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For every 10% of time that you spend sitting, you have a 10% increase in all cause mortality. That's crazy.
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Yes, sitting for more than an hour at a time is literally what's killing most of us right now.
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He's a world-renowned surgeon, entrepreneur, and founder of Next Health. Dr. Darshan Shah.
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Western medicine is so disease-focused and so reactive that unless things are really bad, there's nothing they can offer you.
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The patients I was seeing, they were like, "How come no one told me this?"
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Before we jump into this episode, I'd like to invite you to join this community to hear more interviews that will help you become happier, healthier, and more healed.
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It means the world to me.
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The best-selling author and host The number one health and wellness podcast On Purpose with Jay Shetty.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health and wellness podcast in the world.
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Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to listen, learn, and grow.
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Our mission here is to make the world happier, healthier, and more healed, and we do that through introducing you to experts, stories, scientists, researchers, and doctors who have insights that can we can all apply and improve our day-to-day life, or maybe even the way we think and live.
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Now, today's guest is someone that I've been working with personally for quite a few months now, if not a bit longer than that.
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And he's someone that I'm excited to introduce you to because he has so much great insight, and I love the way he approaches some of the challenges that we're all facing in our daily lives with our health and wellness. Today's guest is Dr.
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Shah, Darshan Shah, MD, a health and wellness specialist, board-certified surgeon, published author, entrepreneur, and founder of Next Health, the world's first and largest health optimization and longevity clinic.
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With expertise in all body systems, Dr.
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Shah has performed over 15,000 surgical procedures including trauma surgery, general surgery, and reconstructive procedures.
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As a health and wellness specialist, Darshan has advised thousands of patients on how to optimize their well-being and extend their lifespan.
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Please welcome to the show Dr. Shah. Dr. Shah.
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Thank you so much for having me. to have you here. Yes. Yes. I was thinking about it.
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I think we started working together probably just under a year ago it feels like. like about a year. About a year. Yeah, about a year. Yeah, about a year.
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And I remember we got introduced through my health coach. Right.
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I think I'm trying to now I'm like trying to piece it together. the dots.
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I think it was your health coach, right?
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Yes, so Mona Sharma who I've worked with for quite a few years now, she introduced us. Right.
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You have this incredible facility.
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I know it's definitely in LA cuz that's where I go.
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Where else do you have it?
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So yeah, we have three locations in LA, one in New York, and one also in Hawaii right now and in Maui which is sadly right now what they're going through a lot.
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But um and now we're actually franchising all over the world. So we'll be in Dubai.
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Um we will be in Canada, Australia, and all over the United States here pretty soon.
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And talk to me about this transition that you made very early on in your journey or not early on actually, sorry, more recently. Yeah.
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More recently you made a shift in your career Right.
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because you went from practicing as a doctor traditionally to now building Next Health.
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Talk to me about that transition and also about why you did that and what was the reasoning behind it?
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Yeah, I think you know, most physicians never anticipate a complete 180 transition in their career, especially after you've like dedicated 25 plus years, but I felt a real need to do that.
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And it was mainly because of my own personal health.
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So what happened was I started off as a surgeon.
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I then also went into the entrepreneurial side of surgery.
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I bought surgery centers and I started hiring doctors as well.
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And so I was spending half my life being a surgeon, treating patients in the operating room, the other half my life running the business, and the other half of my life, you know, trying to maintain my own health and my own sanity.
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And unfortunately, that last part of my life just kind of fell through the cracks, right?
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And so, what happened was I found myself 15-plus years into my career as probably the most unhealthy person in the building that I was working in.
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I was uh 40 lb overweight, and you know, weight doesn't really matter for everything, but for me, that really led to a tons of health challenges, such as I had high blood pressure, and that blood pressure was not getting any better despite being on two medications.
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I was pre-diabetic on diabetes medications, and I was not able to move very well, like all my joints ached because of an autoimmune disease starting.
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So, you know, I was 15-16 years into my career, and I was like, I'm getting really, really sick.
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And um at that point in time as well, I had my first child.
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And you know, having your first child is often like a time in your life where you sit and reflect.
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And I was actually doing the math utilizing studies that say, like, if you have this hemoglobin A1C, this level of high blood pressure, this level of obesity, how long you're going to live?
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And as I was doing the math, and I came quickly to the realization I was a little bit older when I had my first child, I was 40, that I would not live to see him potentially graduate from college.
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And to me, like, that was a major kind of punch in the gut, right?
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Like, what am I doing to myself?
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And so, that kind of started this thought process and this transition in my life where I said, I need to make some massive changes here, and I need to do it quick because I need to be alive for this kid, you know?
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I did what a lot of people do.
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I said, you know, I need to find the best of the best doctors.
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So, I went to Beverly Hills, I researched all the best concierge medicine doctors.
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You know, I hired an expensive concierge medicine doctor.
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I said, "Your job is to get me healthy."
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Went to his office and you know, paid a pretty penny for this, too. It wasn't cheap.
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He did a bunch of tests on me and he found out that yeah, I was pre-diabetic and it was getting a little bit worse and I was hypertensive and I needed to be on another blood pressure medication and probably the reason I was having difficulty moving and you know, being performing all the activities of my life that I wanted to perform with vitality was because I was depressed.
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So then he added an antidepressant medication to my list of meds.
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So my list of meds grew from eight medications to 12 medications.
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And that's all he told me.
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He just prescribed me four or five more things.
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There wasn't even a mention of "Do you go to the gym? Do you How do you sleep?
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What's your stress level like?"
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Not even a question about that.
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And I thought to myself like there is something really wrong here.
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And then this was the world that I grew up in, right?
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This is the medical training that I grew up in the in medical school.
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When I did med school back in the 1990s, you spent one day of one class talking about nutrition, maybe half a day of another class talking about sleep, but it was mostly about sleep disorders, right?
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Like sleep apnea and things like that.
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I did not have the knowledge, so how could I expect this guy to have the knowledge, right?
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I mean, Western medicine is so disease focused and so reactive that unless things are really bad and we can't prescribe you a pill or a surgery, there's nothing they can offer you, really, right?
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And so I saw like a massive flaw here and I decided that moment in time like I need to learn for myself how to do this right.
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So decided to hire someone else to take position in my office that I had and just take some time off and educate myself.
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And so that led to six months to a year of going to every conference I could find and this was like eight, nine years ago.
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When I have a struggle, my first instinct is to educate myself. Learn, learn, learn.
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And so, I went to every conference I could find.
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I went to like physical therapy conferences.
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I went to like how to become a personal trainer, registered dietitian courses.
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I went to all these conferences. And I learned so much.
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And then I kind of stumbled into the field of functional medicine.
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Have you heard of functional medicine? And I'm sure you have. You have Dr.
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Hyman on here as one of the fathers of functional medicine.
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My favorite people in the whole world.
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But learn from him and others about the root cause of illness. And it was incredible.
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Like within 8 months, I was able to like completely turn my health around.
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And as I was doing this, the patients I was seeing, I was helping them do the same thing.
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And they were like, "How come no one told me this?"
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And so, that's what kind of started my new career in medicine.
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I said, "You know, medicine is fantastic if you're helping sick people become unsick.
