← The School of Greatness
The School of Greatness
How to REVERSE Aging With What You Eat Daily
01:34:44
This conversation will fundamentally change how you think about aging and the power you hold over your own lifespan. You'll discover why your daily food choices matter more than your genetics when it comes to living longer and feeling stronger as you age.
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- [00:01]
A
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B
So glad to be here.
- [02:03]
A
Welcome.
- [02:03]
B
This is exciting.
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A
This is, this is exciting. You've been your, your research has been really out there in the mainstream a lot lately. A lot of documentaries, your books have been blowing up and the most recent one, how not to Age. The scientific approach to getting healthier as you get older. I'm really fascinated by because most people don't think they can actually get and improve their health the older they get. They just feel like they have to deal with chronic pain, illness, disease. They have to take medications to just maintain a level of ease. So is it actually possible to stop aging or even reverse aging with foods as we get older?
- [02:47]
B
Diet appears to be the most critical element and that's really what the book is about. This kind of good news that we have tremendous power over our health, destiny and longevity. The vast majority of premature death and Disability is preventable with a healthy enough diet and lifestyle. Really only about 25%. Based on studies of identical twins, only about 25% of the difference in lifespan between people is due to genetics.
- [03:12]
A
Really.
- [03:13]
B
So for what we can do, over the majority of which we have some control, we can look to, for example, you know, these blue zones zones, these areas around the world with exceptional longevity and kind of look at the Venn diagram what they're all doing. According to the Global Burden of Disease Study, the largest systemic analysis of risk factors in history, the number one cause of death in these United States is the American diet.
- [03:35]
A
Really?
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B
Bumping tobacco smoking to number two. Cigarettes not only kill about a half million Americans every year. Worse, our diet kills many more.
- [03:44]
A
Come on.
- [03:45]
B
So, but that's good news because it means we have the power, right? It's never too late to start eating healthier, to stop smoking, to start moving. So I mean, it's really a positive message that I was excited to learn when I finished the book.
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A
So when we change our lifestyle, when we change our eating habits and our nutritional habits, we can actually reverse our aging or age better is what I'm.
- [04:10]
B
Hearing to say we can age slower, slow edge slower.
- [04:13]
A
Okay.
- [04:13]
B
And because aging is a significant risk factor for most of our leading killers, you know, so my first book in the series, how not to Die was, you know, first half of the books, just 15 chapters each of the 15 leading cause of death, talking about the role diet may play in preventing, arresting, reversing each of our top 15 killers. Say, wait a second, I mean, if, I mean death is from disease, why isn't how not to Die can all the longevity book anybody needs? But it's because aging is a risk factor for multiple different diseases. So for example, if all cancer were cured tomorrow, it would only add about three years to the average lifespan. Wait a second, why is that? It's like our second leading killer. It's because if you don't die of one age related diseases, you'll just die of another one. So the only reason you didn't die of a heart attack, ah, because you died of cancer the month before, but you were gonna die anyway from something else. So by slowing down the aging process, then we can reduce the risk of many different diseases at the same time. The stroke and the dementia and cancer, heart disease, which rise exponentially with age.
- [05:15]
A
Really?
- [05:16]
B
So something like, you know, having high cholesterol can increase your odds of having a heart attack. Our number one killer of men and women by as much as 20 fold. But an 80 year old has 500 times the risk of having a heart attack compared to a 20 year old. So age. But I mean, of course the reason we focus on things like cholesterol is because it's a modifiable risk factor. But what if the rate of aging were modifiable too? And so that's what I really cover in the book.
- [05:43]
A
So what would the five main keys be to aging better?
- [05:47]
B
Yeah. So diet number one. And so if you look at these blue zones, they all center their diets around whole plant foods. So they're minimizing the intake of meat, dairy, sugar, eggs, junk, maximizing the intake of fruits, vegetables, legumes, beans, split peas, chickpeas, lentils, nuts and seeds, herbs and spices. Basically real food that grows out of the ground. These are really our healthiest choices. That would be number one.
- [06:15]
A
Number one diet.
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B
So, number one diet. So that accounts alone for about half of the difference in lifespan between blue zones and the rest of the world.
- [06:25]
A
What is the average blue zone age at death versus the average, you know, age of death of non blue zones?
- [06:32]
B
Right. It's about 12 to 14 years.
- [06:34]
A
12 to 14 years difference, difference.
- [06:36]
B
So women 14, men 12 years longer and so have up to 10 times the rate of so called centenarians. Those that get triple digits live to be a hundred or older. And it's not just about, you know, adding years to your life, but life to your years. These people are active, so they're at 100 and they're enjoying their lives or participating in life. And so what's the point of living longer if you can't do it, you know, with vibrancy, with vitality. Right. And so in this country, I mean, even our lifespan is going down. So actually the peak of life expectancy 2014, United States started going down every year since even before COVID shaved a few years off our life.
- [07:17]
A
Now there are certain pockets that, that are blue zone pockets.
- [07:20]
B
Right. But that general ends because primarily the obesity epidemic. Yes. So we are raising the first generation of Americans set to live shorter average lives than their parents. Right. And this was before COVID and continues to drop down. We are 39th in life expectancy around the world. So like Slovenians live longer than Americans. So we've got a lot of work to do. But the good news is, again, we have power over how we live.
- [07:49]
A
Wow.
- [07:50]
B
And what we eat.
- [07:51]
A
So diet would be the main thing. What would be the second or third thing would you think?
- [07:54]
B
Okay, and so then smoking cessation, critically important now.
- [07:58]
A
So what else? Smoking versus vaping Ah, well, the concern.
- [08:03]
B
The primary concern about vaping is the nicotine addiction will lead people to smoke. And so it's safer than smoking. But because people who vape tend to smoke that unfortunately, you know, these kids getting addicted to nicotine or can face a lifetime of cigarette addiction and then dramatically cut their life short from something like lung cancer.
- [08:26]
A
Okay, smoking.
- [08:27]
B
So, so yeah, so it's really remarkably, you know, 80% of the way there is these simple, basic common sense lifestyle behaviors. I know it's a big book and I go into all the details. Don't want people to get kind of lost in this, you know, or, or intimidated. It's really the basic. So, you know, a decade of life is possible just through not smoking, not being obese, exercising even like 20 minutes a day, five servings of fruits and vegetables, really basic stuff. Now you want to go beyond that. You want to tweak those 20%. I've got, you know, hundreds of cool things to do in the book, but let's not lose sight of the real core tenants. So you can imagine some smoker who's like, oh, look at this fancy supplement I'm going to take. I'm like, no, no, no, let's back up.
- [09:17]
A
You know, I'm going to minimize the smoking.
- [09:18]
B
Right, right. So. So I mean, that's, that's important to emphasize. In fact, the conclusion of the book, I'm like, all right, let's step back. Let's, let's put this all in context again. It's really the core tasting, basic tenants. And then, yeah, there's all sorts of cool new science out there that you can tweak around the edges, but I don't want people to get lost, really.
- [09:39]
A
Okay, and what about fasting? Because you mentioned fasting briefly, and I know you have a section in the book about intermittent fasting and fasting, but also I think there was a, a quote in your book that's, you know, fasting can have benefits, but if you fast too long, you die.
- [09:54]
B
Right, right. It's the ultimate in unsustainable diet, meaning guaranteed to kill you if you do it long enough. Like what? How? You can't say that about any diet. Right. But so there's all sorts of interesting intermittent fasting regimens. So one thing that fasting does is it boosts something called autophagy, which is kind of this house cleaning process within.
- [10:14]
A
The cells and killing the zombie cells. Right.
- [10:16]
B
That's a separate, that's cellular senescence. That's a whole different thing. But this is more inside the Cell, the accumulation of debris that contributes to the aging process. And we can boost autophagy with exercise or with fasting. We can fast or go fast. Unfortunately, it doesn't really ramp up until 36 to 48 hours of fasting, which really is too long to go unsupervised. Normally your kidneys dive into something called sodium conservation mode, such that people can fast literally for months on water only. But if, if that response breaks down, then you can suffer a serious electrolyte abnormality, which only manifest with vague symptoms like dizziness or fatigue that could go unnoticed until it's too late, really. So that's why one really should only fast if you're fasting over a day. It really should be done under medical supervision. They can do urine test, blood test, just to make sure everything's going to plan. Otherwise you can run to really serious stress.
- [11:20]
A
Do you feel like doing a 24 hour fast is okay for people to do on their own?
- [11:25]
B
So although we're not going to get that boost in autophagy in that short of a time, and you often hear like even a few hours, like time restricted feeding, you know, increasing the, you know, decreasing the feeding window daily, we can improve autophagy. That's in rodents, unfortunately. Rodents have this really high metabolisms such that they can lose massive amounts of their body weight, little than day or two in a few days. It can be fatal. But unfortunately that doesn't translate into humans really, really only get this boosting in the autopsy. Really kind of, yeah, two days. And then we're concerned about that being done outside of kind of medical.
- [11:59]
A
Interesting. Is there benefit to doing the intermittent fasting?
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B
Okay, so. But there is some certainly. There's so many different types. I'm talking about the pros and cons of each. So there's alternate day fasting and 5:2 fasting 25, 5 fasting mimic fasting. Right. There's all sorts of. And there's pros and cons of each. I think the best kind of the bottom line, the best evidence is around early time restrictive feeding, meaning collapsing one's feeding daily feeding window to at least 12 hours or less. But critically important, that window is early rather than late. So if anything, we're skipping supper, not breakfast. And in fact, we're trying to cram as many calories earlier in the day as possible. The exact same food eaten in the morning is less fattening than the exact same food. Same number of calories eaten in the evening.
- [12:46]
A
Come on.
- [12:46]
B
Causes less of a blood sugar spike, causes less triglycerides if you're going to eat junk, right. If you're going to eat a donut or something, do it in the morning. Actually your body, because of our circadian rhythms, is better able to handle it. Ideally we should not be eating when it's dark, should not be eating after 7pm Our bodies just has these exaggerated responses to it. Or in the very least we should be eating really healthy food. And so really. So ideally breakfast or lunch would be the biggest meal of the day and may actually help explain the longevity of the final remaining blue zone. Today there's only one left. We think of these blue zones. These are the ones, right?
- [13:22]
A
These six or seven zones, Right?
- [13:24]
B
Right. But these are historic blue zones. Now they're eating KFC like anybody else, right? But there's one left and it's the red, white and blue zone. It's the Loma Linda. It's Loma Linda, California, an hour away, Seven Day Adventist. And one of the things that may be attributing to their longevity, in fact they're the longest formally studied population, longest living in history, living longer than the Okinawan Japanese. Even during the 50s when they're at.
- [13:50]
A
The peak, the Sardinians, all of them.
- [13:52]
B
All of them, they beat them all and they're the only ones continue to go. And, and one of the things they may be doing is because they tend to eat the lunches, their biggest meal of the day.
- [14:03]
A
So they don't have a big dinner.
