My Top Three Longevity Tips: Foods to Avoid and Habits to Embrace

Mark Hyman, MD

Full Transcript

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Dr. Mark Hyman
Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Farmacy. Essentially, there's these 4 nutrient sensing pathways that regulate biological aging. 1 of the hallmarks is called deregulated nutrient sensing. Essentially, it means your body and food are not working together to create health. And so these pathways when they're Not properly.

To not, we'll drive all the other hallmarks.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Now before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish

Dr. Mark Hyman
I could help everyone by my personal practice.

Dr. Mark Hyman
There's simply not enough time for me

Dr. Mark Hyman
to do this at scale.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand Well, you, if you're looking for data about your biology, check out function health for real time lab insights. And if you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, well, check out my membership community, doctor hyman plus. And if you're looking for curated trusted supplements and health for your health journey, visit my website, doctor hyman.com for my website store and a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested products.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Welcome to The Doctor's Farmacy. Every week, I bring on interesting guests to discuss the latest topics in the field of functional medicine and do a deep dive on how these topics pertain to your health. In today's episode, I have some interesting discussions with other experts in the field. So let's just trump right in. The single biggest input to your biology every day are the pounce of food you eat every day.

And and the information in that food is in real time changing your biology and regulating everything that's going on. In fact, the I call them the longevity switches which is kind of a term I made up in the book, but essentially, there's these 4 nutrient sensing pathways that regulate biological aging. And and these pathways are 1 of the hallmarks of aging. So 1 of the 1 of the hallmarks is called deregulated nutrient sensing It's a big mumbo jumbo of, you know, medical language, but essentially it means, you know, your body and food are not working together to create health. And so these pathways when they're not properly tuned up will drive all the other hallmarks.

So for example, the amount of starch and sugar in our diet is driving increase in insulin signaling pathways. So insulin goes up and this insulin creates this cascade that drives all the disease of aging. So insulin resistance and poor metabolic health, which affects now over 93% of the population according to a new study. Is the biggest driver of heart disease of cancer of diabetes and dementia and not to mention all the other problems like depression and for infertility and so many other problems occur from insulin resistance. So this is this is the biggest phenomenon that's happening globally, which is the cause by our ultra processed diet, which is about 60% of our calories in America.

Processed food could be sardines in a can or a can of tomatoes. That's not necessarily bad, but ultra processed food. Means that they take these raw materials from industrial agricultural, corn, and soy, and we and they highly process them into in components that you wouldn't have in your kitchen, and they recombine them into things that are food like substances. And I've written about this. I've written adding more books at night.

Probably should have on food and nutrition. So so so a lot of the fast food that's out there. A lot of the grocery store Yeah. In, the sort of inter aisles that are, like, highly packaged foods. Yeah.

All of that. Yeah. All of that is so bad for you. And and if you look at the label, of ingredients and you can't recognize what it is with covering the front of the package, you shouldn't need it. Right?

And you know, whether it's a corn dog or a pop tart, you may not be able to tell a difference looking at just the ingredients on the label. So that's the biggest driver of so many of these 2 regulated nutrients, sensing pathways. The other's just the constant influx of food. So we we eat all day long. We snack.

We eat before bed, and then we eat when we wake up. And this doesn't give our body a rest. And so that activates this pathway called mtor. Mtor is really important. 1 of the 4 longevity switches versus insulin signaling that's mtor.

Mtor is activated by protein and by also by sugar. And when it's over activated, it it actually can drive cancer and and and prevent your body from repairing and healing itself. So you need to give your body a break from eating an inhibit mtor, which then allows this process called autophagy, which essentially means self cannibalism. So what's really exciting is our body has these innate repair mechanisms. We have the ability to clean up waste.

We have the ability to rebuild new tissues. We have is in I can think of it. You cut your skin and all of a sudden, your body then makes new skin, which is kind of a miracle. Right? This is going on inside your body too.

But we don't allow that to happen. Imagine if you had a cut in your skin, you kept scraping it and digging at it and would never heal. That's exactly what we do with this constant influx of food. So we have to give our bodies a break so we can activate this process of self cleaning, recycling, and repair. And this is called autophagy.

Now you can't do that all the time because if you weren't eating all the time, you're gonna starve to death. So you need to sort of have this goldilocks balance between stimulating M tour to create protein synthesis to build muscle, but also inhibit it at times by not eating. We call it time restricted eating, intermittent fasting. There's a lot of ways to do it. That activates an autophagy, which then creates a self cleaning process.

So think about, like, it's basically this cleanup crew that comes in and cleans up all the garbage and gets rid of old proteins and old, you know, inflammatory stuff. And then builds new stuff. So it's like you've got this build building construction crew and this demolition crew, and you need both to actually maintain your health and create longevity. So food is the biggest single thing. And we can talk a long time about how to use food to activate all the longevity switches properly.

