← The Dr. Hyman Show
Loading summary
Transcript155 lines
- [00:00]
Dr. Mark Hyman
Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman Show, Food is medicine.
- [00:04]
Jeffrey Bland
But then that begets the question of, well, what foods contain the most medicine? And how do you grow foods that contain the most medicine? And it turns out that regenerative agriculture is that method that we've seen a 50% drop in lots of minerals and other nutrients in vegetable crops over the last 50 years. So even if you're eating your broccoli, it's not as good as it used to be.
- [00:24]
Unknown Speaker
Now, before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help any everyone by.
- [00:30]
Dr. Mark Hyman
My personal you know, I often remind people that sleep is not just a luxury, it's a necessity. It impacts your energy, focus, metabolism and overall health. You might not know this, but poor sleep used to dominate my life, leaving me exhausted and unable to function at my best. That all changed with Sleep Breakthrough from Bioptimizers. These capsules are scientifically formulated to help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up feeling truly rested. Unlike other products, Sleep Breakthrough doesn't contain melatonin, so there's no grogginess or side effects. They're designed with clinically optimized dosages and are perfect for travel or anyone who prefers capsules over powders. Don't let sleepless nights continue to impact your health. Visit bioptimizers.com hyman to get 10% off your order today with promo code HYMAN10 Bioptimizers even offers a 365 day money back guarantee. So there's nothing to lose except another restless night practice.
- [01:18]
Unknown Speaker
There's simply not enough time for me to do this at scale and that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand. Well, you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function Health for real time Lab insights. And if you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, well, check out my membership community Dr. Hyman Plus. And if you're looking for curated trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, Visit my website drhyman.com for my website store and a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested products. Today I want to zero in on the research behind five specific foods that you can add to your diet for tremendous capacity to support your brain and health and make us feel, think and perform better. Now, some of you may be familiar with a few of these foods, but others may surprise you. So let's jump right in with the first food that can literally change the way your brain works for the better. The first is dark green leafy vegetables and specifically a category called cruciferous vegetables, also known as brassicas, basically the broccoli family, Kale, collards, spinach, arugula, swiss chard, collard greens, mustard greens, bok choy, romaine lettuce, turnip greens, beet greens, watercress, endive, escarole, broccoli, rabe, dandelion greens, radicchio, watercress, lettuce, chicory, pretty much anything green. What is the mechanism of green leafy veggies and the positive effect on their brain? Well, there's a lot of reasons. Antioxidants and protective phytochemicals. Now we don't think of phytochemicals as essential nutrients, but they kind of are. They're protective foods, right? We know harmful foods like sugar and processed food and so forth, but they're also protective foods and we want to eat more of those and less of the harmful foods. Now green leafy vegetables contain anti inflammatory molecules and antioxidants, things like vitamin C and E, carotenoids, which are the green orange things actually also. But they're in the green vegetables. Lutein, which is great for your eyes, alpha linolenic acid, which is plant based Omega 3s. They contain polyphenols, which are these plant based anti inflammatory chemicals, flavonoids, things like camp for all. All these things reduce oxidative stress which causes inflammation and they reduce more importantly neuroinflammation, which is inflammation of your brain. Now oxidative stress damages your cells and it can contribute to the formation and accumulation of something called beta amyloid plaques. And you might have heard of amyloid theory of Alzheimer's. And amyloid, just to be clear, is not the cause of Alzheimer's, although many, for many years thought it was. And we spent billions of dollars studying research to prove that it was, but we never could be successful. It's sort of a side effect of inflammation and it's the body's attempt to deal with a bad set of circumstances. So it's sort of a bystander in the process of dementia. And it does gum up your brain, but it's really not the issue. It's the inflammation that's driving the amyloid development. And some of these foods can be protective, right? So some studies suggest that polyphenols can inhibit the formation of, of beta amyloid fibrils, which are these plaques that are common in response to inflammation in the brain and they gum up the brain, that ends up causing Dementia. Now they also promote clearance of these plaques from the brain. So these polyphenols actually help the brain clear amyloid, which is great. This explains probably maybe some of their effects on the cognitive function that we're seeing. There's also other nutrients like vitamin K, filiquinone, that plays a crucial role in regulating calcium and activates proteins that help keep calcium out of areas where it shouldn't be, such as the brain's blood vessels. Vitamin K also has anti inflammatory effects and that can reduce neuroinflammation. It's also involved in the synthesis of important fats called sphingolipids. Doesn't matter what they call em, but basically it's a class of lipids that are crucial components of your brain cell membrane. So your brain cells have membranes and they have to be made of the right fats. And if they don't have the right fats, you end up with more inflammation. Now these lipids play a role in cell signaling and they maintain the integrity and the function of your brain cells. Really important. So what else besides green leafy vegetables is protective for your brain? What's the second big group of, of food or foods that can do this? Well, small cold water fish. Let me explain why. Now, I call these the smash fish. Salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines and herring.
- [05:39]
Now you might not like them, but.
