping in a cold room, a dark room, no screen time at bed, doing things like breath, work in bed, or if you're one of those people that really does need to be distracted when you lay down to sleep, get corded headphones, put your phone on the nightstand and listen to a podcast. Um, anything other than staring at blue light, which is actually going to raise cortisol and keep you awake. And then in the morning, because we're such creatures of habit, we crave routine. You know, I just did 14 cities in 18 days. I. I changed time zone 14 times over 18 days. Literally circumnavigated the globe. And I posted my sleep scores every day. 85, 88% was about as low as they got. Because I took this routine with me. I wrote a whole manual on this. It's available for free on theultimatehuman.com if you want to go check it out and download it. But simple things that we can do to what I call bookend our sleep. How do I go to bed? How do I wake up? And repeat that as consistently as you can. You know, when we travel, so many things change. Like our sleep wake cycle changes. Well, our digestive cycle doesn't have to change. We can eat on the same clock and sleep on a different clock, and that will help you adjust much more quickly to a time zone. And then the last thing is making mobility and exercise a non negotiable. It just has to be a non negotiable. And this is especially important for women. You know, 82% of all autoimmune disease is in females. And it's not because autoimmune disease selects women. It's because women have a tendency to develop something called caregiver syndrome. They're much more likely to put the needs of everybody else before the needs of themselves. As you know from personal experience, having.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

A baby, lightly learned.

[Gary Brecka]

Yes. But Once you add children, spouses, careers, goals and ambitions, you know, pretty soon your self care has taken a real backseat. So by making mobility non negotiable, those are the foundational areas where I would start. You know, I'm a huge fan of red light therapy, sauna, cold plunging. I'm an enormous fan of blood filtration and exosomes and stem cells. But these are all the exotics, right? Before you go and start exploring the exotics, you just have to master those three basics. And when the human body gets the raw material it needs to do its job, this is when magic things happen. If you wanted to take the next step and come out of pocket and say, okay, where do I start on my wellness journey? What's the one way that I can step into supplementation? With some kind of roadmap, I can look at what I should be doing on a daily basis. That might make things even better than they are now. How could I further improve my sleep, improve my energy, balance my hormones? That's when I recommend that people test for deficiency. So right now in the United Kingdom, our genetic methylation test is available. This is a test you do once in your lifetime. You only do it once. And it doesn't look at all your genes. It looks specifically at the genes that take raw material, nutrients, vitamins, minerals, amino acids and convert them into the form your body can use. If you don't know what you're deficient in, then you are supplementing for the sake of supplementing. And this is where people get lost. Should I be on NMN, nicotinamide, riboside, NAD, CoQ10, resveratrol, St. John's Wort, Ashwagandha, and you know, the list goes on, on and on and on. And the worst thing you can do is start googling around or ask Chatgpt what a great supplement is. Yeah, you could make an argument for any of those things. But just like a tree that is diseased, let's say that you had a leaf rotting in a palm tree. If you called a true arborist or a true botanist out to look at that tree, they wouldn't even touch the leaf. Right. They would cortest the soil and they would say, you know what, there's no nitrogen in this soil. And then they would add nitrogen to the soil and the leaf would heal. Human beings are no different. If you find the missing raw material, maybe it's methylfolate, maybe it's trimethylglycine, maybe it's a methylated nutrient, pyridoxal 5 phosphate riboflavin, thiamine, niacin, common B vitamins, and you put those raw materials back into the human body. This is when magic happens. There's so many of your listeners right now that are struggling with things like anxiety. No one's ever really told them what it is. Right. Anxiety is a rise in catecholamines. People that are prone to anxiety do not break down these neurotransmitters very well. The distance between them, suffering daily with anxiety and never having it enter their life again very often is is supplementing for deficiency. The same thing is true with ADD and adhd. These aren't attention deficits, they're attention overload disorders. Right. Too many windows opening at the same time. About half of your listeners have a gene mutation called mthfr.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Tell us what that is.

[Gary Brecka]

Well, I won't tell you what the nickname is on the air, but if you write it down, you'll know what the nickname is. So MTHFR is an inability for the body to. To convert folic acid and folate from our diet into the usable form called methylfolate. Now this doesn't sound like a big deal until you realize that folic acid is the most prevalent nutrient in the human diet. Folic acid, by the way, is an entirely man made chemical.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

I've heard this when I was looking into it for pregnancy.

