Dwayne Johnson on His Health Journey—and Why Ownership of Our Health Matters

Mark Hyman, MD

Full Transcript

Automatically generated. Please forgive any typos or errors in the following transcript. It was generated by a third party and has not been subsequently reviewed by our team.

Dwayne Johnson
My grandfather was a tough guy. He had all these aches and pains, refused to go see the doctor. What was the pain? Cancer. It had metastasized to a point where there was just no going back.

Dwayne Johnson. The Rock.

Dr. Mark Hyman
DJ. He's here.

Dwayne Johnson
And he's getting personal about his health. I got this gut issue and he's like, what's going on? I said, I've seen doctors and I can't quite nail it. I can't quite fix it. It's in my digestion.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Even someone like you, like, eats really healthy and takes care care of himself, you had a lot of nutritional deficiency. Basically, things that are super easy to fix.

Dwayne Johnson
The noise comes in many forms. You're doing it wrong. There's gurus, there's influencers. Here's what's not noise, is data. And the data that, for example, a function of health can provide, Like, that's not noise.

That is real, it's data, it's factual, and you take that, that will inform how you move forward.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You said your health is a gift to your kids.

Dwayne Johnson
Right? That's right. It's the best gift that we can give.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Now, before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help everyone by my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects, to help you better understand, well, you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function Health for real time lab insights. And if you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, check out my membership community, the Hyman Hive. And if you're looking for curated and trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, visit my website at doctorhyman.com for my website store for a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested products.

Well, DJ, it's so good to have you on the podcast, man.

Dwayne Johnson
Welcome. To see you, Mark. Thank you, man.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Good to

Dwayne Johnson
see you too. Yeah. It's been a long time coming.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You've been someone who's been focused on your health and well-being, but you you all also struggle with with the healthcare system and getting the answers you needed and figuring out what's going on. And maybe you could share like how we got connected and and Yeah. How this all started with us and and and I just as transparency, like I'm your doctor so Of course. Was like a, you know, intimate conversation to everybody and he he told me to share a lot about, you know, what he learned and what he's found about himself. But how did you kind of end up in my lap?

Dwayne Johnson
So to speak. Right?

Dr. Mark Hyman
I'd like like Santa. That's right.

Dwayne Johnson
Santa Hyman. To start where where we started was So probably going on a couple years now and I was having some gut issues. And at that time you and I didn't know know each other and we have a common friend. We have a lot of common friends

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dwayne Johnson
Come to find out. But, we have a common friend in Ari Emanuel. And I was talking to Ari at the end of twenty twenty three.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dwayne Johnson
And we were just talking, we're talking about our stuff. He's been a long time business partner of mine, he's been my lead agent as well for years and years, decades. And I was talking to him about my gut and I said, man, I got this gut issue. And he's like, what's going on? I said, I've seen doctors and I can't quite nail it.

I can't quite fix it. It's in my digestion. I feel great and that's the odd thing, but I just can't crack it. Yeah. And he said, I'm gonna introduce you to a friend of mine.

His name is doctor Mark Hyman and I'm gonna connect you. And, as you know as you know Ari and anyone out there who knows Ari, these conversations last thirty seconds.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Thirty seconds. Right. So this was

Dwayne Johnson
a five minute call that I had with him which is a long time. Yeah. And so he connected you and I and, via text and then you and I spoke. And I'll never forget when I talked to you, it was a Zoom and, you had said, hey, just curious, are you familiar with who I am and what I do? And I said, not one bit.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I have

Dwayne Johnson
no idea. And you said, do you know anything about functional medicine? I said, well, I've heard about it a little bit. And I said I said, tell me a little bit about it. And he goes, well, this is my specialty and this is what I do.

Yeah. And you had said very succinctly, you had said, I'm not gonna treat your symptoms, I'm gonna go deeper than that and I'm going to treat the root cause of what's going on. Yeah. And I said, I love that. And that that speaks to some of the challenges that I've had with my own health journey in the past with some of the doctors.

And not indicting any doctors now, but because it's how they operate and it's what they do. Yeah. But I found

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's how they're trained.

Dwayne Johnson
It's how they're trained. Yes, exactly. But I found, you know, was so challenged with them to try and get to the root cause of this problem and a few others in the past. And I remember asking you, I said, you know, this sounds fantastic. I said, but can I ask you, how about my gut?

Like you and you said, well, that's what I specialize in. Yeah. And then you went on to tell me

Dr. Mark Hyman
You said call me doctor see every poop.

Dwayne Johnson
Dude, see well, that's by the way, you brought that up. You said, hey, we're gonna do a deep dive with your blood panel and we're gonna do a stool test and we're gonna do all these tests, we're gonna find out what's going on. And that was at the beginning of twenty twenty four, and I was just getting ready to launch into what would what would become a nine month work for me, workload for me of non stop work and it was all in front of me and I was thinking, holy shit, how am gonna get through this with my gut issues? I'm not digesting digesting properly. And I would say probably six to eight weeks later.