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You're treating cancer, you're treating diabetes.
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But it's also to me exponentially more fantastic when you're helping the other 90% of people who aren't sick stay healthy and never get to that point in the first place."
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And so, for me it was just kind of bringing all that together and really providing a place for people to go when you're not yet sick.
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Like when you not yet need to go to the doctor, the hospital, where do you go?
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It's not just the gym, right?
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There's much more you need to do.
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It's a lot more work to be done.
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And that's what I then dedicated my new kind of my new life in medicine to is creating that place.
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What are the key pillars or the core areas of Next Health based on functional medicine that you're measuring and that you think we all need to be aware of when we're looking at that 360-degree look at our health? Right, right.
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So, you know, this is where I think, you know, I have this conversation with all my patients.
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We sit down and we say, "Look, there's an overwhelming amount of health information out there.
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And a lot of it is not based on science.
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There's a lot of like majoring in minor things, right?
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There's a lot of focus on like what's the best superfood or, you know, what's the the how much caffeine should I have per day?
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But like in reality, what I tell people is, let's break this down for you um into the main components and over time, let me educate you on the main components of health.
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But let's not major in the minor things.
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Let's focus on the 20% of the information that's going to give you the 80% of the result, right?
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Like what are the key two or three things you need to know on each aspect of your health to create a major difference.
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And that's the Pareto principle, which is where can you expend the least amount of energy to get the most amount of results.
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And once you get that right, you can absolutely go down the rabbit hole further if you want to.
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So, we start off I have this thing called the wellness wheel, I call it.
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There are 12 points in the wellness wheel.
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We start off with the basics, nutrition, sleep, and exercise.
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But then we move on to gut health, immune system health, hormone health, heart health, and brain health.
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And so then we spend a lot of time talking about each one of those individually.
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And in each one of these categories, what I do is I try to frame it as this is a three-step process.
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And the first step is number one, how do we make sure you're not dying from this, right?
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How do we make sure your nutrition is not killing you?
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Like you're becoming a metabolic disaster with diabetes.
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Or how do we make sure that your immune system is healthy enough to prevent cancer?
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How to not die basically.
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The second part of it is how do we improve your healthspan?
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How do we keep you as healthy as possible for as long as possible?
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And then the last part is what's the advanced science out there in the longevity world that we can implement into your life.
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Once we make sure you're not in trouble and then you've mastered how to take care of your healthspan yourself, how do we then start applying these these new techniques, this new science?
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So, a lot of people come to us and they want to jump straight to like how do how do I do NADIV?
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How do I do hyperbaric oxygen therapy?
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I'm like, no, no, no, let's hold on a second.
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Let's make sure you're not eating ultra-processed food first, because that's what's going to make the biggest difference, right?
11:34
So, that's kind of how we frame it and it's um we go down each one of these categories and talk about what's going to make the biggest difference for people. Fantastic.
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I think this is I wanted to lay that out for people because I wanted people to understand A, you've been on this personal journey yourself.
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There's a professional shift here as well because you can see the kind of challenges that come with traditional medicine and how functional medicine is the future even though it seems like it's rooted in ancient times or an older method that's coming back.
12:05
And then looking at these key areas and that's what I want to dive into with you today, if that's okay. Oh, absolutely.
12:10
touch on all these areas because I'd love to give people whoever listens to this episode, whether you're watching at home or whether you're you know, cooking right now, whether you're listening with a partner or whatever it may be, I want this to be the episode that you come back to to learn about these areas of your health so you can become more proactive, not reactive, and get focused on the areas that need help. So, Absolutely.
12:32
Yeah, let's dive into Let's first start with nutrition because I think that it's such a big area of our lives and I think it's one of those ones that everyone will say, "Hey, I was put in for surgery, but I was never really told to change my diet." Mhm.
12:49
Or even even when I went last year that you helped me through my you didn't perform the surgery, but you helped me through my hernia surgery and I've spoken that on the podcast a couple of times and I was never told to change my diet.
13:03
However, by by the doctors, you did tell me and so did Mona.
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If you had not told me that, it would have been a lot harder to even recover.
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So, even though it wasn't integral to the surgery, it did affect the recovery.
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And so, let's talk about nutrition.
13:18
It's such a big part of our life.
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Let's start with what has gone wrong with our food?
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Like what What has changed about our food that it's almost like a surprise to us today that what we eat is affecting how we feel.
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Yeah, it's it's really multi-factorial, but it's all happened in the last 50 or 60 years.
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You look at like obesity rates, heart attack rates, diabetes rates in the last 50 years, just exponentially increasing.
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And I think it's a few things that happened.
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One was there was a little bit of a panic back in the '50s that we weren't going to have enough food to feed everybody, right?
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So, the government started putting into place subsidies and laws and bringing corporations together to start mass-producing food.
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And that mass production of food led to over-farming of soil, packaging foods to make them last longer, but then also, you know, you have these packaged foods that are not that inspiring.
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So, how do you make them taste better?
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You make them hyperpalatable.
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And then, whenever you involve corporate America in anything, right?
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What's the goal of corporations? To make a profit. How do you do that?
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By making things cheaper and making more of them, right?
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So, now you have these giant food conglomerates like making tons and tons of food as cheaply as possible, and that means using chemicals, it means using dyes, it means hiring scientists to make it hyperpalatable.
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So, even though normally you're you know, you would eat this thing and your body would be like, "What is this?
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You know, this is horrible."
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And you your body would be able to sense how bad it is for you.
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Now, you can't cuz the scientists have made it taste good, right?
14:50
And so, you have this massive um kind of explosion of ultra-processed food.
14:58
An entire supermarket, you look at the square footage of a supermarket, only the outside of it is dedicated to fresh food.
15:04
The entire middle is frozen, processed, boxed, canned food, right?
15:10
And we have so much of it in our society right now that that's really what's caused a lot of the problems.
15:18
In addition to that, we have food coming from all over the world to us, so it's being shipped to us, it's being stored, it's being preserved.
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It's um being grown in soil that's over-farmed.
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And so we kind of come to this disaster point where most of the food that we see that is being supplied to our population has become full of toxins and basically not healthy for you.
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So really, we have to really, really look at and take a step back.
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How do we eat 50 years ago and how can we go back to that type of eating pattern?
15:49
Yeah, and so I think that's the hard part, right?
15:51
Like you just said that when you go into a grocery store you're seeing that the majority of it is taken up by processed foods.
15:59
People are thinking, well, how do I What do I eat?
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Because it's almost like we've got so used to eating out of tins, cans, boxes, packets.
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It it almost even takes a second to think of what food isn't in one of those or isn't refrigerated or isn't frozen or whatever it may be.
16:14
Like, what would you say taking your 80/20 principle as you were mentioning referring to before, what is that thing that we can do 20%?
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Because I think when we think about food, it just feels so big and overwhelming.
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And then the stress of cooking with our busy lives and working and coming home late from work and trying to eat something quickly.
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Like, what's the What's the quick win or what's the small win that we can make? Yes, absolutely.
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So so the 20% here is working really hard to eliminate that ultra-processed food, okay?
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So really focusing on how do you get fresh organic food into your body as much as possible.