[Gary Brecka]

You cannot find folic acid anywhere on the surface of the earth. Folic acid is terrible for pregnancy. I've heard this methylfolate or folinic acid is beautiful for pregnancy because why would you take folic acid? What's the theory behind folic acid for pregnant women? Well, that it prevents neural tube defects, but that's patently false. Folic acid has to be converted into methylfolate to prevent a neural tube defect. So why would you take folic acid if there's a 50% chance that you can't convert it? You could take the methylated version of that and there's 100% chance you would absorb it. In fact, the U.S. fDA, our Food and Drug Administration, just approved the first prescription strength methylfolate. It's called folinic acid. For treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders, autism and all kinds of neurodevelopmental conditions. Add, adhd, ocd, manic depression. And these are just nutrients. That's what's so fascinating. These are just raw materials that we may or may not be able to get from our diet that are easy to supplement with to just restore healthy cellular biology. See, we've been there's a lot of myths in modern medicine that what goes into your body and my body and all of your listeners body is treated exactly the same way. But truly nothing could be further from the truth. Right. Your genes, certain genes are about 12 of them, determine how these materials that enter your body get converted and used or don't. And you can map these deficiencies to just about any ailment that people suffer from.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Wow.

[Gary Brecka]

So statistically speaking, 40% of your listeners right now have a sleep pattern where they lay down to go to sleep tired. So their body tired, but their mind is awake. So as soon as they go to lay down in bed, they're exhausted. But as their environment quiets, their mind wakes up.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

I'm sure a lot of people can resonate.

[Gary Brecka]

Yeah. And they just lay there and ruminate, right. And they think about the most innocuous little things. Did I get everything on my grocery list? Did my belt match, my shoes, you know, did I return that email? And it's not the things that could wait until the next day, but these are the things that are robbing you of your sleep. Well, you don't need to be tranquilized to go to sleep. So you don't need sleep medication. You need to quiet the mind. So if you have a gene mutation called C O M T compt then you are someone that is very prone to rumination, meaning you're prone to having a quiet environment with a very awakened mind. And this is so simple to solve. Once you find that gene mutation and you supplement for that deficiency, it becomes a permanent thing of your past.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Is this all things you can find out using the test that you mentioned before or would you. Could you do a regular blood test? Like how would people have access to that outside of UK for example?

[Gary Brecka]

Yeah, it won't show on a regular blood test. You want to take a genetic methylation test, Right? Okay. So what this looks at are not all of your genes. If you want to get paralysis of analysis, start going down the human genome, right? It'll drive you crazy. But you want to look at actionable genes so genes that when they are broken can be fixed with supplementation. And this is the main driver because if you have a genetic break in one cell, one strand of DNA, you have the same genetic break in every strand of DNA in your body. So in other words, all 32 trillion cells have the same deficiency. There's nothing that I'm aware of in human physiology that more of the human body than supplementing for deficiency, meaning the genetic deficiency. And this is A test you do once in your lifetime, you'll never repeat it because your genes will never change.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

True.

[Gary Brecka]

Right. The genes you're born with are the genes you die with.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

So then you learn about yourself and you manage from there. I love it. Yeah.

[Gary Brecka]

And you also stop supplementing for the sake of supplementing. You start supplementing for deficiency. You know, just like the nitrogen in the plant example. You could have put anything into that soil that's really good for plants. I mean, you could have watered that plant. No change. You could add sulfur. No change. Phosphorus. No change. Nitrogen. Bang. Now that the plant has the raw material to do its job.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

What I love about this is often we see longevity, Right. It's like a bit of a buzzword. It's trending at the moment. And often the things that are promoted or suggested for it feel really out of reach. Right. They don't. But a lot of this conversation is reminding me, you know, it makes me think of places like the blue zones where you have, you know, Italian grandparents that are smoking cigarettes, having a glass of wine, but they're getting their sunshine, they're moving every day. They have their community. You know, I saw you the other day down at the beach and you were talking about these being the key pillars, and, yes, they're all things that are accessible. And it's like drawing from that ancient wisdom, bringing it into a modern time where I think there's a lot of information that can really, you know, that paralysis you were talking about.