Yeah. You had me on the right track and things started to come around and and and recalibrate.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's so it's so true, you know, and I think a lot of people when they go to the doctor there, they're usually getting symptomatic treatment and not the root cause. Yes. And and what we found was rather than just sort of like giving you symptomatic treatment, we dug into the why. And we found out that you had taken an antibiotic for something you had.

Dwayne Johnson
Two. Remember that. Two rounds of antibiotics. Yes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's right. And then your gut changed. But regular doctors don't pay much attention to that. And to the detective work of taking your history, finding out, oh, that's what was the moment when things changed. Yes.

We're able to go, oh, that means you probably killed off the good guys in your gut. That's right. And so we then were able to rebuild and we found when we did the stool testing Wasn't there

Dwayne Johnson
a lining that was missing?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. There's a very important bacteria that can easily kill when you take an antibiotic called achromanxia, which is Mhmm. Basically coating the lining of your intestine and protects you from having food and proteins and bacteria leaking in and causing inflammation in your body. And when you have gut issues, it can, you know, it can spread. It can lead to your whole body being out of balance.

And so basically by doing kind of a program where we basically rehabbed your gut

Dwayne Johnson
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Actually gave you probiotics, gave you Yeah. Various plant chemicals like pomegranate and green tea and cranberry. It basically helped to rebuild this bacteria in your gut and resolve your symptoms.

Dwayne Johnson
It was this amazing gut health shake. Yeah. That that had about, I don't think, 10 ingredients, maybe more that you we put together for me and some other things as well. But you you know, you bring up a great point. I feel like that's the microcosm of a larger issue here, right?

Which is just this idea that it was finally through you understanding the power of wait, let's Hold on. We know what the symptoms are. Let's not treat the symptoms.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dwayne Johnson
Let's go deeper and look under the hood and find out what the root cause is. Because what happened prior to me meeting you, I was seeing my doctors and it was, well, it feels like it's this, it's probably this. Let's take some of this, let's take a little bit of that Yeah. And then four weeks later, nope, nothing's changed. And I gotta tell you, one of the things that I realized that once you and I got together and once you and I really became close and I started to understand, function health and really deep diving is just this idea of doctors really not only writing a prescription for what they're sensing and what what our symptoms are, but also I think just having the aperture to go, well, let's take a look and go deeper.

And the challenging thing for me was their very consistent declaration of this is what you have. Yeah. And you realize And as someone who

Dr. Mark Hyman
And you're stuck with it.

Dwayne Johnson
And you're stuck with it. But then if you don't know Yeah. Like I didn't know at that time, I I would think, oh, this is what I have then and I'm gonna get treated by this particular pill or two. But, you know, it's that declaration that I realized after you and I got together that that's the declaration that's one of the challenges out there. Yeah.

That when you declare things like this without doing a deeper dive on the blood panel, without doing a stool test Yeah. You realize how antiquated at times that system and that kind of training can be.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It's true. And you know, we're not we're not trained to be proactive, We're not trained to be preventive. We're not trained to look at the cause. And that's where medicine is changing.

And you mentioned function health. That's where you can get the deep dive on your body that really it's hard to find other places. And we did that for you. You know, one of the things you called me about later was your heart. And Yes.

You got a bit of a scare. You you wanna talk about what that was and and how we ended up figuring out what was going on? Because I think it it speaks to the importance of actually looking at your risk factors in a deep way that we did we did with you with function health panel. Mean, we're able to find so many things that kinda gave us a sense of relief rather than being on a lifelong Well, a

Dwayne Johnson
huge sense of relief, by the way. And I just I was never a medication guy, like I wasn't taking any of medications or anything like that. Even now, as it relates to my heart, you know, all of a sudden you're rolling along in life and things are good, and then you reach your level of life and you realize that, oh, you're of age.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Yeah. 53 now.

Dwayne Johnson
And when you become I'm 53. And and then so, when you become of age, that's when all the tests start to happen. Right? Okay. Where's a colonoscopy line?

Let's do that. Alright. Hey, here's the cardiovascular workup and let's look at the heart and let's look at all the valves and things like that. So when I was looking at the valves, and this was a little bit before you and I met. Yeah.

But just as we met. Yeah. I was looking at the valves and I had a complete cardiovascular work up and everything looked looked great. Thank God, knock on wood. And then there was what looked to be what looked to be some looked to be some stuff inside

Dr. Mark Hyman
the Like a buildup of Like buildup they thought was black.

Dwayne Johnson
What they thought was black in the circumflex, valve. In the artery, yeah. In the artery, right? And I didn't even know what that I never even heard of that.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Goes around the backyard.