And the other the other big thing that I think is driving our our disease states is lack of exercise. I mean, most of us are not using our bodies as they were meant to be used. We don't, carry liftings anymore. We don't, you know, run any more chasing animals to go kill them and eat them like we used to as hunter gatherers. So our bodies are not being used and are not fit.

And and that lack of exercise creates this horrible set of consequences that drives disease across the whole spectrum of illness, whether it's dementia or diabetes or heart disease or cancer, and and many, many other problems. So exercise, the right kind of exercise strength training and your cardio esker fitness are medicines, just like food as medicine, exercises medicine that activates also these longevity switches and pathways. And it also works through these 4 longevity switches, Amtor, insulin signaling, another 1 called sirtuins, which you can talk about, and AMPK, which is regularly also by, regulated by sugar and so forth. So we have all these redundant pathways that are designed to work together to repair DNA to shut off inflammation, to clean up old parts, to build muscle, to all all these great things that our body needs to do so we can maintain our health. And what's so exciting now is we know how to turn the dials on the switches.

You know, it's like a jet plane. You go on the jet plane and it's like a little overwhelming and you see the cockpit. You know, man, that guy's gonna fly this thing. It's 4000 dials, especially I hope we can take off and land, but your body the same way. And then the beautiful thing is, though, learning a few simple principles, you can keep the thing running without a whole lot of effort, if you just know what to do.

In Okinawa, which is 1 of the longest lived people in the world, they form a community at birth of babies that are kinda connected by their parents that go through life together and go through all the ups and downs and child's tribulations from birth to like a hundred years old. And it bills as sensitive. And it's not like a hundred people. It's like 5 people or 4 people. And it's, you know, most people can't even say there's 1 friend they have a thing call up when they feel bad or sad, who they can have a honest transparent conversation to.

That's really heartbreaking. And it's so much of a driver of of somebody that Ils of our site and something people don't talk about. And it's what, you know, when we were with, Rick Warren and Saddleback church, I had the insight of using the power of community to help people create health. So suicide is contagious, but health is contagious.

Radha Agrawal
That's right.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And obesity is contagious, but so is, you know,

Radha Agrawal
Good health.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Good health. Living. Right. And I think that's such an important thing you're creating in the world. This is call to belong and not only to to belong, but actually you've created a very specific road map.

So I'm gonna get into that now. You've talked about going in to go out So let's talk about going in and what that means and how do you do that? Right.

Radha Agrawal
So, you know, I have about 20 exercises in my book that really take you by the hand. The whole point is to get dirty in this journey, of self exploration and, have fun. But going in starts with first an audit of who are you spending your time with. Right? Just take a moment to write down who are the people I'm spending my time with today at work, at home, around me, family, friends, relatives who are all the people you're spending your time with, and just write that down on a piece of paper.

And take a look at this map. Right? And this map will begin to and and what I like to do is color code it. So work friends I'll color code in green, right, and family, I'll color code in red and and, friends that I choose a color code in in in orange. Right?

So different color just to sort of see, ah, okay. Cool. So, you know, and then I have this kind of access of energy that I created, in my book on the in chapter 1 or in in part 1 of the book where where you sort of assess, okay, who are the community members who are bringing me up and who are the community members in my life and bringing me down? So looking around, you begin to see, ah, cool. So and all the green quadrant sort of is is is up into the right.

So, therefore, I realized that my work life is very positive. I have positive community at work. But then maybe there's more red dots around family and friends in the negative quadrant So you're like, ah, okay. I need to really understand and assess what's happening in my family life so I can really heal that or support that or ask myself You know, how do I connect and and handle, family members? And we've all you know, we all we've all we're all we all go through that.

And, so So really look to

Dr. Mark Hyman
this. I know your family, they're all pretty awesome.

Radha Agrawal
Well, you know, we all we all

Dr. Mark Hyman
have to do. Your mom's Japanese.

Radha Agrawal
My dad's. Yep.

Dr. Mark Hyman
My sister's a doctor, and then her sister's of, you know

Radha Agrawal
Well, you know, it's and and culturally, it's interesting. Right? Like, you know, my father, my mother, most some of the most loving community builders, I know, in fact, they they They modeled what community looks like for us. And yet it's interesting because culturally talking about love and and and sex and and differently, you know, you just don't talk about those things

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Radha Agrawal
With your, you know, with your with your kind of Asian parents. And so, on 1 hand, they're the best community builders I've I've seen On the other hand, you know, I do long for for a little bit more kind of emotional

Dr. Mark Hyman
Honesty.