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And I can tell you if you only make this one change, that's all you need to worry about.
16:54
You don't need to worry about your protein content and your micronutrients.
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Like, all of that will come with just switching from ultra-processed food to organic, fresh, whole foods.
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And then if that's the only one thing that you do, you you've had a massive win.
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That's going to give you the 80% of the result because it will force you to learn how how make good food quickly cuz we're all busy, right?
17:17
So, how do we make How do we make a quick protein shake, or how do we make a quick salad and still get the nutrients in that we need to and not feel hungry?
17:26
Once you start doing that, you find that your hunger goes down just exponentially.
17:29
You don't need to eat as often, and you kind of eliminate, you know, snacking is such a huge thing now.
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It's almost like we're taught that if you're not snacking, you're not going to have enough energy for the day.
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And that's only because we're snacking on processed food in between eating processed food, right?
17:46
So, so really, once you start eating whole food again, you can even a lot of people just stop even eating one meal a day.
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They go straight into lunch and dinner.
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I eat protein every morning for my meals.
17:56
I I I need to have protein in the morning than most people do.
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And we could talk about fasting later, too, and kind of the change in thought around that, but making that one change is going to give you 80% of the results, in in my opinion and my experience talking to hundreds of people about this over the last year or two.
18:12
And then there's two or three things you can do after that, once you got that down, but that would be number one, for sure. What are two and three?
18:18
Okay, so number two is managing your glucose response curve, okay? talk about this. Yeah, exactly.
18:24
So, the science has come extremely far in this.
18:30
And what we know for a fact is, first of all, we know for a fact that metabolic syndrome, diabetes, is rampant and it's just getting into more and more communities throughout America all the time.
18:40
And that's because of things like we talked about, snacking, ultra-processed food, etc.
18:43
But it's also just people have forgotten how to eat in a way that keeps your glucose curve under control.
18:49
Now, when I say glucose curve, that means that I'm talking about like actually measuring your glucose all the time and seeing when it goes up and when it goes down. Mhm.
18:59
And so, there's a device now that you can buy.
19:01
It's called a continuous glucose monitor.
19:02
Have you worn one of these yet?
19:04
I haven't, but I've seen them, yeah. I think my wife had one. Ah, fantastic.
19:06
It is a game changer, as far as I'm concerned.
19:10
I mean, I don't recommend a lot of like, you know, technology and things until it's like really proven and vetted, but I really feel you know, this is something we've used for diabetics for years now, but finally people are starting to use it in their regular day life.
19:23
And you don't have to wear it forever.
19:24
I just wear mine for like 6 weeks and I found incredible amounts of information about how to eat.
19:29
So, for example, one thing is, you know, we all sit down and we start with chips or bread, right?
19:35
It's the absolute worst thing you can do.
19:38
You want to start with your vegetables first.
19:39
That fiber into your body and slows your digestive tract and then you do your protein and fats and last is the carbs, okay?
19:48
Cuz that'll slow the release of glucose from the carbs.
19:52
That's one of the things you learn from wearing a continuous glucose monitor.
19:55
You also learn from wearing a continuous glucose monitor what foods shoot your glucose through the roof versus you know, Rodizio's anybody else's, right? And it's different.
20:04
Like, if you eat a banana, it could shoot your glucose through the roof and your friend, no problem at all.
20:09
And that's because your microbiome, your metabolism is different than every single other person.
20:15
So, you can personalize the foods that you eat to keep your glucose level steady.
20:19
And if you keep your glucose level as steady as possible day after day after day, and you know, you can cheat.
20:24
It's not like people don't cheat.
20:26
We all like to eat a dessert every once in a while or cookie, but it really makes you cognizant of what's happening internally.
20:32
And you know, we live our life not being cognizant of what's happening internally until we feel really, really bad.
20:37
This really teaches you like how your body is reacting to the food that you eat.
20:42
So, I recommend all my patients, you know, 6 weeks of a continuous glucose monitor, really learn how your glucose curve reacts to certain foods.
20:49
There's a really good book out there.
20:51
It's called the Glucose Revolution. It's very well written.
20:55
You can read it in like 3, 4 hours about how to manage your glucose curve. I love that book.
20:59
I give it to all my patients as well.
21:01
And I think you learn a lot.
21:03
So, number two is managing your glucose curve. Well, that's fantastic. You know what?
21:06
love talking to you because you make it sound so simple and accessible.
21:10
Like whenever I talk to you, I find it so easy to understand what I need to do, why I need to do it, why it makes sense, and I don't need to be as well-versed in what you're talking about as you are. Right.
21:24
And it's not overly technical in a way that I can't wrap my head around it.
21:27
So, I love how practical you just made that, especially how we eat what's on our plate.
21:33
Because I think so many of us spend so long trying to figure out like, oh, maybe I shouldn't eat that and I shouldn't have that.
21:38
And it's actually the order can make all the difference.
21:42
And now everyone who's listening or watching, make sure that you don't go and start with the the bread or the chips and the you know.
21:48
Get the crudité instead, right? exactly. Exactly.
21:49
That's why they serve it first.
21:51
Or Well, now I guess they serve chips and guac first, too.
21:53
But, uh what was the number three?
21:55
So, number three and and number three and number four it can be switched around based on your particular dietary pattern, but I would say number three is making sure you have adequate protein intake.
22:05
And a lot of people they diet and they not just cut back on the you know, the carbs they eat, the fats they eat, but they also cut back on the amount of protein they eat.
22:15
And you lose weight on the scale, but you're losing more muscle mass and you're losing fat, and that's a travesty because you need your muscle mass to support not just support your bones and give you strength, but it's also one of the biggest organs in your body that's preventing you from going into diabetes, cancer, and dementia.
22:33
So, preserving muscle mass is key.
22:37
So, I have all of my patients buy this really cool scale that I like.
22:39
It's called the InBody H2N scale, H2N scale.
22:45
And it's a scale that you step on, but you also grab under these handlebars, and it tells you your skeletal muscle mass, okay?
22:52
So, you can not just track your body fat percentage, but also your skeletal muscle mass.
22:56
And obviously, you want to maintain your skeletal muscle mass, especially the older you get.
22:59
So, the closer you get to 40 and 50, you need to have a big store of skeletal muscle mass cuz it's going to decline.
23:08
We all start declining after the age of 50, and it takes a lot of protein, a lot of strength training to make up for that decline.
23:14
And you want to maintain that skeletal muscle mass.
23:17
Number one thing to do is have 1 g per pound of body weight of protein per day, broken up into three to four divided dosages. Okay?
23:26
So, you do that, you step on the scale.
23:28
I like weighing myself every day.
23:30
I It gives you that accountability factor, and you can track the data, and make sure you're maintaining skeletal muscle mass, and if you need to, decreasing fat mass.
23:40
Now, 1 g per pound of body weight, like people don't really know like how what is that really? So, look it up.
23:45
Most people weigh, you know, somewhere around 150 lb.
23:48
Look up 150 g of protein.
23:48
Look that up on Google, and you'll see all sorts of infographics.
23:54
And it's it's a lot of protein.
23:56
It's not a small amount of protein.