Dwayne Johnson
It goes in the back. Now I know that, right? I always hear the the main two. That's what you hear. Yeah.

But for those listening like me, I was unaware that we also have a really important one, that goes around the back, the circumflex. There was some build up or so they thought. And then when we looked at that on the old school traditional MRI and the scans, it looked like I had build up and then immediately, the call to action was, alright, well, let's get you on this medication. It's a multi month medication and here we go, we gotta get on it right away. And I thought, God.

And I was so hesitant because I wasn't taking any medication, so then I called you.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dwayne Johnson
And I said, doc, listen, here's what I got. I'm not indicting anybody. I'm not throwing anybody under the bus but, what do you think? Yeah. And here's what their suggestion is.

And again, I'll never forget on that Zoom you went, okay, hold on.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Hold on. I jumped in.

Dwayne Johnson
Let's not jump to conclusions. I don't want you getting on that right now. Don't get on the medication. There's a couple of steps here I think that we can do that could be invaluable. For for example, let's get a scan done, but let's get an AI scan done Yeah.

That is incredible. And I said, okay, we got the scan done, you sent it to your guy and, and then it came back and, you know, it was almost like, you know, when you hear a song for the time and you're like Yeah. Holy fuck, I love that song. That song sounds great. Yeah.

So I remember when you told me, you said, hey, look, here's the report from our cardio our head cardiologist who's a very good friend of yours and he said that he said, looks great. It is just an anatomical thing that's happening back there. It's not build up at all. Yeah. His valves look great.

Come back in three years.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And what was amazing was, you know, your your cholesterol was actually, pretty good. I mean, had Mhmm. You had low HDL genetically, which is the oh, good cholesterol. Mhmm. It's a little oversimplification, but you know, when we we did a deeper panel of your cardiovascular risk factors Yes.

And we looked at things like ApoB, which is now being declared as this sort of the best biomarker for your heart, which again, most doctors don't

Dwayne Johnson
They don't do that, right?

Dr. Mark Hyman
No. They looked at your, you know, insulin metabolic health, you know, blood sugar and insulin, which nobody really looks at in your insulin resistance score, which was perfect. You didn't really have any of the risk factors, your inflammation level was super low. So here you are about to start a drug for a problem that you, you know, maybe had or maybe didn't have that they were concerned about, you would have had to take for the rest of your life that you didn't need.

Dwayne Johnson
And can I ask you, I just want to go back on something that I found really interesting, is the ApoB Yeah? Which I didn't know about until you and I started talking and you started educating me. Why is that so important? That's a

Dr. Mark Hyman
great question. So so, I mean, that's a great question. The problem with America is that we're all metabolic and healthy, meaning we eat too much starch and sugar that turns our metabolism into a system that doesn't work like it was designed. And so we we have kind of busted metabolism and we end up in this

Dwayne Johnson
Metabotically, like, we're not as a country, we're not optimizing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah, like ninety three percent of us have some degree of insulin resistance, pre diabetes, type two diabetes, like it's in that spectrum. Mhmm. And and what what what kills people is that. That's what that's what's killing people from heart disease and cancer and dementia and and even things like depression are all related to this phenomena of poor metabolic health. What's amazing was now with the ApoB test and with the other kind of even more sophisticated test that we did, which looks at the size and number of your cholesterol particles, we can tell what's happening with your with your metabolic health.

Because all the the bad cholesterol particles tend to be the result of eating too much starch in your sugar. Not necessarily fat. Like that that's kind of a myth we had for a long time. They would feed a low fat diet, they would have margarine, you know, all this stuff. Yeah.

That was a bad idea. Yeah. And it turns out that the sugar and starch is driving it. So ApoB is basically an indicator of all the the dangerous cholesterol particles in your blood.

Dwayne Johnson
Let me ask you this again, who's someone who's not an expert, just as someone who cares. Is ApoB, why isn't ApoB, in your opinion, part of the old school traditional testing that just

Dr. Mark Hyman
Why is it not?

Dwayne Johnson
Why is it not, rather, yes? Why is it not?

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's just, you know, it's like, it sounds kinda stupid, but like, it just doctors get their order forms and they order their panel of tests and they probably establish that order form when they started practicing whatever year they started and they don't change. And it's very hard for doctors to change their practice, to change the workflow, to change their mind, to be influenced by new ideas. And it's it's unfortunate because, you know, the the amount of change that has happening is so rapid in medicine and science. And and even if you are wanting to change and adapt It's hard if you're a doctor wants change it. Hard.

The science is advancing so fast. Like, you know, you have a family history of dementia. I imagine it's scary, right? Yes. And it's one of those diseases you don't know what I can.