- [05:41]
They are the most nutritionally dense, the lowest in toxins and the highest in omega 3 fats. Plus trout and oysters are also great. Now why is fish good for our brains? What does the research actually say? Well, a new study published in the British journal Nutrition looked at the diet of 798 adults aged 65 to 97. And they looked at 102 item questionnaire using the center for Epidemiologic Studies depression scale. Now, participants were categorized based on adherence to the Mediterranean diet. Now we can argue what is the Mediterranean diet? Is there a better diet out there? But it's basically a whole foods, healthy diet, right? And it's not. And basically what is Mediterranean diet? It could be pizza and pasta. That's not, we're talking about, we're talking about whole foods, right? Lots of veggies, fruit, olive oil, nuts, seeds, fish, whole grains, beans. That's a Mediterranean diet. Now the higher adherence to the diet was correlated with a 55% lower risk of depression symptoms. Increased fish intake was linked to a 44% reduced risk of depression overall and a 50, 56% reduction in women. Now, each additional gram of fish per day decreased a Woman's depression risk by 2%. And three or more servings of fresh fish a week reduced depression by 62%. Now think of that in the context of our mental health crisis. I mean, we're all taking Prozac and being in therapy and doing all these things. But what if we just ate a can of sardines three times a week, right? You might have no friends cause they might like how you smell, but maybe you won't be depressed. Now I'm just kidding. I love sardines and they're great and they're delicious And I just came from Europe where they have fresh sardines. They're so good. Now what they found was interesting. There was no effect with canned tuna. Now tuna is also high in omega 3s, but it's also high in mercury, which can actually cause depression and it can be a concern. So I would stay away from those big fish like tuna, swordfish, halibut and so forth. Now you can use the guide from the Environmental Working Group, EWG.org and you can see their guide on choosing fish with the lowest amount of mercury. So just go to EWG.org and you'll learn about it. So why, why is this so good for our brain? Well, the, the brain diseases that we see, right, whether it's depression, Alzheimer's, Even autism and ADD are inflammation of the brain. Brain on fire. And omega 3s are powerful anti inflammatories. You see, up to 60% of our brain is made up of fat. So you literally are a fat head, right? Half of that fat, by the way, is omega 3 fats. So they're essential. These are called essential fatty acids. They're not optional in your diet. And yet most of our diets are deficient in these essential fatty acids. So they're like a vitamin or mineral. If you don't get them, you're going to get deficiency. And it shows up as depression, dementia, and a whole host of other things. Now, as we expanded our brain, our cerebral cortex and our executive function and memory and intellect, it seemed to coincide with the introduction of fish and seafood into our diet. About 35,000 years ago. Even hunted land animals had higher levels of omega 3s than industrial raised animals. So like for example, wild bison have higher levels of omega 3s than a feedlot cow. Now it makes sense that we need these omega 3s to keep our brains functioning properly and that a lack of fish or omega 3s can lead to omega 3 deficiency and, and that leads to mood and memory issues. Now the two most important Forms of fish oil are EPA or icosapentaenoic acid, you don't have to remember that. And DHA or docosaexanoic acid, it just comes from the chemical structure. These come from fish, you can't get them really from plants. Alpha linolenic acid or ALA is also an omega 3. It's a plant based form of omega 3 and it comes from things like walnuts, chia seeds, flaxseeds, hemp and some leafy greens. The problem is that only about 10% of the plant based omega 3s, the ALA, is converted to the ones we actually need, the EPA and DHA. So you, if you're a vegan, you're not necessarily gonna be getting this. And it's a big risk for deficiency. So you have to figure out how to get your levels up by taking fish oil. And there are concentrates of plant based fish oils where they kind of jack up the amounts and convert it. And it's, it's kind of a bit of a project, but there are some around EPA and DHA. These essential omega 3 fats play crucial roles in the body's inflammatory system. We learned this in medical school. This is not a new science. We know how they regulate eicosanoids, prostaglandins, all these inflammatory systems in our body. And they produce a whole class of anti inflammatory molecules also called resolvins and protectants. Right. They resolve and protect you from inflammation. They resolve inflammation and they protect you. Now these are great names, I love these names.
- [10:25]
But basically a lot of fish oil.
- [10:28]
Has this in it. But sometimes at low levels. I'm going to tell you a minute about one you can get, there's a high levels of these protective things. Now when we're deficient in omega 3s, it increases our risk of inflammation in the body and the brain. And it can show up like depression, mood disorders, memory disorders. EPA specifically has been shown to reduce neuroinflammation. Right. Remember, the neuroinflammation is linked to memory issues, dementia, Alzheimer's, depression, anxiety, add, autism, bipolar disease, schizophrenia, all of these problems of the brain have been linked to neuroinflammation. And EPA actually is inversely correlated with all these problems. So there are actually studies from Harvard that show you can treat bipolar disease by giving fish oil, Surprise or add by giving fish oil or depression by giving fish oil, or improve dementia by giving fish oil. That's how powerful these are. And they regulate all sorts of compounds in the body, regulate neuroinflammation. Now when you have low levels of epa, it increases your risk of heart disease, not just brain diseases, but also heart disease, skin disorders, diabetes, and lots more. In fact, these fats are absolutely essential for life. We gotta get them from our diet. But 90% of Americans are deficient in these critical fats. And I'm gonna explain to you more where to get them and how to take them. But I think at this point in history, unless you want to poison yourself with mercury from eating a lot of fish, you are going to need to take Omega 3s from supplements. I mean, unless you want to eat sardines every day, which most people don't.
- [12:05]
Jeffrey Bland
Himalayan tardy buckwheat is full of over 130 of these phytochemicals, some which are found nowhere else in nature, that have powerful properties, regulate our biology and rejuvenate our immune system.
- [12:16]
Unknown Speaker
So talk about how.
- [12:18]
Jeffrey Bland
And again, there are many other compounds that can be beneficial for health. There's 25,000, as I mentioned, and my book Peak and Dot, I talked about the role of these compounds and how powerful they are. But the Himalayan target, buckwheat, how does it work on these chip cells? How does it work to rejuvenate your immune system?
- [12:34]
Unknown Speaker
So that has been a really interesting story that's emerging because generally what scientists will do, and you know this very well, is they'll look at those hundred different phytochemicals and. And they'll say which ones are doing the heavy lifting?
- [12:45]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [12:45]
So they'll go.
- [12:46]
Jeffrey Bland
And they'll find the reductionism.
- [12:47]
Unknown Speaker
Exactly. They'll find a molecule and then they'll study the heck out of that molecule. Well, that's been done with Himalayan turtle buckwheat. We could go on the list. Rutin, quercetin, diosmin, luteolin, fisetin, hesperidin. These are some of the major of the hundred or so phytochemicals in Himalayan Tertiary buckwheat, along with Tuhofa. And each one of those has been individually studied and has been found individually to have effects on immunorejuvenation by activating this process of autophagy selective to the immune system. And in fact, now we see all sorts of papers being published on quercetin. It's the darling right now. And quercetin is an important member of this family. So I don't want to undersell it, but quercetin doesn't work the same when it's working by itself as when it works with 99 other fighter chemical. It's a team effort that's right. And so here, as we get into fractionalized foods, saying, oh, let's just pull one nutrient out and then we'll make that the nutrient of the month versus saying no, it's the combination that makes the orchestration of effects that's causing immunorejuvenation.