Radha Agrawal
Honesty. Yeah. But I think again, like, we all have those those sort of issues. I'm I'm going through the the motherhood process right now. I'm 7 months pregnant.

I keep asking myself every day, you know, what kind of, you know, what kind of parent do I wanna be? And anyway, so so plotting this graph, you begin to to sort of see a pattern of, ah, okay. Cool. So, you know, here is my entire a life, you know, life map. And and it begins to give you AAA sort of, the beginning of that story.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And

Radha Agrawal
then from there, You ask yourself, okay. Why why am I spending my time with these people? Are they grandfathered in? Are we making excuses? Am I being lazy?

Is it just easier? To keep them around. You know, what is it Are

Dr. Mark Hyman
they energy givers or energy suckers?

Radha Agrawal
That's right. Exactly. And and and and can I And and can I sort of be honest and vulnerable with that person and share, hey? Listen. This is how I'm feeling right now in this relationship.

And, it's not working for me or I'm I'm really, you know, sort of wanting to spend time with, you know, sort of more positive forces. I'm I'm going through pregnancy right now and I don't necessarily, I just wanna spend just some more time connecting, with with the Joy life, you know, and and things like that, right, being more honest and vulnerable to have had those conversations. And it's and it's wonderful. Either it becomes a mirror for that person to say, Oh, wow. I realize I'm not showing up the way you you want me to.

Or they're or they say, okay. Totally understand and and let's, you know, reconnect after you give birth. You know? So so I think that there's there's that honesty piece there that we forget. We end up just ghosting our our, you know, our people in our lives.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. You

Radha Agrawal
know, we end up running away or we end up shit talking and and it ends up being a very negative experience. But, you know, saying saying sort of, this isn't the time to spend time with somebody right now because I wanna level up with my community members. Is the best thing you can do for yourself and for your friend too, because they will begin to see how they're showing up.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yep.

Radha Agrawal
And, hopefully, they'll go on the journey of self expiration too.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So rather than just cut them off, just have a real honest conversation with them about it.

Radha Agrawal
That's right. That takes courage and vulnerability on all of our ends, but it doesn't create resentment on the other side. That leads to negative storytelling and hurt and all other sort of, you know, larger issues. So So

Dr. Mark Hyman
that's the first step in coming in. So they're taking inventory. Yeah.

Radha Agrawal
Taking inventory. Exactly. Auditing community who you spend time with. The second thing that I did when I turned 30, and this is this is exactly what I outlined in my book is my own journey. That's taken me from feeling like I don't belong to this incredible, connected, joyful, community that gives me wings, and and and lets me fly.

And the second thing I did was I wrote down a 3 column list, and, which we'll get into and just as a column 1 was all the qualities I was looking for in end. Right? So I just wanted to write down and actually manifest and call in. What were the qualities? I was looking for an friend.

Right? We do this type of audit again for our romantic relationships. We do this for our professional careers. Right? I want a job that pays this much.

I want a job that has this type of a vacation. I want a job that, you know, right?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Like, all sorts of things. It's essentially in life. In terms of life planning, we it's not a category. It's like

Radha Agrawal
Why not?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Love, work, money. Exactly. Friend is not a category.

Radha Agrawal
And it is the most important. When I say the most important category in life to focus on. And everyone says, focus on money, power fame, and building a business. And but really, none of it will happen, and or will result in joy joy of life experience, if you don't have a community being like, oh my gosh, Mark. High 5.

Like, woah. We get to celebrate your major win. New York Times bestseller again. Holy shit. Let's vote and throw a giant party for you.

You know what I mean? Yeah. If you're just kind of like writing by yourself in your room and if no 1 is celebrate, then at the end of it, you're empty again. You know? So it's it's it's so critical that we continue to put our laptops down and keep our word and go to those dinners with our friends.

And say yes to the dance floor and say yes to adventure because at the end of the day, no matter, no amount of success will mean anything if there's no 1 to celebrate it with. Right? So, so so so column 1 was all the qualities I was looking for in a friend. Right? So I wanted friends talked about ideas and not each other.

I wanted friends who said, Yeah. You can bleep that out. To life, I wanted friends who, you know, really took care of themselves and and and took care of each other. I wanted friends who were interesting and interested, right, who are good listeners. I wanted friends.

Yeah. I just I just so so I wrote down everything I was looking for in a friend, which was kind of vulnerable because there's there's so much shame around saying I don't belong, or there's so much shame around writing down the quality. It just feels desperate for some reason in today's society. Right? But if we just remember right?