It's like the c word or the a word. Right. Right. And we were able

Dwayne Johnson
to What was that biomarker Yeah. That that connects to dementia that you had looked at and

Dr. Mark Hyman
you said, oh, that's pretty good. That you can do. What is that? Can you talk a little bit about APOE testing, is a kind of ApoE. It's called ApoE.

Uh-huh. We can don't want to go on what that all means. But basically, there's different varieties. There's a two, a three and a four. Mhmm.

And if you have a four and a four, that's the high risk. But there's a lot you can do to actually prevent it. Now we know that Alzheimer's is preventable, that by an intensive lifestyle therapy, can even slow it down or even reverse it. And we can actually now look at that APOE and everybody, we we wanted to know for you because we're like, well, are you at risk? And what do we we have to do something different proactively so you don't end up getting dementia when you're 70 and your kids are still relatively young and you can't remember their names.

Right? That's not fun. Right. So so we now actually have even blood tests that are blood biomarkers. One's called p tau two seventeen, which looks at some of the proteins that get released when you have Alzheimer's in your blood.

And you can That's what

Dwayne Johnson
I took.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Right? Yes. And we can look at that and if you don't have that, you're clean. And you can combine that with the APO AE testing and the brain imaging.

And so you get a three sixty view of what's going on. You know, we have all the conditions that really can become things that we don't die from anymore, that we can pick up early, we can then change the trajectory of. And so we found out you actually had what we call the jackpot gene, which is the opposite. You had, like, the APOE two, which is a gene that means you kinda live a long time. You know, the people who, like, smoke and drink and live forever?

Yeah. You're kinda one of those. All you have you don't have the two two, which is the the true jackpot. Wait a

Dwayne Johnson
So if I'm understanding

Dr. Mark Hyman
this two three. You have a two three?

Dwayne Johnson
No amount of tequila

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, I don't know that. There is an amount of tequila that can override your genes, that's for sure. There's a limit that exceeds your genetic Okay, got it. Got it. Got it.

A little bit once in while.

Dwayne Johnson
It's like you're on speed dial for me. Doc, is this okay? I'm gonna open up my bottle.

Dr. Mark Hyman
bottle the the night of the year or Yeah. But it's it's That's what's so exciting now with these It's very exciting.

Dwayne Johnson
Let me ask you something, doc. Then when when it comes to like APOB and inflammation and things like that, so really, even if I didn't get the AI scan Yeah. The detailed AI scan, just by looking at that, right? Yeah. Looking at all those other markers that are the deep dive would have helped indicate, hey, here's how we should move forward.

Because everything else looks so good Yeah. This doesn't make sense.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Right. And I've I've seen this, know, where you you can do the opposite. You can find someone who's got great labs, but their heart scan looks bad. You can have someone with a bad labs and a heart scan looks perfect.

Dwayne Johnson
So Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I think, you know, people just need to know their data. And I and I imagine sometimes, you know, it's scary for people and I I I think, you know, we talked about Yeah. You know, you being a little as a sort of diving into this was a little scary in a way because Yeah. You're like, what am I gonna find? And it's gonna be bad.

Like Yes. There's always that like, kind of bury your head in the sand kind of move, which guys

Dwayne Johnson
Yes. You know. We have a tendency Yeah. To do that. And I know that I was like that too as well.

And I remember the couple of times we sat down and we went over. You were so nice enough to come over and you and I are sitting. It's like we're sitting side by side and I'm going over everything with you and you're going everything with me and and I'm like I'm like, Jesus, I half of this I don't understand. And I kept telling telling asking you, okay, I'm good. Am I right here?

You're like, you're really good, you're really It's funny because you you could feel good and you feel like, hey, I look good and I'm rolling along in life and I feel like I'm making all the right moves here. Yeah. But then when it comes time, like, hey, let's take a deeper dive underneath this hood. You never know and that's the scary part I think for a lot of guys. Yeah.

And I know I was hesitant, you know, with you, like, okay.

Dr. Mark Hyman
How far do I go? How far do we need to go? We started slow. You started looking at a few things. I was like, how about we do a little bit deeper?

You're like, okay, okay. I trust you now, you fixed my tummy. That's right. My poops are good, like let's trust you with the rest of my body.

Dwayne Johnson
You fixed my tummy. That's it's the name of my next book, right? We'll co author it. You fix my tummy. But you're right, why is that Why do you think dudes in in general are like that?

I have a thought too, but let me

Dr. Mark Hyman
have question. You know, see this as pretty classic in medicine. You know, women always are more proactive about their health. Go to the doctor better, maybe they start earlier, doing gynecological exams or used to it. Men just are scared of doctors, they're scared of what they're gonna find.

Yeah. They they know, they just don't wanna know. And I think it also has to do with this You think

Dwayne Johnson
it's a vulnerability aspect?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Guys don't want be vulnerable, they don't to be weak, they don't want be seen as, you know, fragile. And I think there's a sort of a macho thing of like, well, I'm just gonna tough through it and I'm gonna I have these symptoms but like, I'm not gonna go to the doctor, which is often what happens. And then by the time you end up having to go, it's often too late.