- [14:05]
B
So they don't have a big dinner or they skip dinner all entirely. I mean they have lots of other things going.
- [14:10]
A
Maybe they have, maybe here and there, but not.
- [14:13]
B
Right. So their body is, they consider their body a temple is kind of a biblical teaching. And so they really, so they have low smoking rates, they exercise, have, tend to have plant based diets. So they're doing a lot of things right.
- [14:23]
A
Immunity, all the things right.
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B
But that may actually be one of the factors. Even though it's never been kind of put to the test in an interventional.
- [14:30]
A
Trial based on the studies, they're not eating a lot of dinners is what I'm hearing.
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B
They're eating either light dinners, dinners or they're not eating dinner at all. They're kind of, or they're doing it.
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A
Before or they're seven.
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B
Before four. Really? Before four? Yeah.
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A
What would be the optimal time to stop eating every single day?
- [14:47]
B
Well, so before 7, we want to get before 7. And so that's, I mean the intermittent fasting literature around time restricted feeding was so confusing because some studies show it's actually bad for you. Caused metabolic issues. Others found it had these remarkable benefits and, and it's all in the timing of the window. The ones that were late restricting, skipping breakfast and not eating till late, then they had actually problems associated and you know, said that higher cholesterol at the end of a few weeks.
- [15:17]
A
Because if you're skipping breakfast and you're say you're eating at one or two o', clock, but then you're like you're hungry and so you're eating more later in the evening, that's until 9, 10 o' clock.
- [15:27]
B
Maybe that's it that we want to be doing.
- [15:29]
A
But you're still getting that maybe 16 hour window of not eating.
- [15:32]
B
Right.
- [15:33]
A
But you're saying that the time you eat is more important than how much time you don't eat.
- [15:38]
B
There's benefits to both.
- [15:39]
A
Yes.
- [15:40]
B
So you can so just by time restricted feeding. So even if you do it kind of in the middle, there's benefits from not time restricting, but there's additional benefits. Switching to earlier skipping dinner. Yeah, yeah. And that was actually the US military did these experiments, the army did the first experiments where they actually took people and gave people 2,000 calorie meals, a single 2,000 calorie meal, the exact same meal either as breakfast and fasting the rest of the day or as supper. And they found these remarkable differences. Exact same food, exact same calories, different amount of body fat, different amount of metabolic implications of just that single tweak. It's because of chronobiology, the remarkable impact that our circadian rhythms have on our biology. We typically only think of our circadian rhythms when we're jet lagged. Like that's the only time we're even thinking about our bodies. But that's just kind of a symptom of this really deep underlying most of our biological processes, our biochemistry, our enzymes actually go on this clock. And so it really matters. There's this really devastating literature about pesticide suicides in India. That's a common way for people to, to commit suicide. But it matters whether they survive, whether they do it in the morning or in the evening because their body's better able to handle it in the morning. Better able to detoxify. Because of our circadian rhythms, you're much more likely to survive a poisoning attempt. Wow. And this is just how powerful. It just suggests the power of our circadian rhythms. Really fascinating. I dive deep in that my how not to diet book where I was talking about weight loss and that entire field. Fascinating. Never learned about it in medical school. Wow.
- [17:25]
A
Now, for those that don't know what is the circadian rhythm and what do we need to know about it to optimize our life?
- [17:31]
B
Yeah. So our circadian rhythm is the kind of daily rhythm, almost 24 hour rhythm that. So even if you're put in a bunker with constant lighting, your body will still, you'll have this, you know, this cycle as if you were, you know, even though you have no cues from the outside, you have no watch, you have no idea what time it is you're starting. You'll start getting sleepy at kind of the same time you normally get sleep. You wake up about the same time you normally sleep. And so, but in that kind of environment, you can do these laboratory experiments on people where it's like, okay, what if we, what if we put you on a 27 hour cycle? So we put the lights on, right. But then we just stretch it a little bit and it totally messes people up.
- [18:12]
A
Wow.
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B
Really undercuts our biology. We were so meant because then all of a sudden it's chopping it through. And so, and so it was these kind of experiments that really show the power. And so what we see is we.
- [18:23]
A
See these shift workers, so people working late nights.
- [18:26]
B
Right. So, well, if you're only working late nights, that, that's a prominence in and of itself. But it's the, it's the people that are shifting so they're doing the late nights. So like, you know, people in postgraduate medical education, these residents who, they'll do nights in the hospital and then they'll do a day and that is really difficult.
- [18:44]
A
And so like a double shift.
- [18:45]
B
Double shift. So there could be many reasons why people that do that kind of work live significantly shortened lives. Wow. I mean there's, you know, who is forced into those kind of jobs, what kind of, you know, health care do they have and so many other things that can go into that. But they really do think that that disruption of circadian rhythm has a, has.
- [19:07]
A
A serious implications if you could design the perfect day and the perfect amount of protein, calories consumption, sleep, yeah. Intermittent fasting, window, et cetera. For someone like me, I'm £230, I'm 40 years old. As a former athlete, I train really hard, I'm at the gym, lifting four or five days a week, doing cardio, I'm doing some running, I'm walking a lot. But I also have a busy lifestyle. I travel sometimes. What would be the optimal, if I could, for me to live longer, still be athletic and strong and healthy and feel great.
- [19:53]
B
So that was, I talked about this how not to die book, the first half of the book, but I didn't want it to just kind of be a reference book. I wanted this to be a practical day to day kind of grocery store guide to make these kind of practical decisions. And that's what became the second half of the book, which centers my recommendations around a daily dozen checklist of all the kind of healthiest of healthy foods and habits. I encourage people to fit into their daily routine. So it's available on a free app. All my work is free at Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen iPhone, Android. And it's just basically, you know, these kind of to inspire people to include.
- [20:28]
A
So you know, 12 things that we should be doing.
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B
12 things, you know, 90 minutes of modern intensity exercise or 45 minutes of vigorous exercise every single day, you know how much, you know how much to drink. So I want people to eat dark green leafy vegetables every day, the healthiest kind of vegetables. I want people to eat berries every day, the healthiest kinds of fruits, a tablespoon of grown flaxseed, a quarter teaspoon of turmeric, kind of on down the list. Again, just to kind of inspire people to kind of think and then kind of track their progress, kind of make a game out of it and look on the road. I'm not even hitting, you know, I'm lucky if I hit half. But I mean it's again kind of an aspirational kind of if you really did have control over your environment, this is really the kind of things we want to include in one's daily routine.
- [21:11]
A
So what would be the top five foods that you should eat every day to age longer?
- [21:16]
B
Yeah. In terms of anti aging foods, this global burden of disease study, which I mentioned before, again the largest systemic analysis funded by the Bill Melinda Gates foundation, found that the food associated with the largest expected life expectancy gains our legumes, these beans, split peas, chickpeas, lentils. In fact, there's one thing we can do is boost our intake of beans or lentil soup or hummus. And we think it's because they're the most concentrated sources of prebiotics, the resistant starch and dietary fiber that feeds the good bacteria in our gut. And that has implications in terms of decreasing inflammation, improving our immunity, improving muscle strength, muscle quality, muscle mass and frail individuals. Be all but just by changing a microbiome. In fact, you can do these so called fecal transplant studies where you can.
- [22:08]
A
Take a sick healthy poop and put them in a sick person. It's crazy, right?
- [22:12]
B
Actually change their biology. That's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. But that's how we can prove cause and effect. Because like, well, yeah, you feed someone a healthy diet, how do we know their gut bugs had anything to do with it? Ah, well, we can, we can control for that. And you can do it, you know, and so they. Right, so you can make, you know, you know, mice more fit, less fit by giving them, you know, healthy poop. Healthy poop from, from a exercising mouse or, you know, from Marathon mouse or a Mighty Mouse versus the, you know, frail mouse gene actually change. They're eating the same, they're doing the same, but they just have a different stool composition. And how do you get those good gut bugs? You feed them the right food and that's the prebiotics. What are good gut bacteria eat? A lot of people are thinking probiotics, they're thinking the actual bacteria themselves, the acidophilus, the bifidobacteria, those are the good gut bugs. But if you just take those pills, the reason you don't have those good gut bugs in the first place is because you're not feeding them very well. So you can take, you can try to populate your gut with as many good bugs as you want. They're going to die off if you continue to starve them, continue to starve your microbial self. Whereas if you just ate the right foods, the good gut bugs, or fiber feeders, if you eat the right foods, then your good bugs will be fruitful and multiply all on their own and, you know, do all the work for you. And that work is creating these so called postbiotics, which are their byproducts of microbial metabolism of these good foods like butyrate and estate that could absorb through the colon wall into our bloodstream, circulate throughout our bodies, even cross the blood brain barrier, have effects on our mental health over our immunity, so dramatically decrease inflammation. You can prevent asthma attacks just by feeding people some beans. I mean, it's absolutely remarkable.
- [24:01]
A
So legumes have prebiotics.
- [24:04]
B
They have the prebiotics. So that's why we think the food. In fact, legumes are the, the primary protein source of every single blue zone ever documented. Right? That's where they get most of their protein from some sort of legume, whether it's, you know, brown beans or something, or black beans in Costa Rica or soy foods and Okinawa, or. But it was always centered around not just plant based in general, but A plant based source of protein, legumes. So beans. And so we should be thinking like bean burrito chili. Like, how can I fit beans in my daily diet? And that's part of the daily dozen is like, I have any beans today? Like, can I put beans on my salad or throw some beans on this pasta dish? Or it's like simply get a can of, you know, unsalted, no salt added beans, you know, open in two seconds. Always keep a can of beans in the fridge. You can just throw a spoonful onto anything, basically. Yeah. In fact, I even said someone had a talk, was like, I just take white beans mashed into my oatmeal. I'm like, never heard of that. But he's like, can't even taste it. I'm like, okay, yeah, great. I mean, look, you know, and what's nice about a healthy breakfast is that regardless of what you do the rest of the day, you know, God knows what kind of, you know, what bowl of candy is on your co worker's desk or what donut shop you're walking by, or God knows what stress is going to, you know, take you down the wrong path. At least you have a good foundation, interesting food in you. You're, you know, feeding your good bucks. But anyway, so that's number one.
- [25:25]
A
Legumes.
- [25:26]
B
Okay, now, so these are they. They identified the top five foods that associate with the longest lifespan. Now, legumes rule the roost on a per serving basis, but actually on an ounce per ounce basis, nuts are associated with the longest lifespan compared to any other type of food out there.
- [25:46]
A
What are the three best nuts?
- [25:48]
B
There's really only one. There's really only one that pulls ahead. That's walnuts.