That's saying, but but if we removed all of that stigma, because there is stigma around FOMO, right, fear of missing out and fear of being left out.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You

Radha Agrawal
don't tell people, like, Yeah. I was left out from the party, and it really hurt. Like, you're we're so proud. We don't really talk about that. Right?

But Foblo is a concept talking about my book quite a bit, which is fear of being left out. Right, which is a more subversive negative version of FOMO. Yeah. Right? And then Jomo is Joyce missing out, which is the joy of of of of missing out and having the confidence to know there's other things to do.

Yeah. So column 2 is all the cause. I don't want a friend. Right? So I don't want friends who are negative Nellies, lazies, shoulder shrugers.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Debbie Downers.

Radha Agrawal
Debbie Downers, Netflix, and, you know, chill, Watchers all the time, and home bodies. Like, I friends who are just, like, you know, really hard.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Say yes to life.

Radha Agrawal
Say yes. Like, and I call an FYF in my book. It's a very And

Dr. Mark Hyman
then somebody else might want a friend who they can sit around and do video with.

Radha Agrawal
That's that's what I'm saying. And so everyone's different. So your qualities are gonna be very different from my qualities. Whoever's listening out there, right, and that's exactly what you wanna do right now is ask yourself where do I feel the most energized? And then column 3, perhaps the most important column was all the qualities that I need to embody.

In order to attract the friends that I want.

Dr. Mark Hyman
All

Radha Agrawal
the qualities I need to embody, so I need to be less of workaholic. I love my work. You know, I need to put my laptop down. I need to be less judgmental and and nitpicking and perfectionist. And, you know, I'm a I'm a CEO.

Right? I run companies for a living. And so my job is to focus on what's going wrong. Right? My job is to focus on how to improve what's going wrong.

So if I bring that, I used to bring that into my relationship my friendships. I'd be nitpicking what's going wrong in those relationships instead of being grateful of what's going right.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Radha Agrawal
So that sort of understanding

Dr. Mark Hyman
frame of it.

Radha Agrawal
Yes. That compartment utilization of in my work, I'm gonna be focused on really, kind of wanting to improve service and product and whatever, but in my personal life, to really compartmentalize and say, hey. Wait. Let me really focus on what's going right. Especially as, you know, as an Asian woman, you know, you grow up in a household where it's like, you're only loved if you get an a.

You know?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right. A plus.

Radha Agrawal
A plus, you know, so so it's it's,

Dr. Mark Hyman
You did alright. You were into court Alec, you were on a varsity soccer team and

Radha Agrawal
but yeah. So so I think I think it's it's so important to take that audit, you know, and and look in the mirror and ask yourself know, how are you showing up for your friends too? So that was a really important So

Dr. Mark Hyman
that's going in is doing an inventory of your life and what matters, looking at yourself and Yeah.

Radha Agrawal
Looking at yourself.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You're not the best and what you want. That's

Radha Agrawal
right. The quality's

Dr. Mark Hyman
looking So what are what else is part of going in?

Radha Agrawal
So going in, there's also another exercise I do, and there's so many more. I'll share 1 more. And by

Dr. Mark Hyman
the way, the book is full of these amazing practical exercises. It's not like, oh, you should be at a community and you should go have friends and it's like a road map step by step to take you through the process of how do you create community capacity in yourself and how do you build and find community? And it's really, really awesome.

Radha Agrawal
Thank you. And I illustrated the book too. So every page is fun to read. Like, I, you know, I It's

Dr. Mark Hyman
not a bunch of words. It's very it's like

Radha Agrawal
I really like pictures and colors, and and it just makes the whole journey of of of community building a lot more playful and and and colorful.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So what are the other going in?

Radha Agrawal
So, yeah, so 1 more going in exercise I'll share before we we, you know, move on to going out, it I have you also assess what I call your via chart. So so it's a, imagine a 3 sort of Venn diagram, 3 circles that you draw. So circle 1 is your values. The v and v as your values. The I and value in in the v a chart is your interests, and the a is your abilities.

So just write down your values, your interests, and your abilities in 3 concentric circles, and, sit down with yourself and ask yourselves, today, Mark Hyman, what do I value today? Because what you value today is gonna be different within what you valued maybe 10 years ago. Maybe 10 years ago, your big party animal. And then now, far. I mean, you know, you said nothing's changed.

You'll see a burning man. A fist pumping on the dance floor.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You know?

Radha Agrawal
But, But but today, you know, maybe, you know, you're you just got married to beautiful wife. You're nesting. You move you have a house in New York now, and And so maybe your values today is more family driven and, whereas 10 years ago, it might have been different. So I'm, you know, I'm 7 months pregnant today. Well.