Dwayne Johnson
Yeah. My grandfather was a prime example of that, of just toughing through it. And he was a he was a tough guy. He was a Samoan was one of the Samoan professional wrestlers.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Wow.

Dwayne Johnson
And, his name was Did

Dr. Mark Hyman
you come by the snatch lead? Yeah. Well, yeah.

Dwayne Johnson
He kind of toughed through it and he had all these aches and pains, refused to go see the doctor. And one of his his guys, one of his fellow wrestlers, he used to have him come over every day, and this was in Hawaii. And he goes, I need you to pound on my back.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, wow.

Dwayne Johnson
And he would just pound on his back, just constantly thinking, like just that old school, probably barbaric head in the sand

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dwayne Johnson
Kind of mentality. He was 45 when he died.

Dr. Mark Hyman
What was the pain? Was it something Cancer. Cancer.

Dwayne Johnson
Yeah. And he refused it for months and months and months. And then it had metastasized to a point where there was just no going back. That was it. By the time they caught it, reached a point where I I gotta go see a doctor and see what's happening.

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's really heartbreaking, you know, and that that you know, we're we're at a point in medicine where those stories can be a part of history.

Dwayne Johnson
That's

Dr. Mark Hyman
right. And that really for the time, I think, in history, we can actually do comprehensive blood screening, we can do liquid biopsies for cancer, and we can do whole body MRIs for cancer.

Dwayne Johnson
By the way, let's talk about that really really quickly. So sorry, because that that's amazing news. So it's So the full body scans, which I have not had one yet, I gotta say.

Dr. Mark Hyman
We're gonna get you one.

Dwayne Johnson
We gotta get you one, yes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I'll get you in the big dump.

Dwayne Johnson
That are usually an hour Yeah. And so this new technology that you guys acquired Yeah. Brings it down from an hour to twenty two minutes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Twenty two minutes. And we use very sophisticated AI to make the interpretation much more accurate, much higher resolution and get huge amounts of data. And it's it's such a low cost that you can do it annually.

Dwayne Johnson
But the cost of these are generally like $2,500,

Dr. Mark Hyman
$2,500.

Dwayne Johnson
Yeah. How much is is the

Dr. Mark Hyman
$4.99. So for $4.99, you can get your comprehensive lab testing and comprehensive imaging and be able to actually make cancer a thing of the past, dying from cancer. We can't get rid of cancer because it's it's gonna come because we live in such a toxic world.

Dwayne Johnson
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
But imagine a world where everybody gets screened every year. Like, imagine if your grandfather was screened. You know, he would still maybe be here. Don't know.

Dwayne Johnson
You never know, man. And like Yes. You never know.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And and, you know, he certainly didn't have to die at 45. If you have a stage one or two cancer, the five year survival rate is like in the ninety percent. So basically, if you catch it early in early stages, you can cure it. Cancer's curable. And you basically cut it But if you catch it late, you know, it's only a matter of time, actually.

Dwayne Johnson
Right.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You know, it's only a matter of

Dwayne Johnson
Of course. Yeah. Like my grandpa

Dr. Mark Hyman
having like this available is really revolutionary. Yes. And and, you know, it it you know, when you hear those stories, like my father also, he he died of cancer, of lung cancer. He was a smoker when he was younger, he quit, but caught up with him and he ended up dying of lung cancer.

Dwayne Johnson
Oh, man.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And if he'd had the scanning, my father wouldn't have had to die. When he didn't, he would have lived I mean, he'd still be alive. He's a very stubborn guy. He would have died. And my sister died of bile duct cancer.

Something again, it Oh, picks up very late. And this kind of screening would have picked it up early. The amount of lives we can take, the amount of suffering we can end is just incredible. Before, it was sort of only really for wealthy or elite, and and I think that's changing. You know?

Now we're able to democratize health care. We're we're providing solutions outside the health care system because it's still very ossified. It takes a long time for medicine to change. But when you start to think about what this unlocks for people, being able to get their data on a longitudinal basis, being able to get their imaging data, their lab data, follow it regularly over time for basically a couple of bucks a day. Mhmm.

It's a game changer.

Dwayne Johnson
Really, it's for everybody Yeah. How important that is. Because ultimately, and this is the thing that you and I have talked about, which is what I advocate for in my own little way, however I can help, is you wanna take agency of your own life, you wanna take accountability of your own health. There's so much noise out there in social media and just out there in the world as it relates to health. The noise comes in many forms.

You're doing it wrong. Right. Do it better. There's gurus, there's experts, there's influencers. Here's what's not noise, is data.