- [25:54]
A
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- [28:26]
B
Now see, normally when I say like, you know, eat, you know, cruciferous vegetables or something, and they're like, which one's best? I'm like, whichever one you'll eat. You like broccoli? Eat broccoli. You like bok choy? Like I, you know, look, whatever one you'll get into your face, that's it. But with nuts, it they, it really does. Walnuts really do pull ahead and that's because they have more omega 3s than other nuts, they have more antioxidants than other nuts, and they're the only nuts shown to acutely improve artery function within a matter of hours. And so in fact, in the predimed study, which is this large randomized controlled trial over years of thousands of individuals, although mixed nuts certainly did Lower cardiovascular disease rates. It was the walnuts that appear to be the most critical part. And we do want to get unsalted nuts. I know that's not as delicious.
- [29:16]
A
Why unsalted?
- [29:18]
B
In terms of dietary risk factor for death, excess sodium intake is the way. So I've been talking about the.
- [29:24]
A
All this salt is so good. It tastes so good on something.
- [29:26]
B
I know. Look, so in terms of things we're missing out on, right, it's the legumes, the. But in terms of stuff we're getting too much of salt. There's lots of horrible things in our diet. There's sugar, there's trans fat, there's saturated. Okay, but sodium salt intake is the number one dietary risk factor for death on planet Earth is the single worst thing about humanity's diet. But there's good news. What about like, there's good news.
- [29:48]
A
Himalayan salt or something different. They're all salt and same.
- [29:52]
B
I know. Yeah, it's. But this is pink. This is from the Himalayans. This is rainbow color. This got a few minerals in it or something? No, no, no, no, no. It's all bad.
- [30:01]
A
But a little bit.
- [30:02]
B
Can you have a little bit? Well, so we want to stick under 1500 milligrams a day. That's the American Heart association recommendation. And to do that and most of it. And people are like, I don't add a lot of salt. Most of our sodium intake comes from processed foods. 70% of sodium intake is not the salt we add in the kitchen or the dining room. It's in these processed foods. These, you know, anything in a box, in a package, in anything. They add salt because it's a flavor enhancer. Right. In fact, that's why they add it to a lot of beans. It's not a preservative. It's in a can. It's sterile. It's because they want to make things taste good. It's a cheap way to make things, you know, so you can't just eat one. But the problem is, is that sodium increases risk not just of high blood pressure, but so many different lead in killers like kidney disease and eyesight. Kind of on down the list. Okay, but so there's two ways we can go. So there's lots of salt free seasonings out there and you know, and encourage people to explore all sorts of new, you know, and, you know, people often, you know, there's all sorts of spices that haven't heard of, like saffron. And I mean there's also. So explore the whole world out there and find Some delicious taste. And then the easy fix is switching to the salt substitute. Potassium salt instead of sodium salt. Sodium chloride. Switch to potassium salt. It's potassium chloride. It's just a natural mineral mined out of the ground just like the sodium chloride is. And there are interventional studies, I talk about one in the book where they took these five kitchens at a veteran retirement home and randomized their kitchens into either continuing to salt with regular salt in the kitchen or switching to a 5050 blend of regular salt and potato. So regular sodium chloride and potassium chloride. And there was a dramatic 40% drop in cardiovascular disease death rates within a matter of years in the reduced sodium. In fact, their life Expectancy at age 70 in the between two groups was 14 years.
- [31:59]
A
Come on.
- [31:59]
B
Meaning that just by switching to half potassium salt, for which you wouldn't even be able to taste a difference, they effectively made themselves 10 years younger when it came to the risk of premature death. So something that, so there's no downside, there's no. Okay, so now if you go with, I'm encouraging people to actually try to switch to full potassium salt rather than going to the 5050 blend. But then you do actually taste the difference. There's this bitterness to potassium salt that you don't get. Otherwise, it's more apparent in some foods than others. Some foods you really can't taste the difference. But any amount that we can cut down, and the only other caveat is you need to have kidneys good enough to get rid of the excess potassium. And so if you have kidney disease or if you have diabetes, just because diabetes is such an increased risk of kidney disease, it's so damaging to the kidneys. Even if you don't know you have kidney disease, if you have diabetes, you should first get your kidneys tested before switching to potassium. So, and you know, if you're over 70, our kidney function does tend to decline over time. So even if, as far as you know, your kidneys are fine, if you're over 70, I would go, it's super simple test. You can just simple blood test, get your kidney function function tested and just make sure your kidneys can handle the extra potassium. But then if you give them the all clear, your kidneys are good, then you can get all the saltiness you want. You could add extra, right. You can make your popcorn as crazy. Right? Tears to your eyes, salty and with no harm. No harm. So that's one of the really one of the simplest tweaks in the book. And it's like the leading cause of dietary risk. Factor for death. Like the worst thing we could possibly eat. And there's a simple fix to it. Like, I'm too bad there wasn't like a wow. Potassium donut or something. We just switch over and totally fine. But that was one of the rare things that it's like super easy to do.
- [33:55]
A
So explain that one more time. So if we have more potassium salt first, then we can have salt.
- [34:00]
B
No, we're going. So we're swapping out. So instead of shaking on sodium, sodium chloride, we're shaking on potassium chloride. There's a bunch of different brands.
- [34:09]
A
You can have as much as you.
- [34:10]
B
Want and you can have as much. As long as. You're kidding.
- [34:11]
A
Funky kidneys are kill.
- [34:13]
B
Right. You can have as much as you want. And so you can go any grocery store.
- [34:16]
A
Wow.
- [34:16]
B
In the salt aisle there's all these salt substances and it says potassium chloride. And there's some 50, 50 blends. And if you want to start there and move, it's certainly better than adding piercing.
- [34:26]
A
I'm going to try that.
- [34:27]
B
Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to try that.
- [34:28]
A
And the, the studies show.
- [34:30]
B
Oh, right. And not just. It's associated with, but these interventional trials, these randomized control trials. Blinded. They don't know who's in which group until they break the code at the end. They say, oh, my God. Significantly less death and disability in the group. Just cutting down on the sodium, eating.
- [34:45]
A
The same things, eating the same, exact.
- [34:47]
B
Same things with one single tweak. Just switching over what kind of salt they're using. Amazing.
- [34:53]
A
That's incredible.
- [34:54]
B
Now, why have we heard about this? Like, why isn't this on, like, blaring? Because no one makes any money on it. It's like dirt cheap. Right? I mean, it's. I think it's cheap. I think it's more expensive than the regular salt, but.
- [35:03]
A
Right, right. It's like five bucks or something. Yeah, yeah.
- [35:05]
B
So. But I mean, there's just. No one's making money. I mean, there's just not a lot of money made because it's just like a simple. Like, you know, you probably dig it up your own somehow. And so there's just. No, no. Yeah. There's not a lot of profit to be made. And so unfortunately, we don't hear a lot about it.
- [35:22]
A
That is fascinating. Okay, so I've heard about legumes. Number one.
- [35:25]
B
Yeah.
- [35:25]
A
Nuts. Specifically walnuts.
- [35:27]
B
Walnuts.
- [35:28]
A
Number two.
- [35:29]
B
Palm full a day is my recommendation. One ounce.
- [35:31]
A
What if you want to have more?
- [35:32]
B
Oh, look, you can have more. I just.
- [35:34]
A
But they're calorie.
- [35:35]
B
But they, they, the, the longevity benefits plateau out at one. So you don't get more additional benefit. And they're kind of pricey and they're calories, right? They're calorie dead. So if you're really active, it's not going to matter.
- [35:47]
A
So 10 to 15 a day maybe.
- [35:48]
B
So it's 10 halves. 10, 10 halves comes out to be 30 grams or one. Okay, so that's, that's, But I mean look, you're not key.
- [35:56]
A
Just grab a handful, grab a handful, Grab this one.
- [35:59]
B
And, and, and every day or at least three times a week.
- [36:03]
A
I mean the benefits are that great.
- [36:06]
B
Are that great. And that's, and that's in the Adventist cohort, the Loma Lynn Adventist cohort. They think it accounts for two years of extra lifespan.
- [36:15]
A
Come on.
- [36:15]
B
It is one of the only foods, there's only two foods that have ever been associated with increase in literally years, plural, a single food. And nuts is one of them.
- [36:24]
A
How do they measure this? That know that like nuts and beans are going to make you live longer.
- [36:29]
B
Okay, so what you do is you take hundreds of thousands of people, you follow them over, follow them their diseases and their diets over time. So you keep doing these dietary surveys. Exactly what are you eating? You know, you do these random call you up, okay, what you eat for the last 24 hours go through. Sometimes you make them take pictures and so you follow that and then you follow exact, you know, their doctors, you know, when have they been diagnosis, what are they dying of, you know, what are their autopsies show. And so you can follow them over time. That's what's called observational research or epidemiological research. Now you cannot prove cause and effect with that kind of research because there's confounding factors. Maybe the people who are eating nuts are health nuts.
- [37:08]
A
And maybe, you know, they're working out.
- [37:10]
B
All day, eaters are working out more. Maybe they have other eating other healthy stuff. Maybe instead of instead, what's the other thing you're eating instead of nuts? Maybe you're snacking on some real potato chips. Right, right. And so maybe it's the benefit, it's not so much the nuts, but you're not eating potato chips, right. So there's all these confounding factors. Now there are statistical methods that you can use to try to control for that. So you're basically comparing nut eaters who aren't smoking and exercise, blah, blah, blah to nut eaters that the non nut eaters that also don't smoke donut. And so there be. And that's why you need this big number.
- [37:42]
A
Right, right.
- [37:43]
B
And so like the NIH AARP study, the largest study in history, we're talking over a half million people. And so with that much data, you can crunch the numbers and really kind of tease out. Wait a second, with all these other factors controlled for the people who are eating this many nuts are living this much longer. That's pretty crazy. And then you can turn to the most powerful evidence we have, which are interventional trials where you randomize people to two groups and you give them a smoothie, one with nuts and one flavored with nuts, but no actual nuts in it. So you make people, you know, walnut flavored smoothie versus an actual walnut smoothie. And neither the researcher nor the experimental subjects actually knows which is which. And you test it beforehand so you really can't tell. Right. And so then, and then you can measure acute reactions. You can measure their artery function literally within hours of consumption. Crazy. And you can see what's happening in their cholesterol, what's happening. And so then you can. So these are kind of, those are called surrogate endpoints. So what we'd like to know is let's randomize people to these smoothies for 10 years and see who actually dies, doesn't it? Right, right. Okay. You can see how logistically that's difficult to do. But what we can do is we know that, you know, the amount of cholesterol in our blood, it's really good indicator of risk factor for, you know, heart disease. And so anything that lowers cholesterol. Ah, okay. So we have the observational evidence showing decreased risk of heart disease among non eaters. And then we have this short term data showing, look, it improves artery function, decreases cholesterol. No wonder we're seeing there's these endpoints in the opposite. So you put all the evidence together, you're like, wow, nuts really appear to be healthy foods. Right. That's how you do this kind of research.
- [39:19]
A
So this is fascinating.
- [39:21]
B
Oh, yeah. Okay, Good stuff, Good stuff.
- [39:22]
A
Okay, we're still on the five things to eat. Legumes, nuts. No salt.
- [39:27]
B
No salt. Also we. Unsalted, right?