So my values are are different. And values are are sort of, kind of the guardrails through which you live your life. You know, what are the what are things that matter to you? And you can Google values and see sort of what values come up, and there's all kinds of lists that come up. In my book, I list out about a 100 values that you can choose from, but it's awesome that you can find on the internet.

And, you can begin to sort of map out what do I care about today? And really sit with yourself and and and connect to that that essence. So write that down in 1 circle, and that will give you again, the beginning of road map for the type of other people that you connect with? I think what are, you know, sort of shared values are so critical. Right?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Radha Agrawal
And then the I

Dr. Mark Hyman
As you name it, then you identify others. Right?

Radha Agrawal
That's right. Exactly. And then the eye in in your via chart is your interests. So so what am I interested in today? So, you know, it's it's different from your values, and your values is more sort of kind of intrinsic qualities, family, you know, community, work, life balance, you know, that sort of thing.

Right? Whereas your interests might be things like hiking and yoga and mindful meditation and music festivals and, you know,

Dr. Mark Hyman
and Daybreaker.

Radha Agrawal
And daybreaker. Yeah. Thank you. And all kinds of, right, so so it's it's what are you interested in in tangibly doing today? And then, you know, some people like I do this workshop with will say, well, I don't know.

I don't we all have interests. Right? So dig deep. If if, you know, if you don't have an interest right now, then start cultivating them. You know?

And that's and that's but what's what's so fun about this going in journey is that life is we have a 100 years to live on this planet. Let's really begin cultivating our interests that are out side of just work.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Only only a 100 years if you eat right and follow my advice and connect in the community and follow Radha's advice, then you get to a 100.

Radha Agrawal
Exactly. If you read all the Mark's Yeah. For sure. And and then your abilities are, and I I really think about abilities through the lens of what can you bring to your community? So what are your abilities?

Not just like I'm a good public speaker, but what can you bring to your community? So are you is 1 of your abilities to ask amazing questions? Is 1 of your abilities to, to cook? Are you good cook and chef? Can you cook friends?

Are you was 1 of your abilities, to gather people in your home? Is your home a really wonderful place to gather? Or is, you know, 1

Dr. Mark Hyman
of my So, yeah, you're a great DJ. Exactly. Exactly.

Radha Agrawal
So, like, 2 of my friends, I love giving this example. You know, 1 of them, she always has a purse full of, like, electric candles so that when, you know, she she really, she, like, doesn't like neon lighting. So she'll walk into any room, and she'll just be like, oh, no. No. No.

This is like too harshly. She'll turn off all the lights and break on all these, like, electric candles and, like, vibes out the place instantly. And it's incredible. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And you have these other friends who are great sort of artists, musicians

Radha Agrawal
who are always Exactly.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Play great things and do skits and

Radha Agrawal
That's exactly right.

Dr. Mark Hyman
This is so fun.

Radha Agrawal
Yeah. So they bring instruments like Eli and I bring gold stars often to gatherings. So we'll say, Mark, you did great. You know, it was a wonderful thing you just said. Here's a gold are for you.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right. You know,

Radha Agrawal
we went to the hospital, for when Eli's father was sick and we gave, all the doctors and nurses, gold stars and said, thank you for what you're doing. Great job. You know, checking his pulse.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Let me look at you like what the

Radha Agrawal
And they all heard with each other for how many the doctors, like, serious doctor competing with each other for

Dr. Mark Hyman
how many Just like kindergarten.

Radha Agrawal
Yeah. For how many gold stars they got in there, and they put in their badges. And it was just, like, hysterical, like, experience, and we turn this sort of otherwise scary place into a a playground. And, you know, it's whatever we can bring that feels good for us. It feels natural to us.

Bring that to your community and your experience and write down your abilities chart.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Alright. So we've got the inventory. We've got your VIA chart, you've got 3 column list. Column list of where they fit in terms of whether they're bringing you life and energy or taking it away. So what about going You've done this inventory, but all these

Radha Agrawal
things,

Dr. Mark Hyman
what's what's the process of actually going out with this and finding your community and building it?

Radha Agrawal
So step 1 and and, you know, there's some people who are like, I'm shy or this isn't a good thing of naturally to me or, you know, it's so much easier for you, Rhonda, because, you know, you're naturally more extroverted. Which I, by the way, break those labels in my book 2 in in part 1 is I, like, we talk about, the fact that we have begun to sort of label ourselves into corners So I'm an introvert. I'm an extrovert. That's a good example with Carl Young, who who kind of name those terms, and people are really banding around those terms. I've seen friends who are definitely extroverted start dating introverts and then begin identifying as introverts and disappear from the face of the planet.

And so I think we've taken these terms too literally where Carl Young himself, who who define these terms, said that if you are only introverted, you'd be in an insane asylum. If you're only extroverted, you'd end up in an insane asylum. So we are on a spectrum Sure. Of introvert and extrovert, which I call meta in my book. Right?