And the data that, for example, a function health can provide. Like, that's not noise. That is real, it's data, it's factual, and you take that and you can inform yourself and that will inform how you move forward That's with your own life. You wanna take control of your life.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah, that's true. I think, you know, that's that's when the era where I think people are sort of getting their medicines a little bit antiquated and that things are, like you said, held back from them, from there are doctors out there not knowing about it. There's innovations or taking decades for things to get Yeah. Into practice. And so the beautiful thing about function is it's literally able to take all the world's scientific literature using, you know, technology and AI machine learning to Yeah.

Inform what it means and to tell you what to do Yeah. About your results. That with knowledge experts, with, you know, tens of thousands of pages of training we've created, provides a a model where it actually tells you this is what it means for you. This is why it's important. This is how it relates to everything else.

These are the things that, you know, you might be headed towards, and these are the things you can do to take agency over your health now without necessarily even medical care. Like, we may you may need medical care, but you may not. In fact, 80% of health happens outside the doctor's It's where you live, it's where you eat, it's where you play, you pray. It's like, that's where health happens. Not in the not in the clinic or the Yeah.

The hospital. Yeah. That's for disease treatment. Yeah. But health, you know, what you eat, your lifestyle, exercise, how you sleep, how you manage stress, optimizing your nutritional status or sometimes supplements which are important because they're diet so deficient.

It's all sort of critical parts of optimizing your health and your function, which is the whole point of function is to help you function better. Right?

Dwayne Johnson
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So you can do your life. Like not about being healthy for a healthy sake, it's so you can engage in the work you love, so you can be with your family and be present with your kids and show up for your friends and, you know, be available to actually fully engage and not feel like crap all the time.

Dwayne Johnson
Yes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You know? And even someone like you, like, eats really healthy, takes care of himself, you had a lot of nutritional deficiencies. You had low vitamin d Yeah. Low some of the omega threes that were low. You had low magnesium.

You had low folate and basically things that are super simple and easy to fix. Yeah. And and we're able to get these insights from doing your diagnostic labs. And and doctors don't check nutritional levels. They don't check your toxin levels.

They don't check for your what's going on with your gut or or all the things that we we check for for your insulin and metabolic health. So it's it's like this this really incredible moment now where where we've got this movement in America where people are starting to wake up about their health. We have people, you know, realizing that, you know, the emperor has no clothes in some ways that healthcare is is necessarily providing all the answers that they want. And I can't see everybody. Like, I I wish I could see millions of patients, but I can't.

Yeah. You know, but this is this is can scale to billions of people. Yes. And and really help unlock a lot of of agency and ownership of people's health where they they don't have to suffer from things needlessly. Because for me, that's that's what's driven me, you know.

There's so many millions of people that suffer needlessly from problems they don't have to deal with if they knew what to do.

Dwayne Johnson
And so much of that. I feel like the connective tissue goes back to, you said, nutrition. Yeah. Right? And supplements.

And that's one of the things that I was really amazed at when you and I started working together. And we started talking about my gut and gut health and how to fix it. You were like, hey, let's look at what you're eating. And I said, you're gonna laugh at what I'm eating because I ate the same thing every day for years. It's like complex carbohydrates, protein and fat, that's it, and greens.

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
This podcast is special because it's it's coming around Father's Day. Mhmm. And a lot of guys totally neglect their health.

Dwayne Johnson
Yeah. And miss

Dr. Mark Hyman
the boat when it comes to picking up things that affect their quality of life or affect even them being alive. You know, like half of the time when guys find out they have heart disease, it's sudden death.

Dwayne Johnson
It's too late. Boom. Because there's a lot Just as dudes too as well. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff that we take control of.

The car we drive, the job we have, you know, if we see a beautiful girl, you wanna talk to her, whatever the thing may be. But then when it comes to health stuff and this idea of sometimes looking into the hood can make you feel vulnerable, maybe a little bit weak, you don't wanna do that. We shy away from that. We put our head in the sand, as you say. And that's the thing that I thought, oh, well, what an opportunity this is with function health to give dudes and guys like, hey, permission.

Yeah. Like, go after it. But by the way, speaking of Father's Day, like, we have one of my favorite country artists, he's a good buddy of mine, Sergio Simpson. There's a great line in one of his songs, after, after life is over, the afterlife goes on. So we're all gonna get there one day.

So I feel like the space between right now, you and I talking and people watching and listening, to when we're walking in the clouds

Dr. Mark Hyman
Mhmm.

Dwayne Johnson
We can really take accountability of that space

Dr. Mark Hyman
Mhmm. In

Dwayne Johnson
there and why not?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dwayne Johnson
You know, and why not get as much data and information as possible and make the right decision so we can be around for a lot more Father's Days. And we could be around to raise our kids and be there for the graduations and the weddings and all the other And I always like to say, if wellness was a wagon, you know, I'll fall off it every once in a while. Like tonight, I'll open the bottle of tequila and then I'll have a cookie or

Dr. Mark Hyman
two. Yeah.