- [39:29]
A
Unsalted.
- [39:29]
B
Oh yeah. We're keeping our salt intake as low as possible, under 1500 milligrams. That's not no salt, but.
- [39:35]
A
Right. Very minimal.
- [39:36]
B
It's really. And it mostly it's about if you just avoid processed foods, you're going to go a lot of ways.
- [39:40]
A
Way less salt.
- [39:41]
B
So even fresh foods.
- [39:42]
A
Yeah. Number four, five. What would those be?
- [39:44]
B
And so then it's eating more whole grains. So you were having an oatmeal for breakfast. Right. Instead of bacon and eggs.
- [39:50]
A
What about the whole, you know, grain brain theory and then like how grains are bad for your brain? What type of grains affect the brain in a healthy way versus a bad way?
- [40:03]
B
Yeah, the kernel of truth was kind of a little of a pun for whole grains is refined grains. Refined grains are terrible for us. So when you take something like whole wheat and you strip away all the fiber and you're left with, you know, with white flour, or you do the same with brown rice to white rice, or you kind of strip out the nutrition and you're left with basically kind of sheer carbohydrates. So you take something like a sugar bee where most be, most sugar comes from these days, actually not from cane. And you basically take all the nutrition where you're left with table sugar. Right. I'm Susan, just like pure calories.
- [40:35]
A
And look, you only have no value.
- [40:37]
B
2000 calories in the calorie bank every day. You cannot be wasting your calories on these empty calorie foods. And so, so, and where is. And most grain consumption in the country is sadly, these refined grains. So going after grains, it makes total sense because that's what people are eating. But unfortunately, whole grains got caught in the kind of friendly fire. Right.
- [40:59]
A
So what are the grains we should be eating?
- [41:01]
B
So, so yeah, whole grains, ideally whole intact grains. So like oat groats or steel cut oats. The more closely to how they kind of grew out of the ground, the better. Or you know, whole grain rye, you know, you know, so we want whole as the first word in any kind of grain.
- [41:20]
A
Steel cut oats or whole cutouts.
- [41:22]
B
Fantastic. Or even oak groats, which are what steel cut oats are before they. Yeah, okroses before you cut it. An okra cut two or three times turns into steel cutouts. But that's the original and that. And if you haven't tried it, they are delicious. Super chewy oat groats. You bite. That's what. Oh my God. Someone. Yeah, someone turned me on to oat groats and I was like, I'm never going back. Really? They're so good and they're so much more healthy and they're, they're. I can't, I can't get back to mushy oats. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
- [41:49]
A
Do you cook them?
- [41:51]
B
So you cook them now? They take a long time to cook unless you have a pressure cooker. So if you have one of these like electric pressure cookers out of the market now, then it's super quick. 20 minutes, you press a button, they're done, and you can make a whole.
- [42:02]
A
But it's like oatmeal. It's like.
- [42:03]
B
So it's like, it's like. But it's, it's chewer. You're harder, more delicious. And no matter how well you chew, what, the reason that's so much better for you is because these bits of go all, you know, don't get absorbed in our small intestine, end up in our large intestine and act as this prebiotic bounty for good gut bugs. But the more you refine it, the more you process it, the more that gets absorbed high up in the small intestine. You're basically leaving your colon bugs to starve down there. And that's why the more whole, the better. That's where the dietary fiber is. That's where the resistant starch is. That's where we can feed our good gut bugs and they feed us right back. Wow.
- [42:44]
A
Okay, so that's number four. What would be the fifth thing?
- [42:47]
B
Okay, the fifth thing are foods I want people to reduce. They want people to reduce meat and soda as the two most important things to cut down in one's diet. But interestingly, the top four were actually things people aren't getting enough of if.
- [43:00]
A
You add those things.
- [43:01]
B
Right. And so, and so it's possible that really the benefits of a plant based diet is less about what you're cutting out and more about just including the healthiest of healthy foods out there. Right?
- [43:13]
A
Yeah. I like that philosophy for people because if you can include these things in your system and in your daily routine, you're gonna be less hungry for the other sugary processed things. So maybe you have a little bit of it every now and then, but it's not 80, 90% of your diet exactly.
- [43:31]
B
It's about it. It's. That's the kind of the behind the daily dozen thing. It's like by the end of the day, if you actually check off all those boxes, you are kind of naturally crowding out these less healthy options. And it turns out over 50% of calories in the United States come from ultra processed junk. Most of the food we eat is just junk. And so. Right. We're just kind of trying to save them for the special occasion. Right. It doesn't matter what we eat on our holidays, birthdays, special occasions, but on a day to Day basis, we really should try to eat healthy. And that is, you know, centering our diets around these natural foods from fields, not factories, these kind of unprocessed foods.
- [44:09]
A
Now I'm curious because we have about 50, 50 men and women that watch and listen, right?
- [44:16]
B
Amazing.
- [44:17]
A
But I'm curious about what if you could specifically create a super supplement or a stack of supplements every single day for men that they took first thing in the morning, maybe three to five key ingredients, whether it was in a powder or liquid form. What would be those things to have men be optimized, healthier, stronger, more vibrant men? What would those ingredients be?
- [44:44]
B
They'd be foods. They wouldn't be supplements. They wouldn't put in a pill. Now look, you want to take some, you know, berries free, dry them and make them into a powder, Fine. You want to call that a supplement by just eating a spoonful of freeze dried strawberry powder? Fine, sure. Whatever you want. It really comes down to the food. We can't, we are just don't know enough about biology of the human organism to be able to tease out what it is about these thousands of different food components. Then we can extract it out and make money in a pill. Now if people don't, that doesn't keep people from trying to tell you that's how you make money. Unfortunately, they, the system is set up with these kind of wrong incentives. Right. The worst thing to sell is produce. Right. It goes bad. So the most profitable foods are unfortunately the least healthy foods. Right. I mean, what you want is a snack cake that sits on the shelf for a few weeks. That's how you make money. I mean, the produce rots on the shelf. It's like the worst.
- [45:37]
A
It's good for a week.
- [45:38]
B
It's a loss leader for these. It gets people into the store so they'll buy the really the stuff that actually makes profit. If you want to make money, you sell brown sugar water in a bottle. It's like pure profit. It's all money. So it's not like the head of these soda companies is sitting around thinking, how can I contribute to the childhood obesity epidemic? They're just like, how do I maximize profit for my shareholders in the next quarter? Sure. And anyone who doesn't think that way gets a conscience. They'll be booted out the next day and replaced by somebody who will. Right. And it's not some diabolical thing. It's literally just, that's how the system works. Sure, sure. And so like even a sweet potato grower is not gonna put an ad on TV for sweet potatoes because they're not branded. Like, you'll just buy their competitors sweet potato. Like, the system is not set up. You're never gonna see an ad for sweet potatoes in the super bowl because there's just not enough money to be made.
- [46:34]
A
Well, pistachios has done a good job.
- [46:36]
B
And avocado. Wasn't there an avocado one too?
- [46:38]
A
Was there avocado? Yeah, but pistachio nuts have, like, blown up. They branded pistachio nuts somehow, Right. They're everywhere.
- [46:44]
B
Look, look, look. I'm all in favor. I want big broccoli to swoop in and start putting up billboards everywhere. Right, right. If only they had the money. Right.
- [46:53]
A
But you've mentioned, you mentioned prebiotics being like a key thing.
- [46:56]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [46:57]
A
For. For everyone, I guess. So what would be, you know, if you were to create, like, so someone was going to get three to five supplements, let's say, or the nutrients that they want to have, whether it's through foods or maybe they didn't have access to those foods, but they can get these prebiotics. What would these ingredients be for men to optimize their hormones, their muscle growth, their stamina, all these different things.
- [47:20]
B
Yeah. So why not? Look, if it's the prebiotics that are good for you, why not take prebiotic pills? Why not just take a prebiotic powder? Right. Problem is that we talk about dietary fiber, but actually that term dietary fiber, literally covers thousands of different compounds. And so there's actually thousands of different dietary fibers, and they each feed the growth of different probiotic good bugs in our gut. And so it's actually this diversity of all these kind of these indigestible plant carbohydrates. That's what dietary fiber is indigestible by. Our small intestine makes it down to our large intestine, so it cannot be replicated. And so things. So there's been experiments using something like psyllium, which is a very common, common fiber supplement. It can help with laxation, help with, like, releasing the stool irregularity. Right. But does not have all these side benefits because it's not actually digestible, fermentable by a good gut bugs. It just kind of goes through us. And so we have yet to capture the complexity of the natural food matrix in actual kind of ill form as much as people have tried. And so, yeah, anytime some, you know, new study comes out saying berries are great for you, and it's probably these anthocyanin pigments, the bright, colorful Pigments in berries, then instantly supplement manufacturers like, boom. There's like anthocyanin supplements at every dose possible, of course, but the food form.
- [48:47]
A
Of these nutrients is the best form to get them.
- [48:49]
B
There have actually been studies that have actually put things head to head. So it's like, oh, I bet tomatoes are good because lycopene, that red pigment that, you know, that's why, you know, people, men who eat more tomato products have lower rates of prostate cancer. It's probably that lycopene. But when you actually give people lycopene supplements, it doesn't work. Wow. And so it's like, okay, well there's thousands of other things in tomatoes. Let's try something else. Right? But it doesn't stop people from making lycopene supplements.
- [49:15]
A
It's kind of all the ingredients combined in the tomato or the apple or whatever that, that gives you the, the full compounds that helps your body digest them.
- [49:24]
B
And in fact there's actually synergy. So when you take, there's a famous study that was done on pomegranate and you can fractionate out the pomegranate into, you know, different, based on kind of different compound weights. And when, so when you give you kind of drip, one component of pomegranates on cancer cells, going human cancer cells growing in a petri dish, you know, drops your growth like 20% and you do another combat. But then you add together and you have. And one plus one is greater than two in that they, they somehow work together and actually have greater drop than all the individual components. So really the whole. I mean I would like if there was a supplement, if there was a pill, if there. And there certainly are supplements out there that help people getting inadequate. Sunshine need to take vitamin D and alcoholics everything. And pregnant women have certain. I mean there's absolutely needs for supplements, right? But there's in terms of longevity, in terms of like I went through and I went into this book thinking I would be recommending some of these supplements that have really made a lot of news just because, you know, I'd heard such positive things about them. But when you look in the literature, and I would love to because it's like that's such a great hook. Like take this one supplement and it's got to do X. I would love to be able to say that. But they fell one by one. Boom, boom, boom.
- [50:39]
A
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- [52:08]
B
But what I did find is that these just random foods I had never heard about like cardamom or you know, strawberries, one example or, or mushrooms have these things that I. And there's just like normal natural foods had these extraordinary effects. It's kind of not as sexy. You can't just like take it a little bill, but in one hand, look, it's, it's delicious. Like you're. I mean it's not as convenient. Right, right. But again it really comes down to the food and it's just not a lot of money to be made and it's just. And so we just don't hear about these studies because there's just no corporate budget driving us for motion.