- [13:48]
Jeffrey Bland
Yeah, it's a micropong called nutritionism is the reductionist approach to studying nutrition. That's why we have saturated fat and salt and this and that instead of looking at the whole composition of the diet. So important. So basically what you're saying is these compounds in the Himalayan tari buckwheat help to get rid of all these old cells and rejuvenate our immune system.
- [14:09]
Unknown Speaker
Let me say one thing to loop back to a point you made earlier, and you did so eloquently, by the way, when you were talking about the fundamental processes that people start having problems with as they get older and get more ill. One of those you mentioned was mitochondrial function, which is the energy powerhouse of the cell where our energy is produced. Well, it turns out that our mitochondria within immune cells can undergo injury. And when they do so, that produces a senescent immune cell. So the mitochondria itself can be the seat of the initial injury that then creates the damage to the immune cell to make it senescent. Now, what do you do to get rid of bad mitochondria? Because the mitochondria can rejuvenate themselves in the absence of the cell rejuvenating, the mitochondria has a life of its own within the cell. And that process is called mitophagy. It's a subset of the big process called autophagy. And it turns out that these chemicals that are these phytochemicals that are in tyre buckwheat specifically have been found to have mitophagy influences on immune cells. So it re energizes the cell.
- [15:18]
Yeah.
- [15:19]
Jeffrey Bland
You're kind of cleaning up your energy system.
- [15:21]
Unknown Speaker
That's right.
- [15:21]
Jeffrey Bland
It's like cleaning your carburetor.
- [15:23]
Unknown Speaker
Exactly, yeah. And the spark plugs or whatever. Yeah.
- [15:26]
Jeffrey Bland
Amazing, isn't is an incredible story. So you write a lot about immuno rejuvenation and you talk about a stepwise process to help rejuvenate your immune system. Can I break down a little bit these four steps of immuno rejuvenation program that you've developed? And by the way, all this is on bigboldhealth.com you can read about it. You can listen to podcasts, read the articles, read the science. It's just fascinating.
- [15:49]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I think what's happened, you can hear it probably in my tone of voice, is this has just sucked me in full on. It's like I opened the door and it was a vacuum and it just sucked me. Right. Because there is so much here that I think will help people once we learn how to really apply this in a personalized way. This is really personalized immunity. And we now recognize that people have different immune identities. Just like they have different fingerprints, they have different immune identities. That requires different approaches towards their immune identities to maximize their immunorejuvenation. So it starts with some fairly simple things. The simple things are the things we've been going through. Maybe they're simple to say, but not so easy to do. That's changing some lifestyle principles. So you start looking at things like your sleep, you start looking at your activity level, you start looking at how much are you eating out of rushed habit patterns of things you know better than to eat, but it's just convenient to eat them. And one of the things that has been very useful for me and I found when I did a series of little Instagram posts on this, are these biometric devices that we wear, these wearable devices that give us information. And I happen to be wearing an OURA ring because after being a biohacker and wearing all sorts of different pieces of equipment, this one I found gives me the most interesting information. And what I found is from a personal experience. Now I've done really a kind of a pilot study, and I think it's more general, is that our aura ring is actually a surrogate marker to measure aspects of our immune system. Because what happens is when you're under immune stress, it's eating. Do you realize over 50% of your metabolic energy can be eaten up by your immune system when you're under immune stress? So what happens is your body temperature goes up, your heart rate variability goes down, your respiration goes up, your heart rate goes up, your sleep patterns go down. So you know when you see these very low scores in the morning from an OURA ring that says, oh geez, what's going going on? It's probably something that happened to you last night that affected your immune system. Could be alcohol, it could be stayed up too late, it could be stress. But your immune system is telling you that it's under demand. So these tools to me are useful for supporting your coaching system. Right. Because you need to coach yourself through these behavior changes of improving your sleep, your activity, your diet, Things that you need to rhythmically figure out about your life that are directly being manifest through your immune system into your function. Your immune System is directly connected 24,7 to everything you're doing.
- [18:17]
Jeffrey Bland
Yeah. So what are these four steps that you talk about?
- [18:20]
Unknown Speaker
Well, I just told you, the first step is assessment. Right. Is understanding where you are. What's the base then from your immunotype. That's right, your immunotype. And we have a questionnaire on the Bidwell Health website that gives a kind of a first kind of look. See. So we start off with the first thing which really you very well stated and that is finding those patterns of behavior that tie to your immunotype. Are you an allergic type? Are you an inflammatory type? Are you a type that tends to get everything that comes along? So you have an immunosuppressed thing so you understand a little bit about what your own immuno personality is. And we have a questionnaire on our website that's called the immuno identity Questionnaire that gives a little bit of a help for a person identifying their own specific immunotype. Then we go from there saying, well, now you have your immunotype, what are you going to do? To move you from an imbalanced immune state to a balanced immune state. That's what we're all hoping for. Because what we want to do is we want to shut off our immune system where we don't want to hyper function it. I mean, people always say boost your immune system. Hold on just a minute. If you're already in an inflammatory state, do you really want to boost your inflammation? No, you want to rebalance your inflammation. And so people say, I'm just going to take a bunch of immune system boosting nutrients. Well, no, no, no. That may not actually only exacerbate the problem, make it worse. So the second step then is you modulate your immune system based upon what you've learned about your first state. Are you immuno underactive? Immuno overactive? Do you need to bring your immune system down? Do you need to bring your immune system up? And we have a series of ways that that can be employed with diet and lifestyle. I would again go back to where you took us earlier and that is make sure when you introduce the program, you're using food as a friend and you're using rhythmic eating so that time becomes your friend. Your circadian rhythms doesn't become your enemy. Don't overindulge, don't too frequently snack. I mean it used to be, oh, we Want to take seven to eight meals a day. Those are the days of hypoglycemia. That was probably not a good idea with regard to what we've learned about circadian rhythms. Then the next level, the third step is how can I optimize my immune system by utilizing some of these specific nutrients that we've been describing. The Himalayan tartary buckwheat phytochemicals I would also put into this family. There are three families of nutrients that are very important. The phytochemicals we've been discussing a lot. Second are pre and probiotics. Because the gut plays such an important role in modulating your immune system. 70% of our immune system, it's clustered around our gut, the so called gut associated lymphoid tissue. So we want the friendly microbiome. So pre and probiotics would be step two and then the third are omega three fatty acids. There are more and more papers coming out to show the important role that omega 3 fatty acids have in balancing the immune system. And I might add, it's not just Omega 3s in and of themselves. It's also in concert with vitamin A, vitamin D, zinc and what are called pro resolving mediators. Pro resolving mediators are part of the Omega 3 family that activate the immune regulation process and the inflammation regulation process. And we find that some fish oils and marine oils have much higher levels of.