[Gary Brecka]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

So I find that really interesting. Another thing that kind of gets me thinking, when it comes to longevity, a lot of the talk is about extending life. Right. But at what point is it extending for the sake of it? Like, how do we focus not just on those biomarkers for extension and more years and actually quality. Like, how do you make sure. How are you thinking about sort of more years, but the quality of those years.

[Gary Brecka]

Well, I think very differently about the health span than I do about lifespan. Lifespan is how many more years you have left on Earth. Health span is how many more of those years are you going to enjoy. How many are you healthy, able to move? Are you pain free? Are you cognizant? Are you able to experience the full range of emotional states? And I think most people would say, rather than just extend my life, so if I was. If I could pick an age 85 years old, and I could live really healthy, happy, fulfilling life until I was 84 and a half, or you could live to 105, but those last 10 years are going to Be really tough, you know, lots of pain, memory loss, confusion, dementia. I think the vast majority of people would say give me the good years. And in order to do that, we have to actually look beyond longevity, anti aging supplementation and a lot of these modalities that I'm a huge fan of. Again, back to red light sauna, cold plunging. And we have to look at what were some of the non exchangeables in this big data. Well, there were two of them. One was mobility into later in life. But the most overlooked one that is rarely spoken about is sense of community and purpose. And by that they also meant faith. And so whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or Jew, the, the point is that subscribing to a higher power, being humbled before a higher power, you know, getting on your knees and actually praying and being submissive to a greater power, that is medicine. Just like connection is medicine. You know, we've lost this sense of connection. Now we think that connection comes through our phones and it's quite ironic. We're more connected, but we're actually less connected. And one of the things that we knew in the mortality space that's not up for debate is if you wanted to cut a human being's life expectancy in half, and I mean in half at any age you put them in isolation. As soon as someone is isolated, their life expectancy dramatically declines. We've all heard of broken heart syndrome, Right. So an older couple that's married 40, 50, sometimes 60 years, one spouse passes away, how quickly the second one goes because they were instantly isolated. So we think of isolation as being alone. Isolation is being disconnected. Distinction, community and connection were amazing. Like since I've been here, you know, hosting that run club was, it was just a way of getting like minded people together with other like minded people. Getting out, getting some sunshine, moving our bodies, doing something difficult together and then getting to know each other at least knowing that we have one common thing in common. Yeah. And so more of that. You know, in Miami, where I'm based, what's really cool is you start to see, you're starting to see alcohol consumption drop dramatically, down about 34, 35% in the younger communities. And you're starting to see the emergence of social wellness and run clubs and things like coffee and chill and these environments where people are getting together. Yeah, we still have, there's still a DJ there, but instead of, you know, bottles and nightclub tables, it's a cold plunge and a coffee stand, cold pressed juice. And you think about where would I rather if I was single, rather meet someone, meet somebody that has like minded, like minded and you build community and community creates connection. I mean, the most angry people and the most dissatisfied people. If you look at the two ends of the political spectrums, the people that are on the fringes of these political spectrums don't identify. Right. They don't, they don't have a sense of connection because they're outside of the mainstream. So what are they? They're angry and they're bitter and the only thing they have to offer is vitriol for the other side. There's so much to be said about faith being medicine. Community and connection truly is medicine, you.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Know, given, you know, what you've just shared about community and faith. I'd love to know, is faith something that plays a role in your life?

[Gary Brecka]

Enormous role in my life.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Can you share a bit about what that looks like for you?

[Gary Brecka]