- [52:42]
A
Yeah, this is fascinating, man. This is powerful stuff. I've recently heard more about glucose. This is becoming, you know, more popularized online or at least talked about in the media more as kind of like the more your glucose spikes throughout the day, the faster you age as well. I don't know if you've seen anything in the studies around that.
- [53:01]
B
No, no.
- [53:01]
A
And I've also heard from some Experts that either having a little bit of vinegar in the morning or before a meal helps decrease the spike in glucose. Is that an accurate finding that you've seen too?
- [53:14]
B
I've got a whole chapter on glycation, one of the aging pathways. And recommend two teaspoons of vinegar with every meal. That's one of the. Absolutely. And one of the reasons is because it. What does this amp something called ampk. Because the. The vinegar is acetic acid in water by definition. And the. By metabolizing the acetic acid requires energy. And that energy drain actually bumps up ampk, which is boosted by exercise, boosted by calorie restriction. It's one of the kind of anti aging pathways. And we can get that boost by just simple vinegar. And it decreases our blood sugars, decreases body fat. You can randomize people to get vinegar to get to. They did vinegar drinks sound kind of gross, but they used acetic acid versus another kind of acid. Tasted exactly the same, but it wasn't acetic acid. And saw a significant difference in visceral body fat, which is the most dangerous body fat coiled around our internal organs, infiltrating our organs. And they did CT scans. I mean, the conscious people randomized to different kinds of. Different kinds of, well, one vinegar or placebo vinegar. And they did this and saw significant loss pounds of body fat.
- [54:24]
A
Different.
- [54:25]
B
Same amount of calories. Same amount of calories by having vinegar. Vinegar. Vinegar. Now the problem with. The problem with the vinegar strategy is that it gets cleared from our system within 46 hours. That's why you really got to do it at every meal if you want to get that constant.
- [54:37]
A
Every meal.
- [54:38]
B
I know. Okay, so how do you do it? How do you do it?
- [54:40]
A
Tell me.
- [54:41]
B
So you can like, you put it.
- [54:42]
A
In a tall glass of water. You pour a little bit. Yeah.
- [54:44]
B
So put in some tea, dilute it. Put in some water. You got to. In fact, it can be dangerous taking straight. You can burn your esophagus. So very important, do not drink vinegar straight.
- [54:54]
A
Wow.
- [54:54]
B
Sprinkle it on a salad. Sprinkle. There's all these flavored balsamics out there. So with savory sweet, there's like dark chocolate balsamic. There's, you know, Italian seasoning balsamic. So you can get curry, there's ginger, there's.
- [55:07]
A
Or you just do apple cider vinegar.
- [55:09]
B
Totally apple cider cider.
- [55:10]
A
Put it in water.
- [55:11]
B
In fact, you can get the benefits from white distilled vinegar that they use for cleaning the bathroom floor. I mean, so because it's the acetic acid. But just in terms of making things flavorful, making things fun, there's ways to add it to your meals that, I mean, it sounds kind of gross to begin with, but you just kind of get, you just find creative ways to include vinegar. And it has significant effects on long.
- [55:31]
A
Term blood sugar and on fat loss too.
- [55:32]
B
And on fat loss. And the. Not just any kind of fat loss, visceral fat loss. I mean, people hate that jiggly superficial fat, but that actually has very little metabolic implications. You can do massive liposuctions on people. Get rid of that, get literally over a dozen pounds of that superficial fat. No effect on metabolism, no effect on insulin resistance, no effect on triglycerides, no effect. If you lost that many pounds of fat, period, like if you were doing exercise, you're doing better diet, you would get tons of benefits. But that superficial fact that we hate seeing in the mirror, that's not what we should worry about.
- [56:05]
A
Internal fat, right?
- [56:06]
B
Look, if you want it for cosmetic purposes, whatever, but it's that internal visceral fat coiled around our organs under the abdominal musculature that's kind of bulging out the belly. That's the serious stuff. The good news is your body's smart enough to know that's the most dangerous fat. And when you lose weight, that's the first fat to go. So it's preference. That's why people lose fat. They're like, why is my arm still jiggly? I've been losing all this weight. It's because your body's smart enough to know, look, we'll get there. Let's do the important stuff first.
- [56:35]
A
Wow. So what would you say the main keys of losing fat, visceral fat and kind of the external fat?
- [56:44]
B
Well, the single intervention that created the greatest loss of body fat, that didn't restrict calories. Obviously you can lock someone across, you can lose, starve someone, Right. Or you can change someone to a treadmill. Right? Okay, but that no exercise component and no calorie restriction, no portion restriction. Eat as much as you want. The most effective body fat at 6 months and 12 months was this whole food plant based diet, was centering your diets around and it's really kind of a, a calorie density factor.
- [57:19]
A
I mean, these are not a restriction.
- [57:21]
B
It's not restriction.
- [57:22]
A
Eat as much as you want.
- [57:22]
B
Right? But there's so few calories per pound, per mouthful, per plate in these foods because it's like you could eat a wheel barrel of leafy greens, you couldn't even maintain your weight. Weight, I mean, you literally could not fit enough in your stomach. You only have. You can only fit about a quart of food in your stomach at a time. And so, like, you know, that's, you know, you can get 2,000 calories. You ate, you know, two pints of strawberry ice cream. That would fill up your stomach. You'd be full. And you get over 2000 calories. All the calories you need for the day to do that same thing with strawberries, 44 cups, 44 cups of strawberries to get 2,000 calories, like you couldn't even fit. That's like filling your stomach to bursting 11 times a day. You couldn't even do it physically. Right. And that's this concept of calorie density. And so that's why, you know, something like oil, you know, people drizzle oil on something.
- [58:06]
A
A lot of calories.
- [58:07]
B
That is the single most calorie dense food on the planet. Even butter has a little water in it. So it doesn't have that much calories. 1 tablespoon, 120 calories. 120. So you drizzle it on, you wouldn't even taste it. I mean, you'd see it'll be a little glistening or something. You just add 120 calories. What are you crazy? For that same 100 calories, you could add like, you know, two cups of blackberries or something. That would actually fill you up a little bit. Right. And think all the nutrition you'd get with that, Right. Instead, I mean, oil may have some fat, solvents, a little vitamins E or something, but I mean, the nutrition has really been stripped away. Right. And so, and so, so the caloric density. So by staying away from junk food, which is designed to have maximum calories per bite, you know, that can find the fat and the sugar to just absolutely, like have teeny little, you know, you get 100 calories just a teeny little bit. You have these massive platefuls of food, eat all you want and not have to worry about it. And that's really. And then you're just getting mountains of nutrition for actually very few calories. And so you can facilitate weight loss in a healthy way. I mean, you know, the goal of weight loss is not to fit into a skinnier casket. Right?
- [59:11]
A
Right.
- [59:12]
B
Not to make it lighter for your pallbearers. Like, we want healthy. How about we lose weight in a way that doesn't mortgage our health, you know? Wow.
- [59:20]
A
Yeah. And when you get these calorie dense foods with all the nutritional value, it sounds like there's so much healing properties within these foods that allow your system to self regulate your skin, to recover your gut, to recover your brain, to start functioning better. Isn't that right?
- [59:39]
B
And calorie dilute foods. Not calorie dense foods. Foods.
- [59:42]
A
Sorry, not.
- [59:43]
B
That is the junk food. Right.
- [59:45]
A
So not calorie dense, but calorie.
- [59:47]
B
We want nutrient dense, nutrient dense, nutrient dense, lots of nutrients. Nutrition per calorie. And so what has more nutrition per calorie than anything on planet Earth? These dark green leafy vegetables. Right. Massive amounts of nutrition actually for Verdal has those nitrates, those athletic, performance enhancing, ergogenic nitrates actually helps slow our metabolic rate. And the candle that burns half as bright burns twice as long. That's the other food associated with literally living years longer. Dark green leafy vegetables. Nuts. Dark green leafy vegetables. Well, and we think it's because the nitrates, normally you only get that kind of metabolic slowing with our resting metabolic rate with severe caloric restriction. But instead of walking around starving all the time, you can just eat a big salad.
- [60:30]
A
This is exciting. This is exciting. So we mentioned intermittent fasting. You know, eat in the morning, don't skip breakfast if you're going to do that.
- [60:42]
B
Most important meal of the day, really. Most important meal of the thing.
- [60:45]
A
This is what doctors were saying for many years. Yes, don't skip breakfast. But then in the last seven years, everyone's saying doctors were wrong. Yeah, yeah, Skip breakfast. Allow the body to have autophagy. Allow the cells, you know, extend the window where you're not eating as long as you can. And that's been the new science or the new studies that have been out where, you know, skipping breakfast is actually better for you because it's boosting testosterone, it's doing all these other things.
- [61:14]
B
So I talk about that backlash, that back and forth. I actually have videos about it. It's so funny because you start out the video be like, yeah, breakfast. And they're like, oh, okay, breakfast. Oh. And then we're back to the beginning. It's so funny and so many things in the book like that, like wheat germ or something that's like, didn't that go away in like the 70s, right? Like the health.
- [61:32]
A
Sure.
- [61:33]
B
And then it's like, oh. Then we. Then there's this thing called spermidine and it's most concentrated in wheat germ. Out of all things, all of a sudden wheat germ is like back on the menu. But it's just so funny. There's like this. We had some Kind of ancient wisdom, even before we knew why that did actually support these foods. So yeah, no, it turns out now it's true about that feeding window. We do want to try to squeeze it. But critically important is when we're in that lunch, we early time restricted because.
- [61:56]
A
Of the circadian rhythm.
- [61:57]
B
That's it. You got it.
- [62:00]
A
So what is the difference between I guess, bad cells and zombie cells?
- [62:04]
B
Ah, this is cellular senescence. So this is one of the aging pathways that cover 11 aging pathways, kind of our 11 best opportunities for slowing the sands of time, ending each with kind of impractical takeaways. It does. This is the part one of the book. It is the kind of the nerdy section. It goes really deep into kind of the interesting biology mechanisms, but you know, really do kind of like, okay, but here's the bottom line. You can skip all this, you know, this is the foods to eat, this is the, you know, activity to do, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, and the Silas and Essence chapter, very fascinating. So our cells in our body only divide about a hundred times before they stall out. This is the so called Hayflick limit. We used to think cells just kind of, you know, divided forever, but they only divide 50 times. And this is good because that's a protection against cancer. We want cells to naturally kind of put themselves out to pasture, being replaced by new cells from the stem cells.
- [62:58]
A
Right.