- [21:45]
As a doctor, I know how vital.
- [21:46]
Dr. Mark Hyman
Sleep is for your health. Sleep is the foundation of everything.
- [21:49]
Unknown Speaker
If you're lying awake at night or.
- [21:50]
Dr. Mark Hyman
Waking up tired, I've been there too. That's why I recommend Sleep Breakthrough from Bioptimizers. These capsules are scientifically designed to help you fall asleep fast, stay asleep all night and wake up refreshed with no melatonin. They're a natural side effect free solution that's perfect for travel or regular use. Transform your sleep and your health. Visit bioptimizers.comhyman to get 10% off your order today with promo code HYMAN10. Try it risk free with Bioptimizer's 365 day money back guarantee.
- [22:19]
Unknown Speaker
These pro resolving mediators, these PRMs. So we want a high PRM omega 3 rich oil. We want pre and probiotics and we want the proper phytochemicals. And I think the point you made.
- [22:29]
Jeffrey Bland
And you, you now have created these, this fish oil, this Dutch harbor fish oil. Which comes from Alaska, right?
- [22:36]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. Dutch Harbor Omega D HO and it has the highest level we know of PRMs of any natural oil.
- [22:43]
Jeffrey Bland
So this is Some of the beneficial stuff that's in fish oil that reduces inflammation, but is it's a separate class of compounds that are just the Omega 3s. They're called Pro resolving mediators. Basically, your immune system has a way, a break away, of resolving the inflammation. And these are called pro resolvents. And they come from these certain sources of omega 3s. And you've got those access from Alaska and now you have a product that's called Dutch Harbor Omega 3 oil, which you can get on bigbolt health.com right, exactly.
- [23:14]
Unknown Speaker
And I might say that the reason that we haven't heard more about these pro rhizoline mediators in these commercial oil Omega 3 supplements is that when most Omega 3 oils are manufactured, they're cleaned up through a very complex process that strips out the PRMs, it removes them so people don't talk about them because they're not in there. And so you have to have a very mild process to retain these ingredients within fish oils, which we've been able to develop.
- [23:42]
Jeffrey Bland
So aside from all the lifestyle factors, let's just summarize that help us to remove the things that are causing damage to our immune system and immunosenescence and aging. In addition to sort of enhancing our immune system with right sleep and exercise and timing of eating and whole foods diets, there's some super hacks, right. Things like phytochemicals from Himalayan Harvey buckwheat pre and probiotics that help our microbiome regulate itself. And these pro resolving mediators that come from special kinds of fish oil.
- [24:13]
Unknown Speaker
Yes, that's powerful. Well, thank you. Let me just say one thing about what we've learned, because a lot of this people would say it sounds interesting, but where's the proof? And fortunately, now the phytochemical portfolio in Himalayan ternary buckwheat has been studied clinically now in studies with humans for a number of years. So we have an idea how much you need to get in order to produce this. And it's equivalent to something like 100 grams a day. That would be something like three and a half ounces of Himalayan tartary buckwheat flour delivers the level of these phytochemicals that have been found to be associated with improved immune function. So people would say, well, I really don't eat Himalayan tartery buckwheat flour every day. Well, we try to produce other ways of getting it, like through a shake mix or through a capsule that's concentrated in these phytochemicals, knowing that not everybody's gonna.
- [25:05]
Jeffrey Bland
So, you know, I have like four capsules. They get it. It's like a quarter pound of the flour, which is pretty amazing. And by the way, I've used this flour, made best pancakes, Chai Himalayan buckwheat pancakes from my buck pegan diet. We made soba noodles, we made dumpling skins, like, for, you know, dumplings, which are amazing. And it tastes so good. It's so good. And it's. And what's fascinating about it is that not only are you developing a product or a series of products that take advantage of these phytochemicals, phytonutrients, to rejuvenate our immune system, but it's tied into the bigger ecosystem which we live. That it's not only important of what you grow, it's how you grow it. So you could grow this in a way using chemicals and poor soils like that are eroded, that don't have organic matter, and you wouldn't necessarily get the same product. What you're finding is that using practices that we call regenerative agriculture, which we've talked a lot on this podcast, it's a way of regenerating ecosystems, regenerating the soil and building the organic matter in the soil that you can not only help rejuvenate human health, but planetary health, that we can address the ravages of using all the industrial agrochemicals, the fertilizers, the pesticides, the herbicides, the high amounts of irrigation that deplete our water resources and the depletion of the soil microbiome through these chemicals and tillage, and all these practices that have been so destructive and may account for a significant part of climate change. And that the soil itself is a sink for carbon and can draw down carbon through the power of these plants that suck carbon out of the atmosphere because they breathe carbon dioxide. But you can't do it if you don't use regenerative agriculture. And the beautiful thing about the Himalayan tartary buckwheat is that not only are you growing it to produce these phytochemicals for human health, but the very way you're growing it is also helping planetary health using regenerative agriculture. And there's very few regenerative products out there on the market now. And this is one of them. And it's amazing. And it's gluten free, it's organic, it's non gmo. And what's really fascinating about this packaging, Jeff, is. And you can buy this now on bigbold health.com right. Is not only do you talk about the nutrient content? Way higher in protein than most other grains. Way lower in its impact on blood sugar. So very low glycemic index. Much higher levels of magnesium and zinc and iron and all kinds of nutrients. But what's amazing is that on the. And I've never seen this is. It says total polyphenols, which are the antioxidant levels. These are the phytonutrients, which is amazing that we now have. It's almost like a medicine. It's almost like you're seeing a flower package that has a drug on it, which is so cool. Except these drugs are phytochemicals.