Sure. I'm what I guess you would call a non denominational Christian. I believe in Jesus. I was saved about 24 years ago at this convention called a Promise Keepers convention, which was a Christian men's movement. And I was in a State Stadium, Soldier Field in Chicago, and 70,000 men joined hands and we said the Lord's Prayer together, the Art Father prayer. And something just happened to me in that moment and I realized, man, 70,000 men can't be wrong. I felt what we would refer to as the Holy Spirit. And so I'm not making an argument for Christianity per se. And you have to believe in Jesus, so I'm not making an argument for Islam, sure. But what these, what prayer and faith do is they allow you to believe in a higher power and they allow you to subscribe to something bigger than ourselves. So it helps you to defend yourself against your own ego, you know, and, and just by being, practicing gratitude, you know, just the practice of waking and being grateful for what you have, not what you hope to have. This is medicine. You know, we know how frequency changes in the human body. We can now measure frequency that's leaving our bodies. And we can actually measure frequency to the point where we can tell what mood or emotional state you're in by the frequency that's emanating from your body. We know, for example, that the most attractive frequency that a human being can exhibit is the frequency of authenticity. And authenticity only occurs when your words are truthful and you believe what you're saying. So we've called this intuition. Right? Like we say, women are more intuitive than men. That's actually not true. Women are more sensitive to Frequency. And so because they're meant to bear children, they're very sensitive to frequency. Happens with me and my wife all the time. She's like, I just don't like that guy. Something wrong with him. Just trust me, he's gonna stab you in the back. And I'm like, he has a great suit. Look at his shoes pulled up in a Lambo. You know, what could be wrong with this guy? And then six months later, you're taking the knife out of your back, you know, and, and, and so women are more sensitive to frequency, the most powerful of which is authenticity. When people lack authenticity, women are very sensitive to that. Men pick up on it too. But we've been sort of trained to suppress our emotions and be more visceral about our connection. So the ability to connect with like minded, authentic people that have similar view to you, that is so uplifting that this, the feeling of belonging and not being lost. And then if you develop a purpose, you know, and people ask me about purpose all the time, how do I find my purpose? Well, find your pain and overcome it. And that's your purpose. I mean, some of the, some of the most passionate, purpose driven, powerful, influential people that I've ever met, and I have a podcast like yours, and I have the blessing of interviewing like some of the leading PhDs and MDs and researchers and people that are really moving the needle. But a lot of the most powerful, influential people that I've interviewed weren't the most credentialed. Right. On paper. They didn't have the MBA, you know, the PhD, the MD, the research background, but they overcame something very difficult in their life. Maybe it was drug or alcohol addiction, maybe it was a tough relationship, you know, maybe it was Lyme disease and they couldn't figure it out and they became a citizen scientist and they solved it. And now they're such a powerful voice and so we can really draw so much about how to extend our own life from, from that kind of data.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Yeah. And I suppose when you move through pain to find your purpose, you really lean into that authenticity. Right. Because that's what's left on the other side of that. And I'm the same as you. Like having interviewed so many people, the best conversations I've had, not the ones that have gone the most viral, although that might be true, it's the ones that have been the most authentic, you know, and you really, you know, when you feel that connection with someone. So I think that's really beautiful that that is also, you know, like medicine.

[Gary Brecka]

For our Bodies and our lives truly is connections medicine.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

I love that. One thing I want to change tune a little bit and ask you, do you have any thoughts on the impact of things like Botox and filler on longevity?

[Gary Brecka]

Yes. I mean, well, I mean, if you look at fillers in particular, the question is, when you put filler into the body and over time it goes away, where do you think that's going? It doesn't magically come out through the skin. It's resorbed into the bloodstream. So in particular, I am not a fan of fillers at all. There are a lot of treatments now that actually disrupt the subdermal layer of the skin and actually cause accumulation of our own natural fat tissue. So when you lose too much fat in the face, the face becomes gaunt. In women, they will lose skin elasticity when their hormones are off. Estrogen is kind of the. It's like, it's like the Dr. Evil. Like if you wanted to torture a woman, you would just do it with one hormone. You would pick estrogen and you'd say, okay, I'm going to take your E2 to zero. Skin elasticity gone. Hormones out of balance. Mood off the rails. The peaks and valleys of motion disappear. They can't feel elation, passion, joy, arousal, libido leaves the building. Water starts to be retained. So rather than manage the external environment, beauty comes from managing the internal environment. You would get more out of your skin and the appearance of your skin by making sure that you had balanced hormones, you were properly hydrated, you didn't take GLP1s in high doses over prolonged periods of time, and erode the fat pads in your face. And then for, for those women that really would like to use Dysport and, and Botox, I would be really cautious about those because that is botulinum toxin.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Right?