- [62:59]
B
And you know, cells can become damaged along the way. Okay. So the only. And so at the end of those about 50 doublings, what the cells do is they release these inflammatory mediators which signals the immune system to come and kill them. Basically come and wipe them out. This is basically their kind of little suicide where they're like, okay, so they release these inflammatory compounds, signal the immune system and it comes and clears out these so called zombie cells that are no longer participating in the body actively spewing this what's called senescence associated sasplay. But okay, the problem is this works great when we're young. Unfortunately, our immune system starts to decline with age. And so what happens is our immune system's ability to clear out these cells declines such that our body's tissues get littered with these senescent cells spewing out inflammation. And one of the reasons why levels of inflammation climb with age. So you can do these kind of blood tests of systemic inflammation like C. Reactive protein and, and you know, tumor necrosis factor IL6, et cetera. And they all go up. And so there's a term inflammating that's and a big Part of this is these, is these cells which our body should get rid of. But unfortunately our ability to, to do that declines with age. And so two pronged approach. First, we prevent cells from going prematurely senescent, so they should make it to 50. But if they suffer damage to their DNA from free radicals, from oxidative damage to their DNA as a protective mechanism because it could cause mutations or something, they kind of go out to pass your. And so we can decrease oxidative stress by flooding our body with antioxidant rich foods like the berries and greens and really healthy foods. Okay, so one, so we prevent the premature senescence. That's the first thing. And the second is we look for senolytic compounds, ways to clear these zombie cells from our bodies. There's been a number of drugs that have been put to the test. Unfortunately, these drugs have kind of some severe side effects. And so there are certain, certain medical conditions in which senescent cells play a key role, in which case the benefit risk analysis might actually support use of some of these toxic drugs. But for kind of the general public, we're really left with senolytic compounds in natural foods. There are three of them that have been shown to clear senescent cells in the body. One is Facetin, which is really only found one place in concentrated form and that's the strawberries. So that's why I end up in the book in that chapter recommending fresh frozen or freeze dried strawberries into your daily diet. Now normally I would have put like, if you're putting some on your oatmeal or something, I would have put like blackberries. Blackberries have five times the antioxidants of strawberries. So look, if you like them both, you know, why not. But, but I didn't know about facetin, which is really only found in strawberries. So if you're not eating strawberries, you're really not getting into your, into your daily diet. And so I've been eating a lot more strawberries. Okay, the second some called quercetin. Quercetin is found in onions, kale, tea and capers and actually play a role in Mediterranean diet help. And so, and that helps explain these remarkable studies where they give people onions and see remarkable benefits. Literally within an hour. You know, you can randomize people done eating onions. In fact, you randomize people to eat high croisset and onions versus bread to be low croisset and onions and show that it does appear to be this one compound. And so of course there's corset and supplements Everywhere, it's not clear.
- [66:34]
A
We don't know what's the best onion.
- [66:36]
B
Well, it's the. So it's actually lowest in the, in the sweet onions. So like the, of course, like the tastiest onions is slow amount. So like the. Okay, but. So yellow onions have more. Red onions have the most.
- [66:49]
A
So red onions are better than red.
- [66:51]
B
Onions really are the best. So look, and look, you can basically anything you can do with a red onion, a white onion, do a red onion. So it's like this is no excuse. Same thing with cabbage. If you're making some with cabbage, don't go for green cabbage, go for red or purple. Cabbage has these anthocyanin buried pigments. One of the cheapest sources of these berry pigments is in red purple cabbage. Right. Super cheap. And you get those benefits for brain function, eyesight, artery function, inflammation, blood sugar, cholesterol. You get those berry benefits in this.
- [67:20]
A
Kind of savory form is raw or cooked red onions.
- [67:25]
B
Either way, either way it's stable. Your breath, your partner may. In fact, you need to find. I mean, your entire. Your sweat can start. I mean, you can really.
- [67:35]
A
Right, right.
- [67:36]
B
You can really start smelling like I.
- [67:38]
A
But has there become like too much like, you know, if you have a.
- [67:40]
B
Half an onion, there's only, there's only a concern in, in supplement form. So where it's like you could not eat this many onions and then we, then we're playing with fire. But yeah, there's never been any. In fact, some of these benefits, some of these remarkable clinical benefits were seen after eating like 12 onions a day. I don't know how one does that without. Wow. I mean, that's, that's, that, that's a lot. But you can get benefit even from literally a teaspoon of chopped onions. You can get, you can get.
- [68:05]
A
Put it on your food and just.
- [68:06]
B
Eat it, sprinkle it. Onion. Right, right. So, and so, and this is all the Allium family vegetables. So it could be like green onions or, you know, so like scallions or onions, garlic. It's all in this kind of same family. And they have these, these, this, this beneficial compound. The third compound, it's a tough one to get. It's called pepper longamine. Only found really in one place, which is something called poly or long pepper. It's in the black pepper family. You get a Middle Eastern spice stores, and it's basically kind of tastes like black pepper with a little kind of Szechuan heat to it, but it's a single little Compound you really can't find anywhere else. So I encourage people to put some of that in their pepper grinder to add that to their daily diet. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing.
- [68:48]
A
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- [70:22]
B
Oh yeah.
- [70:23]
A
In medical school school, they don't teach you this stuff.
- [70:25]
B
They don't. They don't even teach you the basics.
- [70:28]
A
Right? They don't teach you about nutrition, they don't teach you about foods. None of that, Right. Maybe there's like one hour class on this stuff I hear from other doctors. So how did you get into this world of nutritional science as well? When most people today look at doctors skeptically when they're speaking about this because they think, oh, they're not a nutritionist, they're not a scientist around foods. So how did you get into this world?
- [70:55]
B
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. In fact, having an MD after your name is basically advertising the world that you know nothing about nutrition. That you are completely ignorant about the entire field of nutrition. So the average doctor these days gets four hours of nutrition training out of thousands of hours of pre clinical instruction. Actually chose the medical school with the largest nutrition training in the country. They actually have a nutrition school at Tufts. 19 hours, but that's the most out of thousands of hours.
- [71:20]
A
Right.
- [71:21]
B
And most of it is basic biochemistry of vitamins and like scurvy pellagra stuff we don't even see anymore. And it's like, like carb cycle. So it's not, I see clinical nutrition using nutrition diet to actually prevent arrest, reverse disease that's missing in even those few hours that people get. Okay? And so then doctors graduate with this, without this powerful tool in their medical toolbox to actually heal, to actually help people. Instead, you know, for about 80% that walks into a primary care doctor's office, are these chronic diseases, lifestyle diseases like the high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes and the obesity and the heart disease. And yes, we have drugs that can slow down the rate at which our diabetics go blind and lose their kidney function and lose their lower limbs, but not reversing it, but not actually make our patients better. That's why we went to medical school. Right. We want to actually heal people, but instead, I mean, it's just so frustrating because unless you treat the cause, the underlying cause, you're not actually going to reverse the disease. Right? The root cause. But that's the exciting thing about lifestyle medicine. Okay, so how did I get into this whole lifestyle medicine thing? Proud to be a founder of the American College, a co founder of American College of Lifestyle Medicine, now the fastest growing medical specialty in the country. Very exciting. Okay. It all started with my grandmother. I was just a kid when my grandma was sent home in a wheelchair, basically to die with end stage heart disease. She already had so many bypass surgeries, she basically kind of run out of plumbing at some point. So confined to a wheelchair, crushing chest pain, her life was over at age 65.
- [72:59]
A
Oh, man.
- [73:02]
B
And then she heard about this guy, Nathan Pritikin, one of our early lifestyle medicine pioneers. And what happened next is actually detailed in Pritikin's biography. It talks about Francis Greger, my grandmother, they wheeled her in and she walked out. Though she was given her medical death sentence at age 65, thanks to a healthy diet, she was able to enjoy another 31 years on this planet till age 96 to continue to enjoy her six grandkids, including me. That's why I went into medicine. That's why I practice lifestyle medicine. Why I started the website nutritionfacts.org, why I wrote the book how not to Die, why all the proceeds from all my books are donated directly to charity. I just want to do for everyone's family what Pritikin did for my family.
- [73:46]
A
Wow. Now, did you think about that going into medical school?
- [73:49]
B
Absolutely. That was a. And so you knew going to medical.
- [73:52]
A
School, they're not teaching me the things I still need to know.
- [73:54]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [73:55]
A
So when did you learn all the stuff about lifestyle, nutrition, diet, foods, Was it all after medical school?
- [74:04]
B
No, the big pivot was in 1990, before medical school even started. And that was the publication of the Lifestyle Heart Trial from Dean Ornish and colleagues. So what Pritkin was doing, he was reversing heart disease by the thousands. But back then, we did not have the technology to actually look inside people's arteries. So it was a clinical diagnosis. You have chest pain, when you walk upstairs, you got heart disease, okay. So we put you on drugs and we cut your chest open, we do bypass, we stents, whatever. Okay. Then Pritikin would take these people and then put them on his diet and lifestyle program, and all of a sudden, chest pain goes away. And so he reversed heart disease. Now, the medical profession was like, no, no, no. Heart disease gets worse, worse, worse till you die. That's what the thinking at the time. And so if your patient is fine, he never had heart disease in the first place, Right. So it must have just. Right. Must have been something else. And so that was. So he was kind of remained on the fringe until Dr. Dean Ornish came along. He used something called quantitative angiography, where you actually, you, you inject a radiopaque dye into the arteries, right? You do these X rays, you can actually see the inside of the arteries. And so for the first time was able to prove the reversal of heart disease. Opening up arteries without drugs, without surgery, just a healthy plant based diet and exercise. And so that was really. And it was published in the most prestigious medical journal in the world. So it was like unassailable science, randomized controlled trials. Of course, the people in the control group who were told to continue to eat whatever their doctors told them to eat, continue to get worse, that's what happens normally. Whereas you got this reversal on average in those. And so it's the only diet ever been proven to reverse the progression of heart disease in the majority of patients. So it's like, look, if that's all a plant based diet could do, reverse the number one killer of men and women, like, shouldn't that be kind of the default diet until proven otherwise. And the fact that can also be so effective preventing, arresting, reversing other leading killers like high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, which silly make the case for, you know, plant based eating, really kind of unassailable at this point. And so, but then here I am. So now I had already knew about this from my grandma, right? But here it was in black and white, published in, you know, the most prestigious medical journal. So and so, you know, you just imagine all of medicine changing. Here we are decades later, that was 1990. Over three decades later, hundreds of thousands of Americans continued to die from heart disease, a preventable, arrestable, sometimes even reversible condition, which we've known about for decades. Just because this is yet to really penetrate into the medical field. And that's because of the incentives are wrong actually. You know, hospitals make money cutting people open and these are the golden goo for big pharma lifestyle drugs where instead of 10 days on an antibiotic to save your life, it's take a drug every single day for the rest of your life. That's how you make money, right? But the only drug you need that for is these lifestyle diseases where if you continue to treat yourself like this, well of course you need something. And look, if you refuse to improve your life, then these drugs can be life saving. I mean, so, but even better, why not try to reverse the, the disease by treating the underlying cause in the first place?
- [77:21]
A
So when you finish medical school, did you start going right into this nutritional side of learning as well?