23:58
And if you're vegetarian or vegan, you can still do this, but you're going to probably need a little bit more because only about 80% of that is bioavailable protein.
24:05
So, you want to maybe even increase a little bit more.
24:10
And once you see that infographic, once you see or just even like buy a little scale and measure out 150 g of protein, see what it is, you're like, oh wow, I am really not getting enough protein day to day, you know.
24:21
thinking about that a lot lately myself.
24:23
I've been looking at that.
24:23
And Rudy and I were talking about it.
24:25
I was like, yeah, I'm not sure I'm getting as much protein as I need to be getting.
24:28
And I'm obviously plant-based, so that was something that we were diving into.
24:32
What are the best plant-based sources of protein that you're seeing?
24:36
And that actually add up to that amount.
24:37
Not I know what the sources are, but it's almost like, how do you get that much of it?
24:42
Yeah, I mean, you know, you know what the sources are, like beans and grains and all it, but also I myself and all my vegetarian and vegan friends, I recommend, you know, pea protein powder. It's really good. It goes down easily.
24:55
Put it in Put it Like you can add it to like your oatmeal and other other things that you're eating and and you'll you'll start building up, you know?
25:03
And look, the idea is not to get from like 10 g of protein a day all the way to 150 g.
25:10
You build up slowly over time and you see what kind of works for you.
25:12
All of this needs to be individualized and that's why I like having like that data point, which is the bioimpedance scale, that InBody scale, cuz you can see like, "Oh, wow, my skeletal muscle mass is going up. I'm doing good now.
25:24
Like here's where I need to be, right?"
25:25
So you can really personalize it for yourself. Okay, fantastic.
25:28
This is This is already helping me.
25:31
I I'm like listening to everything you're saying.
25:34
This is It's so relatable and so so actionable immediately, which which is fantastic.
25:39
And I love the and I keep keep Please keep sharing like the tools or the the gadgets that we can have or websites or books because I want all of our community to feel really supported and go, "Okay, that's what I haven't read yet." or Yeah, absolutely.
25:51
And I have no financial like hookup with any of these companies.
25:55
I'll tell you if I do, but this is the stuff that I love and I've seen my patients really take to as well.
26:00
So I'm going to I'm going to blurt them out and I think it's fantastic.
26:06
do your research, you know, but yeah.
26:09
Let's talk a bit about supplements and vitamins because I think that there's a lot of like mixed messaging out there about what's needed, how much of it's needed.
26:18
Some people are like, "Well, none of it really gets absorbed and does it make a difference?"
26:21
And there there's always a debate about it.
26:23
How do you go about out what someone needs as an individual as opposed to just taking what everyone's taking because you keep hearing about it everywhere.
26:33
Yeah, that's such a great question.
26:33
And we can't even talk about that, Jay, without talking about number four on the list, which was vegetables, all right? And I'll tell you why.
26:41
So the fourth thing, which is as important as protein, is getting enough vegetables in your diet on a daily basis.
26:47
So do you Do you much that is by chance? I don't.
26:51
I mean, I have a lot of vegetables. Right. But, I've no idea.
26:54
So, you're going to have to tell me. Right.
26:56
And so, a lot a lot of people really know like what's the right amount.
26:59
And really, the amount of vegetables you eat has a lot to do with the amount of fiber intake you need, which 90% of America doesn't get enough fiber.
27:07
And fiber is a critical ingredient of our diet.
27:09
Secondly, that's where most of our micronutrients and phytonutrients are is in those vegetables.
27:15
Thirdly, they just keep you full and satiated all the time as well.
27:20
So, getting enough vegetables in your diet is extremely important.
27:21
The number that I've seen in a lot of um fitness and nutrition gurus talk about is it's a big number.
27:31
It's like 800 g of vegetables, which is about a you know, a quart of vegetables, right?
27:34
So, once again, get your a scale and measure this out and see what it is.
27:39
It's It's not a small amount.
27:41
It's like two full salads a day.
27:43
But, that's kind of what we need to work up to.
27:45
So, if you're doing that, the need for supplementation is minimal to none, actually.
27:51
I'm not a big supplement pusher.
27:53
I'd much rather people get it in your diet.
27:54
The reality of the situation is, however, it's really hard to get that much protein and that much vegetable product into your diet, right?
28:04
And of course, we can't talk about vegetables without talking about making sure you're buying organic, you know, you're buying as local as possible.
28:10
Um and if you can't go to ewg.
28:13
org, Environmental Working Group's website, they'll give you a list of what are the most toxic vegetables and the least toxic out there right now.
28:21
So, look at that website and I'll give you the list.
28:25
So, if you're not getting enough uh vegetable intake into your diet, the next step is to add some supplementation to that.
28:32
The most common supplements I recommend for people are vitamin D.
28:36
Um we don't get enough sunlight to produce it.
28:38
We're not getting enough in our diet.
28:39
So, most people do need some vitamin D.
28:41
It needs to be dialed in based on a blood test. So, you do a blood test.
28:47
I like the vitamin D level to be around 50 to 80.
28:50
And the vitamin D form that I like people to take is vitamin D3K2.
28:55
The K2 is also another vitamin added in.
28:58
It prevents over-absorption of calcium with the vitamin D and deposition of calcium in your blood vessels.
29:02
So, vitamin D3K2, then fish oil supplement as well.
29:07
For the vegetarians and vegans out there, there's some great non- fish sources of fish oil as well.
29:12
So, I would do that as well.
29:15
Magnesium is something that we're all very deficient in, so I would do magnesium as well.
29:19
And then creatine, believe it or not, is amino acid that has a lot of research behind it. Do you do creatine? Yeah. 5 to 8 mg every morning.
29:29
Just put a scoop in your coffee.
29:31
It mixes in with anything.
29:33
I think that's another really interesting good one.
29:36
And then I kind of then, you know, kind of do it based on what I ate the day before, right?
29:41
So, if I got couple good salads in, fine.
29:45
I don't need to do anything else.
29:46
If I didn't, I'll take a packet of AG1, which is like a phytonutrient powder, which I really like, and or a multivitamin sometimes as well. I'll do that, too.
29:54
And then protein powders are pretty much always a staple for me as well.
29:59
That's the other supplement that I use.
30:00
putting that on to other stuff.
30:00
Yeah, putting that on to other stuff, putting that into a shake.
30:03
You know, shakes are very convenient.
30:05
There's a really good protein powder I like called Supergut.
30:09
It's actually a resistant starch and a protein powder and fiber all in one like bag. Wow.
30:14
And so, Supergut is a fantastic like rescue product I have like if I've been on a plane for 8 hours or something, you know, and I just come home and just take that and I get my nutrition in.
30:23
And that's pretty much it.
30:26
You know, there's other things you can do like if you're having trouble sleeping, there's ashwagandha, there's glycine.
30:30
If you're having trouble with stress, ashwagandha is another good one for that.
30:35
But then I'm really selective about which ones to use. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Those are fantastic.
30:40
That's a really good breakdown for anyone.
30:42
I mean, I remember when I first started measuring that with Mona, it's like my vitamin D, which you would never have known if you met me or saw me, was 10. Ooh. Yeah.
30:50
And And it was just like I was living my life like I was on planes, I was giving keynotes, I was I was healthy, I was energetic, whatever.