Dwayne Johnson
But anyway, that's why it was so important to me and I felt like it was really personalized to me to share that with everybody who was listening.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. That's beautiful because, you know, it sometimes can be scary. Right? And and Yeah. You said it was a little scary for you and I think Yeah.

What would you say to people who who are maybe scared to look under the hood?

Dwayne Johnson
I get it. I get it. It's scary to look under the hood, especially, you know, if you're not an expert. I'm not an expert, I'm just somebody who cares. All the guys who I know, with the exception of yourself, we're not experts, we just care.

I get that it could be scary. I get that you don't wanna be vulnerable. I get that, you know, there's a good buddy of mine who, you know, you reach a level in life and you become of age, and he was getting all of his blood work done and his tests and his stool tests and everything, and just and he goes, I gotta get all my cardiovascular work up done. And he was really scared. Yeah.

And he was like, I'm praying every day. I'm like, I get it brother, I'll pray with you, but we gotta get it done. Yeah. So I would say, I get it, but you can take control of this and you have an opportunity to take control of this. So why not?

Yeah. Why not? And if you can extend your life by a day or two or years or decades, you never know. You know, I lived it. I watched it with my grandfather where he kinda just refused to

Dr. Mark Hyman
Pound on my back. Pound on

Dwayne Johnson
my back, yeah. It's the name of my next book I'm gonna write.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And for fathers, think, know, particularly, you know, you're I was at your house, met your kids. I mean, were pretty young, you know. So you're an older dad. Yeah. And so you you're thinking like if you're a dad, you wanna be around when your kids are young.

You wanna be able to do stuff with them. You wanna be able to be there and see your grandkids. Right? And in order to do that, you can't just wait around and hope nothing happens to you. You have to be proactive.

Dwayne Johnson
That is, and for a lot of people watching and listening right now, especially us dads and fathers, whether you're younger dads or older dads, there's the why. Yeah. The why is the little ones who are running around and keeping you up at night and driving you crazy and making a mess of things and that's the reason why to do this and that's the reason why to take accountability and responsibility for your health. Again, there's so much other stuff out there that we will chase as guys and we'll go after. We'll chase this thing and that thing and we'll chase a lot of stuff that we shouldn't be chasing, but the one thing we should, which is our health.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. And you you said, you know, you know, your your health is a gift to your kids, right?

Dwayne Johnson
That's right. It's It is. It's the best gift that we can give. Yeah. Yeah.

Because we wanna be around and we wanna Not only do we wanna be around, but also we want to be the example for them and hey, listen, this is what daddy's doing and this But this is why I'm doing it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. By the way, when you

Dwayne Johnson
left that day and you left the house, you were like, daddy,

Dr. Mark Hyman
who's guy? Who's that guy? Yeah. He's taller than you. Who's that guy?

He's taller. Taller but not wiper.

Dwayne Johnson
And I told him, I said, well, that's my doctor. I've been with her for a couple of years now and here's what we do and, you know, when I get the function health blood panel done Yeah. They're they're right there. Yeah. They're watching the blood panel getting done.

It's pretty cool for them too as well.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It's awesome. And then you're and you're actually modeling for them. Yes, exactly. Leaning into your health.

Dwayne Johnson
To show them, leaning into the health. And so we have a pretty healthy household with the exception of one day out of the week when I have my cheat day Mhmm. You know, they're they're right there.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Know, you you you sort of, I think, leaned into a lot of this in a way that I was surprised because, you know, you could be doing anything with your time and energy and effort. And then you care so much about this, says a lot about you. And you you said this isn't just a message, it's a mindset for you. What does it look like to kind of own your own health? And for you and and also, you know, what would it look like for more people to do that?

Dwayne Johnson
Well, for me, what it looks like to own my own health is just to make the move. It could be scary, it could be uncertain, especially the uncertain stuff. And you and I experienced that and I got vulnerable with you, doc. I don't know, like, don't I don't know what I gotta find, you know. I might look fine on the outside aesthetically, but you never know and took the dive and and and I'm glad I did it by the way.

And, you know, had not been for the grace of God in the universe and I'm knocking on wood again, you you never know how those things go and that's okay. But the fact that I did do it modeling not only for my kids, showing them that this is what we need to do, I wanna be around for you, but also it's it's very empowering when you take control that way and you do it. And again, just as guys and women too, I'm gonna speak on behalf of dudes, like, we take accountability over a lot of things, and we go after a lot of things that are important. Success is important and making it. It What it looked like for me was taking the step Mhmm.