- [27:53]
Unknown Speaker
Well, we're. I think the first group in the flower area to actually be certifying on each batch are phytochemical levels that are these immune active phytonutrients.
- [28:05]
Jeffrey Bland
It's so important. And I think, you know, as you've taught us all, Jeff, food is medicine. But then that begets the question of, well, what foods contain the most medicine? And how do you grow foods that contain the most medicine? And it turns out that regenerative agriculture is that method that we've seen a 50% drop in lots of minerals and other nutrients in vegetable crops over the last 50 years. So even if you're eating your broccoli, it's not as good it used to be.
- [28:29]
Unknown Speaker
Let's start with basic hydration.
- [28:31]
That's a great idea.
- [28:32]
So this is a twofer, really.
- [28:34]
3.
- [28:34]
If you actually talk about coffee and tea with water, you've actually taken the number one, number two, number three beverages in the world, water, coffee and tea, combined them into one. Put it in your gunning sack and take it with you.
- [28:44]
Yeah, that's great. Actually, I was in Ikaria researching the blue zones, and I went to this guy who was sort of making goat cheese, and I was milking goats and making cheese with him. It was kind of fun. And then after he was like, let's have some tea, and he serves me this tea. I'm like, what is that? And he's like, because it's had a different taste. I'd never had it before. Oh, this is the wild sage bush that's growing everywhere here. I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. So I saw this plant, I looked it up, and it actually has higher levels of catechins than green tea. And this is one of the longevity molecules. So it's quite interesting.
- [29:18]
Well, I mean, I think that that's the other thing is that really Mother Nature has Created a pharmacy with an F. Kind of in the spirit of how you do things. You know, the pharmacy with an F actually is way more diverse than anything you'd find in a drugstore, in a hospital pharmacy Stockhouse. And we're just beginning to discover what some of these things are. That's the power of science. We can go in there, we can do mass spec, we can identify the different peaks and we can put a label onto them.
- [29:48]
Yeah, it's free in case you got tea, water, coffee.
- [29:52]
So here's something else I would bring. I'd bring tree nuts with me.
- [29:55]
Tree nuts.
- [29:56]
Okay.
- [29:56]
Walnuts, almonds.
- [29:58]
Walnuts, almonds, pistachios, macadamias, cashews, you know, so number one, I love the diversity of the different types of tree nuts. Yeah, okay. But they're a great source of protein. We need protein to be healthy. Right. Especially as we get older, people are always asking, like, what's a good source of protein? Well, you know, tree nuts gives you some nice protein, but it also gives you dietary fiber, which is important for our gut health. And if there's one thing that I, I carry around with me now, knowledge wise, that I know everyone needs to do better on, everyone can up their own game is to get better gut health. I don't care if you're a super athlete, triathlon, Every single person can do better the next day, tomorrow to improve their gut. That is so powerful. I have colleagues who are, I mean, I do cancer research, but I also have colleagues who are doing gut microbiome research in cancer patients. So talk about life and death, right? I mean, you know, gut health, you have, you know, more regular stool or whatever, anti inflammatory, it all comes into sharp focus. If you're talking about cancer patients and it turns out that the quality and nature of your gut microbiome can make the distinction between life or death. If you have cancer. And I've been talking to oncologists about this, cancer docs, and they're just starting to wake up to this idea. And you know, cancer patients are going flooding into the clinics every single day, getting chemo worse, getting antibiotics for various things. Okay. I mean, look, you might need antibiotics.
- [31:27]
Steroids, which are steroids, but you're not.
- [31:29]
Resurrecting, you're not protecting the gut microbiome. And if that makes a difference between life or death, that is something that everyone needs to focus on. So a study out of the MD Anderson Cancer center looking at people with one type of cancer, melanoma that spread. So we're talking about Metastatic melanoma, bad disease that responds well to immune therapies, not chemo. It's a checkpoint inhibitors. Checkpoint inhibitors. That actually explain to people listening. A checkpoint inhibitor is not chemo. It's giving you an infusion of a medicine that wakes up your own immune system to spot where cancer is. It actually helps your immune system do what it's supposed to do. Find cancer and scrub it out. Think about the dry erase board. If you've got some notes on there, just scrub it all out to zero. All right? Clean slate. I did for my mom. I've seen many other patients who have actually had a complete response. It turns out not everybody responds. Only about 20% of people have a good response. 80% of people don't. And we're beginning to realize that 80% don't have the right gut microbiome makeup. Now, a few years ago, we talked. I remember we had this conversation at Milken about Akkermansia, which everyone's talking about now. And good thing too, because it's important. But now we're beginning to realize other bacteria are also important. There's about eight bacteria have been discovered, and dietary fiber matters.
- [32:49]
So, yeah, nuts.
- [32:50]
The study that my colleague at MD Anderson led on showed that for melanoma giving immunotherapy for every five to six grams of dietary fiber, it decreases mortality from that cancer by 30%.
- [33:07]
Wow.
- [33:07]
Like you basically, I mean, think about, if you want to, by the way.
- [33:10]
People, you know, about 8 grams of fiber a day. I was at the Haza tribe in Tanzania. They eat 150 grams a day. And so, you know, we need to boost it up to about 50. But you think five, just five grams reduces by 30% and you can eat 25, 30, 50 grams. That's a lot of. That's a lot of percent reduction.
- [33:27]
And then, you know, you don't want. You don't want to just order it in a bottle, right? I mean, or in a jar. I mean, like, I know we tend to.