30:59
And she was just like, "I don't know even how you function." Mhm. I was at a 10.
31:02
It was like it was I And I was unaware.
31:04
How old were you when you did this?
31:06
This is Oh, this is like a year and a half Oh, okay.
31:08
Yeah, like it was just interesting to me because the only thing I could feel is like I was feeling a bit of fatigue.
31:15
And that was the only thing.
31:17
And that's why I think that the reason why I'm raising that for my audience and community here today is don't take it for granted and don't assume that you might be like, "Ah, I don't need any of these vitamin supplements."
31:28
It's like it could be the tiniest thing that you're experiencing as a symptom.
31:30
It's important to take it seriously because you don't want to be at a 10.
31:34
You bring up an extremely good point.
31:36
A couple points I want to make here.
31:38
One is you have to become the CEO of your own health. Mhm.
31:41
And what I mean by that is a CEO manages a business by looking at numbers on a daily basis, right?
31:49
Most people manage their health based on a feeling that they have, symptoms that they have.
31:53
They're not looking at numbers.
31:56
So, becoming the CEO of your own health means knowing what are the key KPIs of your health.
32:00
There's only about 10 of them.
32:01
Skeletal muscle mass being one of them, body fat percentage being another, vitamin D level being another.
32:05
You got to keep that dialed in, right?
32:07
Because the other point I want to make with you is that when your vitamin D level is low like at this age and you don't take care of it for 20 to 30 years, that's when the lack of vitamin D leads to the higher risk of Alzheimer's, leads to the higher risk of heart attack, leads to the higher risk of hormone problems.
32:27
It all started 20 to 30 years before when you barely felt it. Mhm. You see what I mean?
32:32
So, looking at those numbers 20 to 30 years ahead of becoming sick is the key to becoming CEO of your own health and then making all those diseases a non-issue, making all the things that people die of a non-issue. Fantastic.
32:46
Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more and I'm so glad you made that connection because I think it often when you find it out long-term, you then feels like a surprise. Right.
32:56
But actually it isn't if you're looking at the numbers and I think we just haven't been trained to look at our health in terms of numbers.
33:02
Like you'd measure your height growing up your weight growing up, but those are such poor indicators of health in and of themselves without looking at all of these other metrics that we're talking about here today, whether it's your glucose levels, whether it's your vitamin D levels, magnesium, etc.
33:17
You mentioned so many other vitamins and supplements.
33:22
I just don't think we're trained to know where to look and what to look at and therefore we're basing it on I feel tired today.
33:29
I feel and I think this is something I want to mention as well that the mind and the body are so connected, but I think so often our physical challenges we think are a mental challenge.
33:39
So we think we're tired because we have we're not focused enough or we're not excited enough or we're not motivated enough.
33:45
We make the physical issue a mental issue, but it isn't.
33:47
It's purely a physical and I know that because I feel so purposeful and love what I do and I'm so joyful about it and I'm so excited about it.
33:56
So if my body's not working to the degree I want it to, I'm very clear that you can have all the mental stuff down, but if you're not taking care of your body, it doesn't just you can push it a bit further, but that's not going to get you up the hill.
34:10
So You're absolutely right.
34:10
There's when your brain starts feeling it, usually your body is in big trouble. Yeah.
34:17
That's when you start feeling it.
34:17
So, you know, I think your point about the numbers is so it resonates with me because that's what happened to me when I became sick.
34:25
I outsourced my numbers to my primary care doctor in my, you know, concierge medicine doctor.
34:30
And they got my numbers back, they looked at them, and you know, you get these If you've ever seen your blood work sheet, like if something is out of range, it turns red.
34:40
Otherwise, it's all black, it's all like a bunch of numbers, right?
34:43
And so, because things were like barely in the red and not moving, they decided not to even talk to me about them, right?
34:50
But in reality, things were changing for a long time and going in the wrong direction.
34:56
And that's because Western medicine can't really do anything about that number until they can prescribe you a pill for it.
35:01
And that pill only comes when it's disease time. That's the problem.
35:07
And I also think people get overwhelmed with the with the numbers because, you know, most people, you know, don't know what these numbers mean.
35:13
So, what I really try to do with my patients is give them like 10 numbers.
35:17
These are the 10 numbers you need to watch and why, and I think that makes it a lot easier for them.
35:21
So, I give them a spreadsheet, I let them watch their own numbers, and I think it's important for them to watch their own numbers rather than outsource their health to their physician because they need to know what the optimal ranges, not just the disease range, right?
35:33
So, let me just give you one more real quick on the glucose um point because yeah, yeah. This is great. important one. It's a hemoglobin A1C.
35:42
And you probably heard of this before, too.
35:43
It's a measure of your last 3 months average of glucose.
35:47
And you're pre-diabetic when this number is 5.
35:50
7, and you're diabetic when it's 6. 5 or above. My number was 5.
35:54
7, and he just put me on a medication, but 5 years ago, I had measured this with my doctor, and it had gone from 4. 7 to 5. 0 to 5. 2 to 5. 3 to 5.
36:06
4, and no one said anything to me, you know?
36:09
And I could have done something about it back then before I had to Now, it's an emergency, right?
36:15
So, I think that's another number people should watch nutrition-wise is that hemoglobin A1C number.
36:19
And I guarantee you, if people call their doctors and ask for their latest blood work result, it's on there. Or it should be.
36:28
If it's not on there, you have a bigger problem, but it should be on there and you'll see kind of where you're at, you know?
36:32
Uh this is fantastic, Dr. Shah. Thank you so much.
36:36
All right, I want to dive into let's do exercise next. You brought that up.
36:40
I want to dive into it and if I if there's any ever ever a time where you want to go back or share something, feel free.
36:45
You know, this is all about giving the most value to everyone who's listening and watching. Right.
36:49
When we talk about exercise, I think everyone's kind of always known they need to exercise.
36:53
One of the things I love, before we start talking about the technicality of it, you talk a lot about the need for social exercising, which I love that because recently I've been playing so much pickleball with friends.
37:07
I don't know if you've been Oh, yeah.
37:08
I got to play pickleball with you. I love pickleball.
37:10
Yeah, and it's just it is like I have played at this point today I don't I'm not playing today.
37:16
The I played the last five days in a row every day.
37:19
I probably played for an average of two hours a day on average.
37:24
Some days it was three, some day was one.
37:27
And it is such an easy workout because you're just running around, you're sweating, you're having a good time with friends, you're outdoors.
37:33
And I've I've made it a priority in my life that all of my friendships this year we're going to do something active together.
37:40
So instead of getting together and sitting down and eating dinner, even though I love doing that, we're actually going to go on a hike instead or we're going to go on a walk.
37:48
And if I don't feel like going on a hike or a walk, then at least we're just going to do something active whether it be an escape room so that we're moving around or if it is that I have enough energy to play pickleball, we're doing that.
37:59
The idea is how can every friendship be based on fitness that is also fun rather than friendship which is based on us sitting on a couch watching a movie together, which by the way I still do as well, but that can't be the primary way to hang out.
38:11
Such an incredibly good point and um I just spent the last weekend in Ohio with a with some of my friends and literally like we would not sit down until we all hit 10,000 steps, you know, for for the day.