[Gary Brecka]

And botulinum toxin also paralyzes the muscle. But again, how does it wear off over time? Is it just leaving? Like, where is it going? And what we know now is the. I got, I got asked a very interesting question the other day on a, on a podcast. It was one of the most introspective questions I was ever asked. And the host said if you were to put the top 50 anti aging, like longevity experts in the world in a room and you were to ask them to agree on one theory of aging, like, what would that one theory be? I know it's a good one. You got experience in this area too. That's a tough one. So I thought for a while and I said, I think we Would all agree on the theory of immunofatigue. Immunofatigue is a slow, progressive, overwhelming of the immune system. When you're an infant, your immune system is spending more than 65% of its time not protecting you, but policing you, managing your inside environment. When cells can no longer perform their function, they're broken apart into energy, into. Into amino acids. They're called senescent cells or zombie cells. When a cell is taking too long to divide and it's dying too late, or it's dying too early, which is called cellular autophagy, it manages that process. And then, of course, it's protecting you from viruses, parasites, pathogens, what have you. As we age, as we get older, we have mold spores, mycotoxins, parasites, viruses, heavy metals, glyphosate, you know, herbicides, pesticides, insecticides. We have all these tiny microtoxins that enter the body. They not only age the skin and age our organs, but they distract the immune system. And so the immune system now is not policing you, it's trying to protect you. And so it stops watching the house. And this is when the house gets in disorder. This is when circulating tumor cells slip by, which is the genesis of cancer. We know that all cancer, regardless of its form or origin, Was at one time a healthy cell. So cancer is not something that happens to us. It's something that happens within us. And so the greatest defense we have and the greatest tool to live a long, healthy, happy life Is our immune system. And so what are ways that you can harness a healthy immune system? Well, primarily, and this is, again, especially true for women, we need to feel safe in our own bodies. When we don't feel safe, the nervous system gets trapped in a sympathetic state, A state of fight or flight. When you're in a state of fight or flight, your immune system stops protecting you, and it's in a high state of alert. And so it's now distracted. Things like breath, work, grounding, sunlight back to community, faith, purpose, connection. These are things that make us feel safe in our bodies. They actually switch us from a parasite or sympathetic state into a parasympathetic state. Arrest and digest state. The immune system wakes up, it goes to work to defend us, it goes to work to police us. And this is where we find true life extension.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Beautiful. Well, what I love about a lot of things you've shared today is they're accessible for people, right? And I. I do really love that. And I tried to make this show as practical as possible, and it's really just about enhancing everyday life. We haven't had long together today, but I have one really quick question before you go. So the average life expectancy has almost doubled in the last 200 years, from high 30s to high 70s today. What do you think the average life expectancy will be in 200 years from now?

[Gary Brecka]

If we don't change what we're doing now, it will be 10 years shorter. So for the first time in the United States, life expectancy is going backwards. Right? So my children, statistically speaking, have a shorter life expectancy than I do. So there's two sides to the sword. I believe that if you're alive in five years, it will be your choice whether or not you want to live to age 120 or 150. Because the convergence of artificial intelligence, big data and early detection has the capacity to truly extend life. The vast majority of what you're referring to there. These jumps in life expectancy happened for two reasons. They happened one because we developed sewage and the other was, you know, sanitation. Fifty years ago, OB GYNs didn't wash their hands between babies. We were still doing frontal lobotomies. We used leeches as a common practice in medicine. So being antimicrobial and getting waste away from society, those were the two biggest jumps in life expectancy. Since then, you've only had marginal increases in life expectancy. Now that we have the data, people can either follow the data or not. So you're going to accept that community connection, faith, medicine, movement, sleep and whole foods are a recipe for life extension. And you're going to get on that bandwagon and then you're going to take advantage of early detection and big data and you're going to live to 120 or 140 or you'll stay in the same zone that we're in now. Over medicated, replacing nutrient deficiencies with pharmaceuticals, synthetics and chemicals, and the life expectancy will continue to shorten.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

And I think that's an interesting question to leave the listeners to ponder with. But Gary, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate you sitting with me and thank you for the work you do. Yes, we should do a part two. If any questions have come up for anyone listening that you want to hear more of, and I'd love to sit with you a lot longer as well.

[Gary Brecka]

Let's take your listeners.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

We'll definitely do a part two. So thank you so much.

[Gary Brecka]

You're welcome. Thank you.

[Podcast Host (Interviewer)]

Thanks, Gary.

[Gary Brecka]

Amazing.

[Podcast Host (Intro/Outro)]

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