- [33:33]
You want it in food.
- [33:34]
You want it in food because the foods, fruits and vegetables, especially the whole foods, contain the polyphenols that are the prebiotics that work along with the fiber to feed the actual healthy gut bacteria. And you want diversity, so you want to eat. You know, that whole idea of eating the rainbow is. You know, I always think about the rainbow being a nice visual allegory, but really this is a life and death thing. Like, the more diversity you can put in your plate, the more diversity you're going to have in Your gut. When your gut diversity is really rich, meaning you have a lot of different types of gut bacteria, it pays you back. Your health gets paid back by improving your immune system.
- [34:09]
Yeah, that's so important. You said. I wanted to highlight that because the polyphenols, you sort of whiz by that. But we think about prebiotics and probiotics for our gut. But there's another incredibly important category of compounds that are called polyphenols, which are all the colorful plant compounds you see in that make your vegetables and fruit the colors they are. And those are medicines. And those seem to be fertilizers for the good bugs. Now, we were talking about the reduction in cancer from having more fiber. How does that work when you eat nuts? Well, basically you can probably explain it better than I can, but there's an important compound that healthy bacteria make in your gut called butyrate. And butyrate has many effects on the body. It's anti inflammatory. It keeps your gut lining healthy. It's the fuel for the gut colonocytes. But it also suppresses P53 oncogene, which is essentially a cancer promoting gene, which is why dietary fiber reduces colon cancer and many other cancers. So we actually now know the mechanisms by this word. So it's kind of amazing. If you're geeky like us, it's like, holy cow, we understand how to get from A to Z and why it's happening. Not just eat fiber, you're not going to cancer. But we understand the linkages all the way along.
- [35:17]
I want to unpack something you just said because it's so interesting and important, but also to bring a little bit of clarity to the audience. You heard the term oncogene, right? Like Mark, you just talk about oncogene. An oncogene is a gene which is made of our DNA that's associated with causing cancer. And a lot of people, including myself, for many years thought that. And you know, you've heard of BRCA and there's a lot of other oncogenes. It turns out that P53 is one of those oncogenes. But it turns out that P53 the way that it was, we're born to have P53. Normal P53 is protective against cancer. It's only when P53 is mutated, when there's a problem with P53 that it actually sets up for cancer. So P53 normally actually protects us against cancer. Basically, it's the bullets in our gun against cancer. Fight cancer normally. And it's only when it's actually mutated. Now, let me tell you how powerful this is. There are animals like elephants that rarely get cancer that have more than one copy of P53 in their genome. And so P53 is protective. What we want to do is prevent those mutations that can occur. And this is the real purpose of this antioxidant story that's been floating around for decades. Right. So antioxidants are neutralized, these harmful activated atoms that are in our environment that we eat sometimes with ultra processed foods. And those can actually come in there and basically like a samurai warrior, like slice and dice, like a ninja slice and dice, our DNA. And when your P53 gets sliced and diced, that's when you run into trouble. So you need to protect it. Polyphenols can have antioxidant properties. They also activate all of these other protective aspects of our body so that we are more resistant against diseases, including. Including cancer.
- [37:12]
Yeah, it's quite amazing. Okay, so we got tea, coffee, water, nuts of all kinds. What else do you bring them with you?
- [37:20]
You know, I.
- [37:22]
To Mars, let's say. To Mars. What are you bringing with you to Mars?
- [37:25]
You know, I mean, look, perishable goods, the things we talked about, you can actually carry with you because they're. They're. You can put them in a tin and you can hang with you.
- [37:34]
Yeah, exactly.
- [37:35]
But actually, you know, fresh foods, produce is really, really important. And I know that everybody kind of rolls their eyes when they hear about another story about broccoli or kale. I like to present it as brassica, which is like a gigantic class of green vegetables. You can choose a cauliflower, bok choy, broccolini. It's a lot of different types of vegetables you can actually get. Mother nature is really smart. She actually created the same types of polyphenols and bioactives and put them in all this entire class of vegetables. And if you have any of those things. What are some of my favorite ones? I mean, I like bok choy. Go to an Asian market.
- [38:16]
Chinese broccoli is my favorite.
- [38:17]
Broccoli. And you know, broccoli. Chinese broccoli is a great one.
- [38:21]
If you.
- [38:23]
Anybody that wants to change their mind about the same old, same old with broccoli just needs to step into an Asian grocery store.
- [38:33]
Oh, my God. Yeah, right? I mean, the thing about trying broccoli, I don't know, it's sweet. It's got this sweet flavor, so it's almost like eating candy, but it's broccoli it's so good.
- [38:42]
Well, and by the way, because I like to cook. So for me, talking about food as ingredients is important because people like to nail it down in their heads. But really, Chinese broccoli, what do you do with it? First, you got to wash it. You trim it. You heat up some oil, puts a little bit of garlic slices or chopped garlic in there, and then literally, you stir fry it quickly. Okay. Not with a lot of oil. And then you can add oyster sauce, soy sauce, a little chili pepper, whatever you want to do to really light up your taste buds. Food has to taste good. Healthy food has to taste good.
- [39:18]
Yeah, nobody wants to eat sawdust and cardboard.
- [39:21]
Exactly.
- [39:22]
Okay, so we got the whole brassica family. Collards, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, broccolini, broccoli rabe. I mean, the list goes on.
- [39:31]
You can look it up.
- [39:32]
They're called cruciferous vegetables. Brassicas. You can find them. We'll link to them in the show notes. But this is something I eat every day, and I try to eat a cup or two every day of these foods at least. So. Okay, so you got water, tea, coffee, nuts, Brassicas. What's next?
- [39:48]
Well, I. You know, I didn't include water because I'm just saying that you're gonna have to drink water anyway to survive. So I put coffee and tea.
- [39:54]
Oh, coffee and tea. Okay, Coffee and tea categories. All right.
- [39:58]
How many do I have left?
- [39:59]
You can do as many as you want.