38:25
And pickleball was part of it, hiking was part of it.
38:27
And you know, the old adage is so true.
38:30
You become the average of the eight people you surround yourself with, right?
38:33
And so if the eight people you're friends with, like my community of friends, we work out together.
38:39
That is our social activity and it's so much fun.
38:41
We find different things to do, you know, we're lucky we live in the hills and we can hike together, we can go to these really fun gyms together, but it makes exercise not exercise.
38:52
I think what happens and why people don't get enough exercise is because exercise is literally like going to the gym by yourself and it's not inspiring a lot of times when you go to the gym if you don't especially if you don't have a trainer, you know, and social exercise for me was the cure to not getting enough movement in my day. Mhm. Absolutely. Yeah, it's huge.
39:15
And tell us about let's talk about what type of movement is needed because I think again we have so many preconceived notions.
39:21
Exercise in someone's head could be like weightlifting.
39:25
That's what it looks like.
39:27
Exercise could be doing a high intensity workout at a gym.
39:29
Exercise could mean a sport.
39:32
What movement do we actually need to genuinely be healthy in a real way because you could be doing any or none of these things and you could or could not be healthy. So what is that?
39:44
What do we actually need? What do our bodies need?
39:46
I love this question because it's counterintuitive, okay?
39:49
So people are always like, "What do I need to do? Go to the gym?
39:51
How many sets and reps and minutes on the treadmill do I need?" And I tell them, "Wait.
39:56
Once again, Pareto principle, all you have to do is move all day long."
40:02
So sedentary behavior, which means sitting for more than an hour at a time for 8 hours a day, is literally what's killing most of us right now.
40:10
And so what happens is most people have an an 8-hour job, right?
40:15
Out of that 8-hour job they'll sit for 2 hours, maybe get up for to go to the bathroom, sit down for 2 or 3 hours again, have lunch where they're sitting.
40:23
So, just sitting for long periods of time increases your rate of mortality exponentially.
40:30
So, for every 10% additional time you spend sitting, you have an increase of 10% in your all-cause mortality. And it's like linear. Wait, say that again?
40:38
Yeah, for every 10% of time that you spend sitting over a baseline, you have a 10% increase in all-cause mortality. That's crazy.
40:47
Yeah, it's crazy how much sitting just moving changes the entire equation.
40:51
So, once you go from being sedentary to not sedentary, your rate of death from heart attacks, from Alzheimer's and dementia, from stroke, from anything goes down exponentially.
41:05
So, what I tell people is no matter what, every 45 minutes you need to take an exercise snack.
41:11
And this has been proven in research as well.
41:14
Every 45 minutes, spend 10 minutes getting up and walking around a little bit.
41:19
And And if you do that, you've broken the cycle of sedentary behavior completely.
41:24
So, what I do is I have my patients buy like a little egg timer, like a little metal It looks like an egg.
41:30
And we just set it to 45, put it down, and when it rings, you get up, walk around. And guess what?
41:34
That's the same amount of time needed to break the strain on your eyes, to break the stress cycle as well.
41:40
So, it's a really good idea to take these exercise snacks when you're at home.
41:44
I'm sorry, when you're at work, but then also when you're at home.
41:48
People sit down and watch, you know, TV for 2 hours. So, what happens again.
41:51
So, that's step one is don't be sedentary.
41:54
Even athletes, there's so many athletes that are sedentary during the day, like or or during the evening, that um they're affected by this as well. So, focus on that first. Don't be sedentary.
42:04
Then step two on exercise is now what kind of activity can we put in to really start like moving the needle with how exercise can improve your longevity and health span.
42:14
So, do you want me to talk about that a little bit, too?
42:17
Yeah, before you dive into that, there's something that I'm really glad to hear that because one thing I've been recommending to a lot of my corporate clients is I don't know who invented 30-minute and 60-minute meetings.
42:27
I just don't know where that came from.
42:30
We just invent these things where they have to be that long, and I've started saying to so many of my clients who are living like I don't live a meeting-to-meeting life anymore.
42:40
So, I get a lot of movement. I'll stand up. I'll walk over there. I'll walk back. I'll walk next door. I'll jump in a car.
42:45
We'll walk to the meeting.
42:47
So, I thankfully have a lot of movement in my day.
42:49
But when I used to work in the corporate world, I used to always tell everyone have a 55-minute meeting or have a 25-minute meeting.
42:57
That then gives you an extra 5 minutes to stand up, to walk, to get hydrated, to look out of a window, or maybe get some fresh air, and then to look out into the distance so that you're not constantly short-sighted.
43:08
I feel today, we're constantly looking at our phone, at our laptop, at an iPad, and we're becoming more and more short-sighted.
43:16
And that's why it kind of feels like our mind can feel a bit crowded and clouded.
43:20
And to me, just going outside and looking out into the distance, maybe spotting a bird, a cloud, a distant building, it just opens up the mind a little bit.
43:28
And I feel like just shifting it from having 5 minutes off every hour, which isn't going to negatively impact a meeting.
43:34
You're not going to achieve anything more in that extra 5 minutes.
43:37
And same with if you do 15 minutes of a meeting.
43:39
Maybe if meetings shifted to being 45, not an hour, I think you'd achieve so much more in the meeting, too, because now you have less time.
43:47
And so, I just think there's so much there, and I just want to give people more value on that that it's so easy and practical to implement some of this.
43:55
And a lot of it's just breaking these old rules that have just lasted it for far too long. Yeah, so true.
44:02
And you must have talked to Google about this cuz on Google Calendar, you can program 25-minute meetings.
44:05
Do you know that or I I didn't know that.
44:07
Yeah, or 55 minute meetings.
44:09
So, every meeting is automatically like cut short by 5 or 10 minutes. Oh, I didn't know that.
44:15
Yeah, and then what I tell people to do, too, is switch from a regular Zoom account to the free Zoom account cuz it kicks you off in 40 minutes. That's why. Yeah, yeah.
44:22
So, it's like, "Sorry, guys. I got to go.
44:23
I'm running out of time here."
44:25
Yeah, you might look cheap, but it will save your health. Yeah.
44:29
But, um on that one more double click on that point, too, is that if you do have a life where you have to spend a lot of time at your desk, um on the computer on meetings, really consider getting a treadmill desk or a walking desk.
44:40
That's been a game changer for me, too.
44:42
Like, I'll I'll get 25, 30,000 steps in after 3 hours of meetings, you know?
44:47
It's pretty pretty incredible amount of steps. Yeah. Wow, that's amazing. All right. So, all right.
44:51
So, go to for number two on the exercise.
44:54
number two, I I always think the most important um thing that you can first start doing in an exercise routine is strength training, especially after the age of 40.
45:01
Muscle breakdown is a root of all physical problems and frailty as we age.
45:06
And so, really getting into a good strength training routine is key.
45:09
And then, secondly, you want to work on your cardio, right?
45:14
And cardio, really, you need to think about it in two prongs.
45:17
There's anaerobic and aerobic.
45:17
And um anaerobic is basically, you know, working really hard.
45:22
And then, you have the aerobic where you're not working as hard and you're utilizing oxygen to make energy.