And taking action. You know, in the universe, I feel like that all meets you halfway when you take those steps. And so for other people out there who are considering this, and I have talked to so many guys who I know who are in my inner circle, who are kind of on my inner outer circle Mhmm. And then just people who I see out in the gym or whatever wherever. If they get a quick minute with me, it's use I usually get a couple of questions from them within a couple of minutes.

If they If we have a couple of minutes, it's, hey, do you got any keys to success? They say, well, here, I could share this with you. This is my experience. And how about on the health side? Like I get versions of

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dwayne Johnson
Health, wellness Yeah. Mental healthness, mental wellness Yeah. That kind of thing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Mental healthness is what a lot of people have.

Dwayne Johnson
Mental healthness is what we have. In order to get to the mental wellness, you gotta go through the mental illness. But I get a lot of that. And I would say for people out there, take the step. Yeah.

Take the step because the alternative is you don't.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Mhmm.

Dwayne Johnson
And we know what the pathology is to that and we know where that road eventually for all of us where it ends.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dwayne Johnson
But if you can, I think in my opinion, I feel like if you can get in there and you can get as much information and data, it's hard data? It's like as you told me when we met, hey, think of this, hold the mirror up to your biology

Dr. Mark Hyman
Mhmm.

Dwayne Johnson
And see what that looks like. And are you willing to do that? And once you are, then man, I can help you.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dwayne Johnson
And we can help you and function health can help you and then let's go.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Test, don't guess.

Dwayne Johnson
That's that's right.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Test, don't guess. You know, you you everybody thinks of you like as the rock, right? You're the rock, which is invincible.

Dwayne Johnson
Yeah. Sexiest man alive. I got a lot

Dr. Mark Hyman
of Sexiest man alive. I mean, I thought I was a sexy now. You are. Sexiest doctor love. People think of you as sort of invincible and even your name, like the rock is is sort of emblematic of that.

Dwayne Johnson
The pressure of that duck. Were

Dr. Mark Hyman
talking about Jesus Christ. But but you but you've been really vulnerable here. You've shared your medical story, you've shared what's going on, you've shared some of the fears you've had, some of the stuff in your family. What do you people take away from seeing you sharing your own vulnerability around this?

Dwayne Johnson
Oh, I could do it too. I mean, that's it. It feels like that's the stripped down takeaway of this. Yeah. If my guy DJ can do it, I can do it.

And if you wanna be vulnerable, great. I'm an advocate for that and I get it. It's not the easiest thing for guys. It's not the easiest thing for anybody to do but, especially guys, just how we're wired, it's how we are. We don't wanna be vulnerable, we don't wanna be weak, we wanna have all the answers, we wanna be tough, we wanna be strong in the face of our kids, our girlfriends, wives, whatever it is.

We don't wanna show all this stuff and, you know, whether you're in your twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, whatever, age you are and whatever, level of life you are, it it's all the same. Yeah. It doesn't change. Like, there's one person who controls it. For me, when I think about this and I think about people out there watching and listening and people who I talk to, go for it.

It's gonna be scary. You never know what you're gonna find but you you're gonna wanna find it as opposed to not and then all of a sudden you're in a situation that you don't wanna be in.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Well, just want I just wanna thank you for being so courageous, for leaning in your own house, for actually using your voice to raise awareness about this because a lot of people don't know that they can know.

Dwayne Johnson
Well, my pleasure and you're doing tremendous work, by the way. I know how busy you are and, you know, everyone who you're seeing, who you sit down with, you talk to in a podcast and interview, everyone. But also just all the work you're doing, period, is really commendable, man.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Well, I hate I hate

Dwayne Johnson
I hate History always looks back. Yeah. I think one day when you and I are walking in the clouds, they'll look back on all the work that you're doing here and you go, that's our guy.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's the Seeing the jeep up in the sky? Yeah. Thanks for being on the podcast. You know, this conversation Thank you

Dwayne Johnson
for all your help. I appreciate it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, anytime. All the time. And the tequila, you can text me if you wanna be. I'm on my bottle. Is this good?

You're like, on the night? The night? No. So this, you know, this conversation's really been all about empowerment and taking care of your health and making informed and proactive choices. So I wanna show that, like, we're really excited to invite everybody on this mission with us.

And we believe everybody deserves to access their own health data. We believe in affordability. It shouldn't be a barrier. And that's why we really are offering as part of this podcast a special $100 credit toward your functional membership for the thousand people who sign up. I'll have to enter the promo code take control 100 at checkout and take, the step toward owning your health today.

Alright. Thanks, DJ for being here.

Dwayne Johnson
Thank you, brother. A pleasure.

Dr. Mark Hyman
If you love this podcast, please share it someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Doctor Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the doctor Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts.

And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Doctor Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Doctor Hyman show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health where I am chief medical officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions.

Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness Center at ultrawellnesscenter.com, and request to become a patient.

It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed health care practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the public, so I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible. Thanks so much again for listening.