- [40:01]
You know what? So another thing that I personally love, and again, you know, this is my informed opinion, I like this category of food called stone fruit, and it's seasonal. Ah, right. So a peach.
- [40:12]
Jeffrey Bland
Plums.
- [40:12]
Unknown Speaker
Peaches.
- [40:13]
Plums, Right. And those are very seasonal, and they grow in trees, and they have a little stone in the middle, like an apricot. But it turns out the flesh and the color of these are very bright, and they actually have a lot of sweetness to them, rich with polyphenols. And the skin of these fruits also contains something called ursolic acid, which actually is not only good for your immune system, but ursolic acid also helps your circulation. So you want to actually have good blood flow. As we get older, our blood flow naturally kind of slows down, doesn't get as. Isn't as good as it should be. It's kind of like an old set of piping plumbing. So you want to keep the plumbing working really, really well. That's our circulation. So our solic helps us keep good blood flow, helps us regenerate our blood vessels when we need to. Critical for brain health. So gut health and brain health, it's not just simply the gut, brain access through the microbiome. The circulation is also really important.
- [41:10]
Yeah, I mean, I think the problem with that for me, William, is that I love peaches. But there's maybe a few weeks in the summer where you can get a really ripe, delicious peach that doesn't taste mealy and gross, right?
- [41:23]
No, no, you're actually right.
- [41:24]
I love that. But you can get them frozen, which.
- [41:27]
I use and frozen.
- [41:28]
But it doesn't have the skin. Usually.
- [41:30]
Usually not. But you get the polyphenols in it. And by the way, that's another kind of important practical tip for people that always ask me like, well, I can't get fresh food all the time. Should I just go for the frozen? Is it going to be. It's going to lose a lot of the nutrients?
- [41:46]
No, it's more.
- [41:46]
It's got more. Because people that create frozen fruit, they.
- [41:52]
Pick it, they wait until it's really.
- [41:53]
Ripe and they freeze and they pick it when it's super ripe because it's got to taste great. And they skin it and they freeze it right away. It's flash frozen. It doesn't degrade. Polyphenols degrade while it's on a truck. All right. This doesn't have a chance to even degrade. So I encourage people to get fresh fruit if they can. My only thing is that I wish they would actually pack fresh fruit in something other than plastic bags because now we're beginning to look at microplastics.
- [42:16]
Nanoplastics.
- [42:17]
Nanoplastics.
- [42:18]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's always hard because fruit is something that degrades really fast, so they pick it when it's not ripe. And tomatoes, they pick them when they're not ripe. So you're kind of not getting really the full explosion in polyphenols. Okay, so we got stone fruits, brassicas, nuts, coffee and tea. All right.
- [42:34]
And berries.
- [42:35]
And berries.
- [42:36]
I put berries in there because I'll tell you the amazing thing about berries. They are kind of the candy of nature, right. They're small, they're beautiful, they're sweet. You can eat a bunch of them. That's why candies, there are candies that are shaped like berries, right? So. So the thing about berries, though is that they are a great source of vitamin C. They've got great antioxidants. They also have these polyphenols that are kick ass.
- [43:02]
And fiber.
- [43:03]
And dietary fiber as well. Of Course, the key thing is people always say, well, is sugar in berries going to be harmful or fruit going to be harmful? This is where not all calories are the same. Fruit contains so many other good things that along with the natural sugars, which for most people your body can actually tackle, you're getting all this other benefits that you wouldn't be getting if you had a can of soda with just added sugar to it. Right. So that's the key thing. Sugar isn't all sugar because the thing that it's contained in is going to be different.
- [43:35]
It's also when you eat the fruit, like if you eat it at the end of a meal as opposed to at the beginning, it's going to change your blood sugar, which can have an impact. So it's only important what you eat.
- [43:43]
It'S when you eat too, and how you eat it as well. Right. Because basically if you put sugar on top of fruit, which is kind of an old school way of eating your grapefruit. Yeah.
- [43:51]
Your peaches and syrup. Right.
- [43:52]
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, you know, again, this is why I think when we talk about ingredients, you know, it's easy for us to talk about polyphenols and dietary fiber, but at the end of the day, people eat food in context and together. And so how we eat what we eat is really, really important. How we prepare it is also really important. So, like, for fruits, I like to eat it just fresh, Right? Yeah, seasonal. And berries would be something that I would really love. You know, there's a study, so you're.
- [44:18]
Going to need a greenhouse on Mars, basically.
- [44:21]
Yeah, well, or desert island. Right. I mean, you know, you need to be able to grow all this stuff. But dried fruit, by the way, is also a great way because you can get dried berries, you can get fried stone fruit, you can't get apricots all year round, but you can get dried apricots.
- [44:36]
Or dehydrated ones.
- [44:37]
Or dehydrated ones. Exactly.
- [44:38]
That may be less sugar. Right.
- [44:41]
If you get dried fruits, you actually get the skin on it. Right. So if I had to eat six apricots whole, I might have difficulty doing that on a regular basis, but I could easily eat six dried apricots as a snack. So if you want that fruit skin. But that brings up a whole other issue about organic versus non organic. Because interesting thing that's been discovered by botanists, people who study plants. Not doctors, not health and wellness people, but botanists have studied polyphenols and they found out that polyphenols are produced by Most plants, the polyphenols are good for our body, are produced by most plants as a wound healing substance for the plant itself.
- [45:25]
Yeah, yeah. They're not, they're not for us. They're for the plant's own defenses and repair and healing and protection.
- [45:30]
Right, right. So what happens is that when you, when a plant is growing vegetable, fruit, tree, bush, shrub is growing in its natural state. Right. We're looking at a planet now. We don't want to be add. We don't be adding the crap to the planet. We need to kind of let everything restore. We need a plan to go back into its homeostatic state, regenerate. To regenerate by itself. Okay. In that balanced state, plants that we eat or parts of the plants are growing with little insects. It's natural in the environment. And these insects are nibbling on the leaves and stems of these plants. And what they do is they produce polyphenols in response to the nibbling, in response to the injury as part of healing. This is what the botanists are saying now. So if you grow a plant in its natural state without pesticides, it's going to make more polyphenols because it's healing.