45:28
So, the way you do your anaerobic, I like using hit exercises.
45:32
There's anaerobic training protocols. Sports, I get. Sports, right? Exactly.
45:36
Where you're working really hard.
45:36
You don't have to do a lot of that every week, but you you do need to get some of that in every every week.
45:40
And then, I really like what Peter Attia says about zone two aerobic exercise, like getting 30 to 45 minutes a day into start every other day or so.
45:50
I think that's important.
45:52
But, look, it's so hard for people to fit all this into their life, right?
45:55
So, you got to make it as easy as possible.
45:57
So, there's like these 7-minute hit routine apps that you can do, which are fantastic.
46:01
Getting a set of barbells and putting them in your closet or your bedroom, so that every time you go there, you do 15, 20, like, you know, Arnold presses or something.
46:12
Even that, as long as it's consistent and done on a daily basis for busy people, is going to be extremely helpful.
46:17
I think a lot of people think like it's either go to the gym for an hour three to four days a week or just give up completely. Yeah.
46:25
And nothing could be farther from the truth, right?
46:28
Yeah, and you were saying literally having something at your office desk, having something in your bedroom, just just a little bit of addition to your already busy life is going to make a difference and we need to stop having this glorified view of going to the gym and having the perfect workout routine. Right.
46:44
How do we get How do we get How have you found people get rid of that perfectionist mentality when it comes to health?
46:49
Because I feel like we also have it with food, we have it We're on We talked about nutrition, we have it with exercise, where it's like, I'm going to eat really healthy or I'm going to eat really bad.
46:57
Like if I had a pizza too many days in a row, I might as well just carry on eating pizza because oh, it's not going to matter that I had vegetables for one day.
47:04
Although you would argue it does matter and that one day of breaking the cycle is probably useful.
47:10
How have you worked with clients on that mental aspect of it?
47:12
Because that's obviously what I focus on in my work so much.
47:16
I'd love to hear about it from yours.
47:18
Yeah, you know, it's There's a lot of science around habit building and routine building.
47:22
Atomic Habits is a great book that I read.
47:24
There's a couple others that I really like and it's just kind of like this reward and cycle that you reward yourself over You have to consistently reward yourself on a daily basis for doing the right things and then not punish yourself for doing the wrong things.
47:38
And so, I think there's a lot of psychology around that.
47:41
It's It's Honestly, it's really hard.
47:43
I mean, we find it hard for ourselves, too, right?
47:47
But I really believe in having a positive attitude about it.
47:50
I think if you come at it with positivity and say, "You know what? It's fine.
47:53
I messed up, but I'm going to do it.
47:56
And you you just positive about it.
47:57
That in itself is a psychological barrier broken into starting today as a first day of your life to start building new habits again. Absolutely, right. Absolutely, yeah.
48:09
It's I think I can't remember who said it, but I've heard The Rock say it plenty of times.
48:12
He's like, "It's either one day or day one." Right.
48:16
And he'll always quote that, right? So, mindset.
48:18
Like, it's either one day, we'll get through it one day, I'll do it one day, or it's like, "No, today's day one.
48:23
This is the day that I'm going to solve it and start it."
48:25
And I think that's that positive mindset you're speaking of. Yeah, exactly.
48:30
was there a point three and exercise that you wanted to make?
48:32
I'm sure there's a point seven, but was there another one you wanted to kind of We should probably stop there on exercises.
48:39
Absolu- There's absolutely more you can do.
48:40
As you get older, you know, your audience spans all ages and everyone As you get older, you really want to look at stability and balance.
48:47
So, I try to do stability and balance exercises on a daily basis as well.
48:52
Things like standing on one foot, believe it or not.
48:56
Yeah, just things like that.
48:56
As we get older, we lose that.
48:58
And if you're not training it, especially after the age of 50, you're going to keep losing it.
49:02
And then the number one killer of older people is becoming frail, falling cuz they lose their balance, and breaking a hip or a bone.
49:11
That's what usually takes out most older people.
49:13
And so, you can avoid that by incorporating some stability balance routines in your life.
49:19
I really appreciate you also looking at it from the perspective of like, "Let's stop there."
49:23
because I I think so often people listen to podcasts or read books, and there's just so much information.
49:29
And then that makes us go, "All right, I don't know where to start."
49:33
And so, I love the fact that you're like, "Well, wait a minute.
49:34
Let's just This is step one. This is stage two."
49:37
I love that very curriculum systematic-based approach to mastering our health rather than starting on point number seven and then figuring it out.
49:46
So, And like what I do with my patients is like, we're having this conversation about everything, but I'll only give them one thing to do, right?
49:52
And like we'll change two or three things and then you come back and we'll do the next thing and then the next thing.
49:58
So, let's not worry about how much protein you have in your diet until you clean out your pantry and get rid of all the crap in your pantry, right?
50:04
Let's do that first and then let's talk again next week.
50:08
And so we take it as a stepwise approach, but if whoever's listening to this, you know, if you're taking notes, don't try to implement all of it at the same time.
50:15
You're going to get overwhelmed and quit. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
50:18
All right, let's talk about sleep. Mhm.
50:20
So, I've generally been a good sleeper my whole life and very grateful for that. you know? By measuring. As in not by how I feel.
50:28
I was going to say yeah, by measuring, not by how I feel. Uh by measuring.
50:31
I I wanted to talk about an experience that I had that was bad, which was surprising for me.
50:34
So, I was wearing the Aura Ring for a long time measuring my sleep and I was scoring really well and then during the pandemic, we moved home and we were renting a place that was really disruptive at night.
50:50
We'd get real animals in the floorboards, in the walls.
50:55
There was lots of noises outside.
50:59
I often, because of where we were and there were certain things about it that I was worried that what if someone broke in and you know, there were these other anxieties that I had around it and it was the first time in my life that I think I consecutively had 1 and 1/2 years of bad sleep during the pandemic.
51:17
And it was really interesting because I was doing my supplements, I was eating right, I've always meditated.
51:23
I was doing everything and just this one undercurrent, man, I was fatigued, I was exhausted, I was irritable.
51:28
Like it was so it was so intense because I just wasn't sleeping deeply and I'd often wake up multiple times per night and that wasn't normal for me.
51:36
And I also was wearing the Aura Ring at that time and it was my sleep score was just not great.
51:42
And that was actually what forced me to move to this place and and get this home because I was just like I was I was telling Rothy I was like I need to leave. Like it was that bad.
51:50
And so I know what it feels like to have good sleep and bad sleep.
51:54
And I think that sleep is one of those areas of our health that we underestimate in terms of how great it can be, but I think so many of us struggle with sleep, whether it be anxiety, whether it be insomnia, whether it be stress.
52:08
And so I want to start off by talking about tracking your sleep and improving the environment that we sleep in, at least as a starting point.
52:18
But I do want to get to two and three with you today on your list because I do think there are people who are trying to do all that stuff, but there's still something not clicking.
52:27
And I'm sure you've experienced this a million times with clients.
52:30
So let's start at step one and then see where we go from there. Right.
52:34
So I agree with you like tracking is a game-changer, but I can also tell you that I've had a lot of patients that get super anxious tracking and they live in doubt by those numbers, right?