We are all metaverts. So let's just stop. Some days I'm social. Some days I wanna be at home by myself. Sure.

Filling up on energy. And so I think if we stop putting these social limitations on ourselves, we'll begin to allow so much more exploration in the communities that we're a part of. And and so so exploration. So going out begins with first, like, removing all of these labeling and and then, getting sort of a deep understanding of who we are, like, going in experience. And then it's just putting shoes on.

Like, I usually say put your shoes on, write down 5 communities in and around you that align with your values, interests, and abilities. And then begin exploring them. So it's a light touch. Right? So for me, the 1st year was, okay.

When I went on this journey, when I started by 30 years old, realized I didn't belong, and I was going to sports bars and doing kind of like the everyday thing. I asked myself, okay, what are the things that I really care about? What do I what am I interested in? So I realized initially in entrepreneurship, I'm interested in music festivals, which I'd never really explored in my twenties. Right?

I just was kind of doing the city life thing. So I began looking up all the cool music festivals around, and I stumbled upon Burning Man, lightning a bottle and different music festivals I I started going to And I started going to entrepreneurship summits, like summit series and

Dr. Mark Hyman
Mhmm.

Radha Agrawal
You know, various communities in in in New York and and, across across, like, like, nexus summit, community. It's a sort of a young global leader summit. So so so I began sort of charting this on a on a little map as well.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So you go to pre existing gatherings of people who had similar interests.

Radha Agrawal
Exactly. Interest values, And all of a sudden, I started meeting people, and I started realizing, oh, wow. Wait a minute. You're in some savings. I'm interested in where we we wanna solve problems for the world.

And I began to sort of find my people for the first time. And 1 by 1, I said, hey. Let's hang out. And Whereas before, I used to have siloed relationships. Right?

Like, I have my friends I work out with. I have my friends that I go, you know, go travel with, and I have my party friends. I have my intellectual friends, but this was the first time in my life also that I wanted to remove all the compartmentalization and just bring everybody together fearlessly.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Mhmm. Because I

Radha Agrawal
think so often, for some reason, we can get territorial Yeah. With our friendships as well. I called out the oxytocin overload, which is, you know, which is actually a term, around when you become so close to somebody, as a friend 1 on 1, there's a sort of animal instinct. Yeah. Exactly.

Animal instinct that you don't wanna share that person with somebody else. Whether it's your kids or your or your family and friends that overload is there, and it's on us to just recognize that it's happening to know when I'm I'm feeling rationally jealous. I'm feeling irrationally, territorial over this friendship and to, and to nave and just say, hey. I just wanna let you know that I'm feeling irrationally territory, you know, and then I know that's access over because I care about you so much. But, but so that going out piece is so critical.

And first, like, tearing down all the needs for those siloed friendships and just bringing everybody together. So it's which is what I did. And and, again, it could work differently for everybody, but for me, just breaking down the barriers and and sort of fearlessly introducing my friends and watching them develop friendships without me, feeling jealous of their friendship, was actually something new that I I didn't have in my twenties.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Right?

Radha Agrawal
So in my thirties, I was like, wow. That's so cool. I did.

Dr. Mark Hyman
More is more.

Radha Agrawal
More is more. Like, I connected them. They're now friends without me. That's so cool. And and they thank me, you know, when they see me every once in a while, they're like, oh my gosh.

Thank you so much. Like, this person is meaningful person in my life now. And more is more. So, like, everyone listening out there, you know, connect your friends fearlessly, you know, recognize that the rising tide truly lifts all boats. And, you know, when we actually courageously and fearlessly connect 1 another, life becomes far more rich.

So so, yeah, going to the so then going out and exploring all these communities, I began finding these people, bring them to my house hosting dinner parties, not that weren't just and cheeses, ever listening that's stopping 1 in cheeses. I think we're past that. I think it's time that we really think about gathering as a more meaningful connection point.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Kombucha and kale chips now. Right? Exactly.

Radha Agrawal
Kombucha. Exactly. But there's just, you know, I talk about entry rituals. Like, when someone comes into your home, are they coming into your home? Is it just like, hey.

I'm here with wine. Where are you greeting them with, you know, a a little wishing well to say, hey. Today, when you're coming into my to my home, I want you to share a little wish that you have for this gathering.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I mean, tribes always had rituals.

Radha Agrawal
That's right.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Always had

Radha Agrawal
That's right.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You know, ceremony. And, you know, you're you're saying, let's bring that back into our lives.