- [46:18]
Stuff all the time under stress. Yeah, Right.
- [46:20]
If you spray with pesticides, not only do you get the bad stuff on the skin that you can't easily wash off. A study at a University of Massachusetts showed that about 20% of pesticides gets absorbed into the skin of an apple. You can't wash that off. It's just in there. So if you're going to get dried fruit, get the organic kind and you're going to get more polyphenols as a fringe benefit.
- [46:41]
I think that's a really incredible thing that most people probably never thought of. It didn't really occur to me. But you're right. When you have plants that are coddled, like pesticides and herbicides and fertilizers, they don't have a lot of stress. They're not getting attacked. They're basically, kind of. Basically coddled.
- [46:58]
Right.
- [46:58]
They don't develop any resistance to disease or stress molecules. And those stress molecules that they create are their protection. But they're also our protection.
- [47:08]
Right.
- [47:08]
That's really the whole crux of what we're talking about here.
- [47:10]
And by the way, let's dive a little deeper on that. Not only are they protection for our human cells, but now because they are also prebiotics, they're also protection for our gut bacteria as well.
- [47:23]
I was thinking that. I was like, you are not only getting polyphenols for all these other benefits for your biology, but actually you're helping your microbiome with everything.
- [47:30]
It's a grand slammer, right? Baseball analogy. You hit the ball and you drive all the runs in. And that's basically what these polyphenols are. And it all starts with how we treat the plants. And I know you've written about this sort of like, how do we actually do regenerative agriculture? How do we cake? Look, it's a bigger problem than any one person can actually solve. But as a one person, we can make that decision of what we're actually going to feed ourselves when we go to the market.
- [47:53]
All right, so I want to get into like specifics of different foods and controversies and things. But first, what else would you bring quickly to Mars if you're going that you absolutely need for optimizing your health and beating disease? I mean, let's hit my list. I'm curious about your list.
- [48:07]
Yeah, you know, I have to say, I'm assuming there's not going to be any easily fishable oceans on another planet.
- [48:16]
You just have it there, not you have to grow it or have it grow in their brain, but just there.
- [48:21]
What are you eating? I think finding a source of omega 3s is absolutely critical because that was.
- [48:29]
Next on my list.
- [48:30]
Yeah, well, our body doesn't make them and a lot of foods don't make them either. Although plants do make the precursor to omega 3s. But it's hard for most people to eat enough of them to actually get what they need. And so this is one of the instances where I do think that you should eat as much marine omega 3s as you can get your hands on. And you should eat plant based sources of omega 3s. But then if you still have struggling, then you should actually get dietary supplements. A good, high quality dietary supplement. And the key about Omega 3s, it's good for gut health, good for brain health, good for immune health. It's one of these strange molecules that has been discovered to have virtually no bad effects and almost all good effects. I'm always cynical and it's a little suspicious when something does everything. But Omega 3s really kind of hit it out of the park.
- [49:17]
All right, so basically your meal on Mars is grilled wild salmon rich in omega 3s and also polyphenols. So that's the yellow color with a nice side of broccoli and a side of green tea to sip along with it. And dessert you're having berries and peaches and Nuts.
- [49:35]
Yeah, pretty much.
- [49:38]
I love that.
- [49:39]
And by the way, we're talking about omega 3s. You talked about salmon and it is a common perception. I'm not calling it a misperception. I'm calling it a perception that you need to have salmon and tuna, really oily fish like mackerel and anchovies, which not a lot of people eat. But it turns out, and I wrote about this in my book, I do.
- [49:57]
I got some right in my bag here.
- [49:59]
Fish that are not commonly thought as oily fish actually also have omega 3s. Cod, haddock, flounder, all have omega 3s. Sea bass has omega 3s, by the way.
- [50:11]
I mean, Chilean sea bass is high in mercury, so you don't want to be that one, you mean?
- [50:14]
Well, Chilean sea bass is actually not really a bass. It's a Patagonian toothfish. Toothfish, right.
- [50:20]
Yeah.
- [50:21]
So it's not even. Again, marketing. Right. We get tricked on things. But it turns out recent studies have shown that sea bass, particularly the Asian sea bass, you'd get in a Chinese market, they'd steam it for you with a little bit of ginger and soy. Actually, it's been discovered to not only have omega 3s, but they contain a peptide, a protein that stimulates better circulation and wound healing.
- [50:43]
Yeah.
- [50:44]
So again, you know, this is. The more we look into our foods, the more we're discovering that some of the things that eat for generations.
- [50:52]
Yeah.
- [50:52]
Actually contain good substances that can keep us healthy.
- [50:55]
Jeffrey Bland
That's right.
- [50:55]
Unknown Speaker
I mean, the Rockefeller Health foundation is very much focused on this. They're spending $200 million to identify the phytochemicals in the plant kingdom that are regulating our biology and what they do. So it's really, it's pretty amazing.
- [51:08]
Dr. Mark Hyman
If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels @DR. Mark Hyman, please reach out. I'd love to hear your your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the Dr. Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness center, my work at Cleveland Clinic and Function Health where I am Chief Medical Officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness Center@Ultra Wellness Center.com and request to become a patient. It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed healthcare practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the public, so I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible. Thanks so much again for listening. What if I told you that you could change your Life in just 10 days? That you could reset your metabolism, break free from food addiction, and feel better than you have in years? You'd probably be skeptical. Most people are, including doctors. They don't think radical health transformation can happen in such a short time. But I do. Why? Because I've seen it happen over and over the last 20 years with more than 10,000 patients. I call it the 10 day detox and it's my fast track plan to help you relieve your most frustrating chronic health symptoms. Heartburn, bloating, joint pain, brain fog and headaches. Sinus issues, even acne, eczema and psoriasis may get better or disappear completely. Plus, you can lose weight without calorie counting or starving yourself. That's the power of the 10 day detox. To learn more, go to Dr.hyman.comdetox to get all the details. That's Dr. Hyman.comdetox.