- [77:26]
B
Well, so I, yeah, so I started out in clinical practice, like, but then I realized, like, even though, you know, I don't know how, how many people you could pack into a day, you know, how many people am I reaching? Right. So people are dying everywhere. And so then I, so I started, you know, giving lectures and going around to medical schools and trying to train the kind of next generation of doctors. But even then, like how many people can you reach in a night? You know, you can reach hundreds, right? So then I started, this is actually so long ago, it was like a VHS series. Started making, well, why don't I tape these lectures, right? And then send out these VHS taste restricted DVDs until finally was able to put it online.
- [78:03]
A
Yeah, of course.
- [78:04]
B
And then can reach millions with that same kind of message. So now I'm so had to give up the clinical practice. So I feel like I'm still practicing medicine, but just on a kind of broader scale. Writing, research, speaking, all that just Getting this information out there, it's like, in a certain sense we really don't need any more research. Like we have enough to like save so many lives. And there's always unanswered questions and I love the research, but we have enough now to really reverse the course of the way our country's headed.
- [78:32]
A
So was a lot of your learning then based on just studying research papers and clinical trials and some of that and then kind of assimilating the research and saying, hey, this is the findings. Why don't we start trying these things with patients and see the results?
- [78:46]
B
Yeah. So it's all really the gold standard of what we know in medicine comes from the so called peer reviewed medical literature. Right. So these are the studies in these peer reviewed medical journals where at least this kind of bar to entry, like on the Internet you can say anything. Right? Right. Earth is flat, whatever. Right. And look, you can say there's crazy things published in the pear reviewed literature as well, but at least there's kind of a barred entry where fellow scientists actually look at your work with kind of a skeptical eye and make sure you just like not totally making stuff out of whole cloth. Right. And so that's where we look to. And so there's been decades, decades of this, this mountain of research building up, but it just hadn't, hasn't kind of gotten over to the general public again just because there's not money to be made. Right. So new blockbuster drug. Oh my God. There is a press release, there is ads on Facebook, commercials, marketing, everybody knows about the new drug which could have even a fraction of the benefit as the. And so I feel like we were in a very similar situation to kind of smoking in the 50s.
- [79:43]
A
In the 50s we had already literally doctor recommended cigarettes.
- [79:47]
B
Decades of research starting in the 30s linking lung cancer and smoking. And so yet the average per capita cigarette consumption in the 1950s, 4,000 cigarettes a year, meaning the average person walking around smoked half pack of dates, average. Most doctors smoked, the media was telling people to smoke. The American Medical association said smoking in moderation, that was fine. Right, right. And so by the time 1964, when the first Surgeon General's report came out and smoking rates went up, up, up till 1964, then, in one of the most remarkable public health victories of all time, basically smoking rates have come down every year since, and down this tumbling lung cancer rates. It's just the most beautiful graphs in all public health. And what happened in 1964, the first Surgeon General's report, Just this acknowledgement by the powers that be that, okay, yeah, smoking isn't good for you. And they cited 7,000 studies. Right. So you think maybe after the first 6,000 studies could give people a little heads up or something. Right. So, but up until. So I feel like we're in the same situation today where there's this absolute mount of evidence. It just has yet to kind of make it into the public consciousness, make it kind of bypass these barriers into. And so that was really like, that's my role is I'm going to take. Right. It's not, it's not me saying this, right. It's just like this is what the established science is already there, but there's just kind of no sexy money to be made.
- [81:15]
A
Right.
- [81:15]
B
And it doesn't make those headlines. No one wants to see broccoli on the COVID of a bar. Right. It's just like, it's like has everything working against it except who profits? The people. I mean, you. The people profit. Your family profits.
- [81:28]
A
Longevity profits.
- [81:29]
B
So that. And so, and so that it's just crossing that gap, getting that information out to the public.
- [81:35]
A
I mean, you mentioned that 1964 was when, you know, they came out and said smoke is essentially bad for you.
- [81:41]
B
Right.
- [81:42]
A
60 years ago. Is that right? 60 years ago, we. It seems to me like 80% of Americans know that sugar and processed foods are not healthy for you. It seems to me by now there's enough information out there that people at least have that awareness. But they stopped, they haven't stopped consumption.
- [82:05]
B
The behavior.
- [82:07]
A
What do you think it's going to take for people to change the behavior and the habits to consume healthier foods so they can actually live longer as opposed to suck to the addiction of feeling and tasting good.
- [82:20]
B
Right, right. Well, you know, towards the end there with the smoking, the, the. In the smoking crisis, most smokers had an inkling that smoking is not good for you. But what the industry's tact was was just to muddy the waters. They knew they were going to lose in the end. They're going to confuse you. Right. And so, in fact, there's this famous memo which was uncovered in the tobacco trials. This internal memoir called Doubt is Our Product. So this is a PR company that worked with Phil Morse to. We don't have to convince people smoking is good for you. We lost that. Okay. All we have to do is introduce that. Yeah, maybe it causes lung cancer, maybe it doesn't. Right. And that's all you need for someone who's addicted to smoking to be like, well, look, they say it's okay, Right. And so now the same thing, right? It's like we are bombarded by ads for fast food, for junk food, for candy, for soda, right? At the same time, the science is so clear, but we're getting these mixed messages. And you know, when you're. Everybody wants to hear good news about their bad habits, right? And so when there's like, well, this person says alcohol's good for you. I mean, right? And so even if all these people. And so that's all you need is that is it. And then you just kind of continue down your path. Right? And so that's what the 1964 did, was just like, okay, there's scientific consensus now. Anyone who's telling you that smoking is not bad for you is a paid shill of the industry. And it's like this is, like this is the established science. Although, you know, it's hard to imagine that even happening these days. What if the cdc, the government came out and said, you know, yeah, it turns out that processed meat, big and hot dogs, lunch meat, we determined that they increase the risk of colorectal cancer. In fact, it's a known human carcinogen. It's true. Group one carcinogenic, meaning we're as sure that processed meat causes colorectal cancer as we are that plutonium causes cancer and tobacco cause cancer, asbestos cause cancer. We are sure it causes cancer. Yet, you know, we're sending kids to school with a bologna sandwich or something. Right? We, we wouldn't maybe smoke around our kids now, but we're sending. And colorectal cancer is the single deadliest cancer among non smokers. That's our number one can if you don't smoke, your number one cancer nemesis in terms of dying, colorectal rectal cancer. And right. And we. Okay, so, so this, this science has been established, has not yet. But what if the cdc, the government finally came out, Put it on their website. Okay. Yeah, Process me. We probably shouldn't be feeding this to people in today's media world. You know, back then, like we like to. I mean, certainly me, I like to think of the Internet as this right. Democratizing force. Like, you know, we all this idealistic view of like now, like the truth is gonna float to the surface, right. If everybody in free marketplace of ideas. Right. And so, you know, back in the night, back in the 1950s, tobacco could absolutely control the message. They can pay off the doctors. In fact, the American Medical association, even after 1964, even after the surgeon general report came out, they refused to endorse it. And it turns out later they got a $10 million check for the tobacco industry.
- [85:25]
A
Wow.
- [85:25]
B
Which they didn't disclose. Anyway. Okay, so look, you can pay off the doctors, you can control the message, you control the media right now, which is in part good. There's no longer that kind of monopolistic control of the message. Right.
- [85:38]
A
But there's confusion.
- [85:39]
B
But what you. It's replaced with. With confusion. So even if these days we had the quote, unquote authorities, the experts that came out and said xyz, a lot of people wouldn't believe them now for good, for good reason in many cases because there's been so many, you know, terrible, you know, you know, crises with drugs that were promoted and then turned out to be terrible and pulled from the market. And look, all the authorities were telling people to use these drugs anyway, so. So it's hard to imagine a similar kind of aha moment with diet that we saw with this kind of clear Surgeon General thing. And so there's always going to be the sugar pushers and there's always going to be these people that are muddying the waters just enough to introduce enough doubt that people will kind of throw up their hands and eat whatever crap's put in front of them, which is how the industry makes money.
- [86:34]
A
I've got a few questions for you left, but I'm excited for people to check out your book, how not to Age, the scientific approach to getting healthier as you get older. And I think a lot of people think about, you know, how do I make my biological age. Right. Reverse, essentially. You can't reverse chronological age.
- [86:53]
B
Right, Right.
- [86:54]
A
But how do we make our cells younger? Right. How do we make our body, our cells younger? Is that the difference between the chronological and biological age?
- [87:02]
B
Exactly. Right. There's the calendar age. It just keeps going forward until we get a DeLorean or something. But then there's the. Right. But just because we happen to have this many birthdays doesn't necessarily mean our body is functioning as if it could be worse. We get to be. Have accelerated aging and that we really should have the heart and the kidneys and the liver of a 50 year old, but they're actually functioning like a 60 year old. Wow. Right. We actually have the muscle mass of a 60 year old. We actually have that. Or alternately, we take care of ourselves and we have tremendous power over this leeway. Or yeah, I've had 50 birthdays, but, you know, I have the aerobic capacity of a 40 year old. Or are they, I mean, all these benefits and so that's this difference. And so there's lots of different ways to measure biological aging. And so just a fascinating field of science, but, but, but the bottom line is that we really have tremendous control over that leeway. That's cool and literally just. And, and it's never too late.
- [87:59]
A
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- [90:12]
B
I mean, so there's the first studies that came out is like, okay, well if you start at age 20 and you do the X, Y and z, by age 50, you'll have all these benefits. And it's like, yeah, that's great. But tell. You should have told me that 30 years ago. Right, okay. But then they found, wait a second, Even in the 80s, this is the latest that's been done. But Even in people's 80s, there's still literally years left on the table, healthy years left on the table just by simple basic lifestyle changes. And so those few things I mentioned before, not being obese, not smoking, regular aerobic exercise and more fruits and vegetables can over the, over the subsequent four years, if you're between the ages of 45 and 64, decrease your risk of all cause mortality by 40%, meaning your risk of dying by anything over the next four years. By 20, 28, you want to risk, reduce your risk by 40%. Just do those four things. I mean, that's, that's. I mean, so that's like we have tremendous power over, you know, look, you still get hit by a bus. I mean, there's lots of things. You still gotta wear our seatbelts, smoke alarms, all that. Right. But in terms of what's the most common cause of death? Actually, we have so much control and unfortunately we just don't hear that message.
- [91:21]
A
What are the four main things?
- [91:22]
B
Okay, so not smoking, not being obese, regular exercise, which really comes out to like 22 minutes a day, which was what the, the cutoff point was. And five daily servings of fruits and vegetables minimum. Right. And that's not. So that's not a lot. And we're not talking about cutting out meat. We're not talking about like any of these, like dramatic changes. Not all or nothing. Like just like these really core kind of. Yeah, we heard about five fruits and vegetables, but it's like, wow. I mean, that makes this massive amount of difference. Now you want to go beyond that and like, you know, tweak even further. Yeah, we got. Also there's certain fruits and vegetables that are even better than other fruits and vegetables. But let's not get lost in the weeds here.