Radha Agrawal
Exactly. Because

Dr. Mark Hyman
it creates meaning and context and connection. And the question is, what are you trying to achieve with supplements in the space of longevity? What what pathways are you activating? What are the important longevity switches in the body? And how do you regulate those?

So I think aside from the foundational stuff, which has a lot to do with extending life, you mentioned the official study, vitamin D. I mean, there there's just so much data on this. It's really impressive. But in terms of specific thinking about which product supplements are effective for longevity and aging, there's there's there's a number that really come to mind. And, you know, just to kind of, kind of back up a little bit, and and then I'm gonna get a little geeky here if it's okay.

Because this is a master class. There there are a number of things called the hallmarks of aging, which are these fundamental dysfunctions that happen as we age if we age abnormally. So so aging should be considered a disease. It's not normal. The way we see aging in this culture is is a sign of abnormal aging.

And we think it's normal because pretty much happens to everybody, which they get old disease and decrepit. You know, if you're 65 years old, it's like you're gonna have 3 or chronic illnesses. Just how it goes. Right? But it's not inevitable.

And and so 1 of the hallmarks of aging is is as a dysfunction of these nutrient sensing pathways. So we have exquisite systems in our biology that sense either abundance or scarcity. Oh, there's too much of a food. We just we wanna start to build and grow and make stuff in our body. But if there's scarcity, it activates all these repair and healing and general mechanics And we need both.

We need we need both a demolition team, and we need AAA construction team to actually continue to renew and rebuild our bodies. And a lot of these supplements that are we're talking about are working on some of these key pathways. So 1 of 1 of them is really important. It's called NAD. The NAD probably heard about, it's, it's an important compound that's part of your cellular metabolism that helps produce energy but it turns out it has a lot broader effects.

And 1 of the key nutrient sensing pathways is something called sirtuins. These compounds, these pathways were discovered in 1991 by Lenny Guarte and his colleagues at MIT. And it was a real breakthrough because they were able to stimulate this certain certons or toons in yeast models and mice models and extend life dramatically double it sometimes even up to a 1000 years equivalent in a worm. Or, you know, 120 or 140 in a in a human, how they were doing it with with some of the mice studies. So what turns out is NAD is a cert to an activator.

So when, NAD levels are good, which means you have energy turns on the the sirtuins, which then creates a whole downstream series of effects that creates longevity. So it sends out a massive DNA repair team, which is awesome because we got a 100, 000 hits to our DNA every minute, basically, from various insults from food, from, yeah, oxidation, oxidation from metabolizing food, from environmental toxins, from all sorts of things. 2nd, it actually inhibits 1 of the key hallmarks of aging, which is inflammation. And we talked a lot about inflammation on the podcast, but it does so through a particular important mechanism that is the mast 1 of the master inflammation switches in the body, which is called NF Kappa B, or nuclear factor, CAPA B. And essentially, there's a transcription factor description factors are what tell your gene what to transcribe.

So how does your DNA want to do what to do? Well, it's listening for messages all the time from signals from your body. And n f kappa b is a signaling molecule that tells your DNA to make more cytokines, to make more inflammation. So when you activate sertoons, it shuts that off. It also increases your metabolism, increases your insulin sensitivity, which we've talked about a lot on the podcast.

If you wanna be healthy, you have to have the insulin sensitive. So it's it's through a whole series of different mechanisms, NAD is is is multiple actions through sirtuins in addition to just powering up cellular energy. And and some of the studies from David Sinclair are just mind boggling. He he's used as derivatives. So n r, the content of my riboside is made into and their man, which is then made into NAD in the body.

So this is the normal consequence of, like, cellular reactions. So you can get NAD as shot or as an IV, but you've you wanna take it as a pill. You have to take it as NNR or NMM. And he and David gave NMM to these mice. Now these old mice.

Now they have these mice treadmill, which I'm not a researcher. So I don't really know about it, but they have these mice treadmill that they have an upper limit because no mouse has ever run more than 2 kilometers. Like young, old, any mice. Right? And so they had this mouse treadmill.

It was, like, 2 kilometers, and then it would just kinda turn off. It was, like, overheat in the top, and they gave this old mice NMM, and the mouse ran 3 kilometers and broke the So it's pretty amazing. And even in some studies, it regulates all sorts of stuff, like hormones and fertility, In some studies, they've literally been able to reverse mouse a pause. So take menopausal mice and give them NMM, and they start menstruating and get fertile again. It's really trippy.

So that's just 1 example of 1 compound. Another 1 I think that's really important is, is is is something that actually and I think curcumin or this product, I think are are really important, which is regulating inflammation through, again, these very variety of effects. But, there's a comma called, HTB, Himalayan Tardive Buckweight derivative that has, like, a 132 phytochemicals, including quercetin, root and which of course also is a longevity supplement. So it contains a lot of these things, but it also contains a compound only found in this ancient grain, which isn't really grains of flour called Himalayan Tardery Buckwheat, which has only been recently been recultivated after thousands of years of being sort of out and it goes to the Himalayas. And it's, it's called to Hoba.

And it actually in is regulating some of the inflammatory systems that are involved in senescent cells and chip cells. So as we age, some of our cells just get older and they don't really die. They're kinda like zombie cells. But they're not just inert. They're actually creating a whole inflammatory cascade and then then they're causing other cells to become senescent zombie cells.

It's like the it's terrible. So you get this kind of wave of inflammation And so the this can help to kill that. And there's also something called chip cells, which are, you know, cells that are from the bone marrow from its damaged damaged stem cells that produce white blood cell, and you get these funky white blood cells in your body that are just generating tons of inflammation. So these compounds really help to regulate this inflammatory senescent thing. So 1 of the hallmarks of aging is cellular senescence, which means the aging of yourselves.

And how does that happen? These zombie cells is essentially what happens. It and and and we can go into how they're created, but but it's really fascinating how these natural plant compounds combat this. And what's also exciting to you is there so many other compounds. It's it's addition to just 3 that are super powerful like green tea extracts, epiglactic catechins, Resveratrol.

You might have heard about Resveratrol was the thing that was first sort of discovered, which is from red wine, that helps to activate sirtuins to extend life by a third. So if you actually take Resveratrol from red wine, you give it to mice, they'll live a third longer, which is equivalent to humans being a 120, right, which is kinda cool. But then how much was Ferrethal did they get? They got a lot. They got the equivalent of Studies are like 1500 bottles of red.

Well, they got the 1500 bottles of red wine. So it don't try this at home. Okay? But what was interesting is that there was Feratrol, and this was fascinating, and it's kinda wild. These pathways, these conserve longevity pathways that are really survival pathways when they're activated, they're so powerful that they have so many beneficial effects.

So even though the mice kept eating junk food and not exercising, their metabolism got faster. Their their exercise capacity increased, what we call VO 2 max, they reversed their diabetes and insulin resistance and high blood pressure. And even while eating crap, right, so I'm like, wow. What if you actually ate well and exercise and then use this as a a booster? Amazing.

So that's that's the thing. And there is also incredible compounds that are now looking at how we can actually help to extended life called fist fisting, which is FISTIN, which is from strawberries is a compound from strawberries, but turns out to be incredible longevity supplement. Sulfuraphane, which comes from broccoli. Broccoli sprouts are the highest concentration of these. So this is a usually detox fine molecule, anti cancer, it improves glutathione.

It really it helps with some of the key longevity pathways. So I think, you know, you've got these incredible compounds, and I and there's more. Obviously, there's compounds from persimmon. This comes from leachis. There's berries.

There's there's compounds in Chinese medicine. There's there's all these wonderful compounds that actually help to activate these longevity pathways. We were talking about AMPK and before, but, you know, of course attend Resveratrol, catechins, curcumin, all these things from the plant com kingdom all regulate these pathways. So do I think we should take 3 yet? There's probably a lot more that are gonna be coming around the pike And I think a basic longevity stack of supplements would be nadhtb rejuvenate, and I think vitamin D is up there for sure, but I and I would like to sort of see a polyphenol blend, like a polyphenol blend.

And if I could put it all on appeal. I would put in catechins. I put in Resveratrol. I put in Corsitin. I'd put in a fist a 15.

I I'd put in curcumin. I put in a lot of these very important compounds that come from plants as a cocktail of of various phytochemicals that all have very different effects, but That's what I would do. Thanks for listening today. If you love this podcast, please share it with your friends and family. Leave a comment on your own best practices on how you upgrade your health and subscribe

Dr. Mark Hyman
wherever you get your podcasts

Dr. Mark Hyman
and follow me on all social media channels at Doctor Markheim and we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Farmacy. I'm always getting questions about my favorite books, podcasts, gadgets, supplements, recipes, and lots Morin, now you can have access to all of this information by signing up for my free Mark's picks newsletter at doctor hyman.com forward slash Mark's picks. I promise I'll only email you once a week on Fridays, and I'll never share your email address or send you anything else besides my recommendations. These are things that helped me on my health journey, and I hope they'll help you too. Again, that's doctor hyman.comforward/markspicks.

Thank you again, and we'll see you next time on the doctor's proceed. This podcast is separate from my clinical package in the Delta Momo Center and my work at Cleveland Clinic And Function Health I'm the chief medical officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guest opinions, and neither myself nor the podcast endorsement of use are statements that my guests This podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. Now if you're looking for your help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner.

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