- [92:01]
A
Just do these simple things.
- [92:02]
B
Let's do the simple things. That'll get us most of the way there.
- [92:05]
A
Wow, this is fascinating, Michael. I'm so grateful for your excitement and passion around this and your wisdom and knowledge. A couple final questions. This one is something I ask everyone towards the end of our conversations. It's called the three Truths. So I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical scenario. You get to live as long as you want to live. You get to continue to write all the books and speak, you know, 200 times a year, like you do a lot of the times, to spread this message and you experience life the way you want to. All your dreams come true, but it's the last day for you. Far in the distance.
- [92:39]
B
Yeah.
- [92:40]
A
And in this hypothetical scenario, on your last day, you have to take all of your work with you. No one has access to this book or this conversation or anything you've ever written or said, ever.
- [92:51]
B
Oh, you're killing me.
- [92:52]
A
It's gone to another place.
- [92:53]
B
Okay.
- [92:54]
A
But before you die, you get to leave three things behind. Three lessons, three truths. It could be about your work. It could be about personal life. It could be about whatever you believe that you would want to leave behind. These three lessons to the world. What would be those three truths for you?
- [93:14]
B
Well, I mean, certainly a truth for me. You know, it's always hard to give advice to other people, right? Obviously. But it's certainly been true for me is my. What I've dedicated my life to, this kind of reducing unnecessary suffering in the world that has given me having that. Having that, that. That motivation, having that vision, having that base truth in my life has like, so even if all my good works were to nothing, it would have benefited me to have woke up every day and been able to look myself in the mirror and be like, you know, there's just so many horrible things happening in the world. But, like, I did my part, like. And so that would be the message. It's like if you can configure your life to not just do what you're good at and not just to, you know, but to do. To do something meaningful for others and to kind of look outside yourself if you can. Look, there's so many people struggling with basic. You know, I had this privilege to ability to be able to look outside because I had my basic needs met. But so that. That would definitely be one of the truths is. Is to, you know, incorporate some kind of selfless acts. Look, and that could be philanthropy. Right? I mean, you could be, you know, it doesn't have to mean devoting your career.
- [94:36]
A
Sure, sure.
- [94:37]
B
But, you know, like tithing, you know, even 10% to.
- [94:40]
A
Yes.
- [94:41]
B
You know, there's so much we could do with, you know, like bed nets for malaria and stuff. You can save, literally save people's lives for, you know, small amounts of money. Right. If you actually saved someone's life, if you went into a burning Building and you pulled out some kid, that would be the biggest day of your life. Like that you would remember that. That would be like your crowning achievement. You would never have.
- [95:01]
A
Your life would have been worth it.
- [95:02]
B
Right? You can do that with a check these days because now we have a system where we can get money anywhere in the world, to places that really need it. We have preventable diseases and we have tremendous poverty that can be alleviated. And it's like, that's this amazing. We have this amazing power that we never really had in our species before to help. You know, we have this tendency obviously to help people around us. People are close to us, we see something and we want to reach out to something local. I totally understand that. But I mean, you know, poverty here is nothing like poverty. Some places in the world and one's dollar can go so much farther. And so that's, you know, that's another thing that I really learned is that you can help. I mean, you can, you can be that like crazy hero that actually saves somebody's life.
- [95:45]
A
Amazing.
- [95:46]
B
Regardless of what you do in your life by, you know, giving just a little bit, I'm like, we really have tremendous control. I know we don't like to think about these horrible things, but you know how you don't think about these little horrible things is you actually do something about it.
- [95:59]
A
Right.
- [95:59]
B
We don't want to think about it because we have this guilt, you know, and so you don't have the guilt when you feel like I am part of the solution.
- [96:05]
A
Taking action.
- [96:05]
B
Yeah, I am taking action. And I'm actually, in fact, I'm helping. And even if I could help more, and I'm not helping as much as I possibly could, look, I'm helping more than like 90% of the people around, like even given 10%, how many people actually give 10% of their income? Right. Particularly people who are making enough that they wouldn't really even notice the 10% at the end of the day. Yeah. And so the fact that, you know, there's this really, this beautiful culture of giving in this culture in this society. It just came back from Europe and there just really isn't this like thing of like donating to like non profits. And there's just not that kind of like, you know, the billionaires there are just like keeping all the money themselves, whereas, you know, billionaires here are doing these massive projects. And I know we love to hate on the building. Yeah, I know we hate on them. But, but I mean, they actually do some, some good things. They could do and we should be like applauding them when they do it and not just like you should get more.
- [97:01]
A
Exactly.
- [97:01]
B
Oh yeah. Okay. Well yeah. And they should.
- [97:04]
A
But yeah, yeah, of course. Okay. So that's your first one.
- [97:07]
B
Okay. So first through live to your values and. And then the second one you can. I. I mean we, if we want to separate that out to actually act on those values, even if it's not in a career you can do it with, with money, with resources. Another core core truth. Third truth could give me a. A truth that is. Is. Is in all that otherworldly thinking you, you need to hold a place for love, self love and not only self love but you know, surrounding your people and having, surrounding yourself. And we're just kind of, we're these social beings. We just evolved to be, you know, to be able to have to have that. And as much as like, you know, I'm just like workaholic for the whatever. I've really learned too late in life, I'm afraid really. And that you know, I really have to. You know, you put on your own mask before you help others. And it's not because you're selfish. It's because you can't help others if you're not taking care of yourself. And so. Yeah. And so making sure and so really cultivating love in your life.
- [98:23]
A
Wow.
- [98:25]
B
Is. Is something that I wish I would have emphasized earlier and almost. It almost seemed like selfish to me. Right. It's like what do you mean? I mean but there's so many people out there that I could be helping, right. To like put all my energies into like one person or into, you know, it seems almost like well of course, man, of course I want to help because I'm close to them. But it's like that almost seems like, you know, unfair. But, but the wisdom I've learned later, the truth that I would pass on to my earlier self would be to really. That has to be a priority. Wow. Because that's so much of that is life. It's from kind of a like a lifelong perspective. It's the feeling of the work I've done. But kind of on a day to day happiness like on a. Literally like how are you feeling right now on a day to day that's. It's the loving relationships in your life.
- [99:15]
A
Those are great truths. Those are beautiful. Do you have love in your life right now?
- [99:19]
B
I don't have enough love in my life unfortunately.
- [99:23]
A
So what action are you to take this year?
- [99:24]
B
Yeah, well, yeah, well that. Cultivate more love that has been. Yeah. Well, I mean, that. That. I mean, if this is. I'm a tough person. I'm a tough person to love just because, you know, I'm. I'm so kind of your time. I'm so neglectful of my. Of my relationships with friends and family as much as I love them, because there's just, like, the world's on fire that I can do something about it. And, like, I feel myself and the more uniquely positioned I am to help. Like, before, when I was a kid, it's like I'm. I'm like bulk mailing envelopes for the local, like, homeless, whatever, right? It's like. But, like, if I wasn't doing it, somebody else could do it. But the more I get, like, well.
- [100:03]
A
If I'm not doing specialized, right, it's.
- [100:05]
B
Like, well, if I'm not. If this. If I don't get this done, it's not like somebody else is just going to scoop swooping and do it. And so I feel this, like, additional burden to do it. But, so. But so speaking tour.
- [100:16]
A
This is your third trip. This is one of your most. If you go, I know three things to do in the world.
- [100:20]
B
I know. So. So that's. Well, so I'm gonna meet a lot of people on this speaking tour, and hopefully I will find the love of my life on the road.
- [100:30]
A
So you're setting that intention.
- [100:32]
B
I'm sending that intention out into the world.
- [100:34]
A
Okay, great.
- [100:35]
B
All right.
- [100:35]
A
There you go. Ah, but you could also do that with friends and family.
- [100:38]
B
I can also be a little more intentional.
- [100:40]
A
Right.
- [100:40]
B
It's true.
- [100:41]
A
It's hard when we get so obsessed into our mission.
- [100:44]
B
Yeah.
- [100:44]
A
It's hard to remember to text or call or, you know.
- [100:48]
B
Absolutely.
- [100:48]
A
I understand that feeling.
- [100:49]
B
I love you, mom.
- [100:50]
A
Yeah, that's good. It's good. Give her a call today.
- [100:54]
B
That's right. That's right.
- [100:57]
A
I want to acknowledge you, Michael, for your commitment to your mission, your commitment to wanting to put together great work where you're finding all the best research you can find and packaging it so we can understand it and, you know, sharing your findings so that we can hopefully live healthier, longer, better lives so that we can enjoy the fruits of connection and love with people around us. And I want to acknowledge you for acknowledging that as well. That's something you get to work on in your own life. I think, you know, saying that truth and. And owning it is a great thing to say. And so having that intention this year, I think I'm excited. Hopefully by the end of this year, you send me a photo, I'm rewarding back. And the love in your life, whether it's one person or friends or family, just more love in general.
- [101:43]
B
You get invite to the wedding.
- [101:44]
A
Let's go. Let's go. People can get the book how not to age the scientific approach to getting healthier as you get older. Make sure you guys grab a copy. You've got a few other great books as well. Where can we follow you, support you, and learn more about your work as well.
- [102:00]
B
So all my work is available free@nutrition facts.org there's no ads, no corporate sponsorship, strictly non commercial, not selling anything, just put up as a public service, as a labor of love, as a tribute to my grandmother.
- [102:13]
A
That's beautiful. That's so nice, man. I love it. Final question for you. What's your definition of greatness?
- [102:19]
B
Ah. Is. Is living true to your values? Living true to your values, whatever those values are, you know, you should do the right thing. But are you actually doing what you know, you're not like being convinced otherwise? No, no. You know what's right. And are you actually doing in the back of your mind right. You, you know, you could be a little bit, a little more true to your inner yourself, but are you actually doing it? Are you going all in on it? Right. Ah, ah, that's. That's greatness. It's like being your own superhero, basically. It's like. And no one knows what you're capable of but you. Yeah, then. And you know, and people could be like patting you on the back, oh my God, you did awesome. But you know, you could have studied a little more. You could have done this a little more. You. Okay, now it's that feeling that like, like. No, no, I, I put in the work and I. And I did. Absolutely. Look, I could have done better, but I, I don't have the capacity to do better. But I did the absolute best I could. That. And look who. It doesn't matter what the outcome is. Did you really do what, you know, it was possible. That's greatness.
- [103:28]
A
Michael, thanks so much for being here. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter and now it's time to go out there and do something great. The School of Greatness is sponsored by Capital One. Nowadays, most people subscribe to everything music, tv, even dog food. And it rocks. Until you have to manage it all. Which is where Capital One comes in. Capital One credit cardholders can easily track, block or cancel reoccurring charges right from the Capital One mobile app at no additional cost. With one sign in, you can manage all your subscriptions all in one place. Learn more@Capital1.com Subscriptions Terms and Conditions apply.
- [104:53]
B
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