52:44
So if you're one of those people that the over tracking of sleep kind of changes your day and changes your perspective on your day, only use tracking for a very specified amount of time.
52:55
Use it for when you're very mindfully changing your sleep habits and your routines.
53:00
And then stop worrying it once you got your sleep score up to a score that you like, right?
53:06
I personally I I like tracking my sleep all the time.
53:08
I'm just a real data guy, so I like to see it.
53:10
But when I go on vacation now, I don't wear my Aura ring because I know that the sleep's not going to be as good sometimes, right?
53:18
Um so so you know, I use it I use it for when I'm being mindful about trying to get better sleep or if something's changed.
53:24
Like I notice um I had COVID um and right after COVID I had long COVID and my heart rate was racing for months. I'm sorry to hear that.
53:32
Yeah, it was horrible and um um it really affected my sleep, but my Aura ring told me that this is what's happening.
53:39
This is why you're not sleeping well, your heart rate is is racing.
53:41
So, I think the benefit of sleep tracking is really understanding it's not just the number of hours you're sleeping, it's really the sleep pattern and educating yourself on that sleep pattern.
53:52
Um Oura does a good job, Whoop does a good job, the Eight Sleep mattress has a phenomenal tracker.
53:55
Eight Sleep's great, yeah.
53:58
It's great, I love it, yeah.
53:59
And um you know, understanding how much deep sleep you need, where that deep sleep needs to be in your sleep night, and understanding things like heart rate variability and an average heart rate at night is a game-changer, right?
54:12
While you're modifying your sleep environment and your routine.
54:16
So, once we get that in place, then the second thing we do is we absolutely make sure the person doesn't have sleep apnea. All right?
54:23
So, for those of you who don't know what sleep apnea is, that's when you stop breathing at night, your body physically stops taking in oxygen.
54:29
You don't have oxygen in your body for for a few seconds at a time, but all night long.
54:34
That affects your brain, your heart, virtually every organ in your body.
54:41
So many people have sleep apnea and don't recognize it, and it's really sad because it's causing basically, I tell them it's causing a slow death, believe it or not.
54:49
If you have sleep apnea, you have to get it treated right away.
54:53
There's lots of different ways of treating it, there's dental appliances, there's you know, the CPAP mask you can wear, there's surgery, but you got to figure it out because no matter what you do, some of the symptoms that people could notice? Right.
55:04
So, the symptoms of sleep apnea are number one, you wake up gasping for air in the middle of the night or your significant other you're sleeping with tells you that.
55:10
Secondly, you wake up really tired every morning and you and you have daytime somnolence, where you're just kind of falling asleep a few hours after you've woken up.
55:19
Even snoring very loudly can indicate sleep apnea as well.
55:24
So, if you know, your spouse, whoever tells you you're snoring really a lot, um and then there's a questionnaire you can take online.
55:30
It's a very simple questionnaire called the STOP-BANG questionnaire, S-T-O-P B-A-N-G. Just Google that.
55:36
And you take the questionnaire, it'll give you a score, and it'll tell you if you need to be evaluated for sleep apnea.
55:43
So, being evaluated for sleep apnea now is much easier.
55:45
People used to dread going to a sleep lab and getting all the wires put on them.
55:49
Now, you just wear like a little device on your finger overnight at home, and we can get a good idea if you have sleep apnea or not. Wow.
55:56
And the sleep doctors are very good at treating this now as well. Wow.
55:58
And you're saying there's different types of uh therapy or there's different types of treatments for sleep apnea. it. Yeah. Treatments for it. Yeah.
56:06
Yeah, there's there's stuff you can get from your dentist, like a little dental appliance that pulls your jaw forward. There's a CPAP mask.
56:12
There's also surgeries that you can do as well.
56:16
Losing weight, special pillows, propping your bed There's lots of things you can do. Wow. Okay.
56:19
Yeah, that I can't I can't believe that.
56:21
It's It's so fascinating, right?
56:23
Again, because these things haven't been measured since we were young.
56:26
And because we don't know what to look out for, you could be sitting there for months or years going, "Why do I wake up feeling like this? Maybe I'm anxious. Maybe I'm stressed."
56:35
And that could be a part of it, but there's something else going on as well.
56:39
Yeah, I can't tell you how many people that I simply asked a few questions I just asked you, and they're like, "Yeah, I have that. Yeah, I have that."
56:45
And it's like a revelation.
56:46
And they're 55 years old, and they have sleep apnea.
56:49
They've had it for 25 years.
56:49
So, it's really sad how under diagnosed it is, and how incredibly treatable it is, and it could change the trajectory of your life, you know?
56:57
Because once you treat sleep apnea, your metabolism actually gets under control.
57:02
And you start losing weight.
57:05
You start having less glucose spikes.
57:07
You start um eating better.
57:07
You You feel less brain fog.
57:10
And then, you also prevent Al- Sleep apnea is one of the main risk factors for Alzheimer's disease. Mhm.
57:17
So, you prevent Alzheimer's, too.
57:18
So, once again, it's knowing early and treating things early.
57:22
What if someone's they they're okay just about getting to sleep, but that they wake up multiple times when they're sleeping?
57:29
What have you found to be useful for someone in that scenario of you treated worked with anyone who has that I I've just met so many more people these days that not telling me they can't sleep.
57:38
They're saying I can sleep but then I'm waking up and then waking up and these aren't people with kids or anything.
57:43
So this is like a you know, it's just how they're feeling.
57:45
Three main reasons for it I normally see.
57:47
One is nocturia where they have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and so there's medications and exercises you can do to treat that.
57:53
The second reason is going to bed with anxiety and stresses on your mind.
57:58
So what I tell people to do is number one no electronics and maybe even no TV before going to bed cuz that can keep you thinking but keep a notebook by the side of your bed.
58:09
If you're one of these busy people that you just have so many things going through your head, write them all down and then you'll at least you know, download that onto a piece of paper and hopefully get it out of your head.
58:21
But the third thing that I find that really does this too is eating or drinking a little bit too close to your sleep.
58:27
You have this kind of glucose surge that happens after you get to bed and it just wakes you up too.
58:32
So really making sure there's 3 to 4 hours between your last meal and going going to bed is key.
58:39
Yeah, and I'm so glad you brought up the devices in conversation because I was talking to a lot of people when when people have been saying to me Jay I'm experiencing anxiety one question that I often ask people is what did you watch last night?
58:52
And there are some people in the world who can watch the craziest scariest eeriest things and not feel anything.
58:59
And there are people who watch those things and it puts these cliffhanger chemicals as I like to call them into your body which constantly puts you on that cliffhanger which keeps you up that makes you wake up with this state of fright.
59:10
I was just we went to watch Oppenheimer a couple of weeks ago and we're watching the trailers and the Exorcist trailer came up there's another Exorcist movie and Rolly just sat there like this if you're not if you're watching sorry if you're listening then I'm clo- my eyes and my ears.
59:27
And Rothy literally sat there like that bec- and she was like, "Just tell me when it's done."
59:31
Cuz she doesn't want to watch it.
59:33
And that that trailer was far too long for a trailer.
59:34
I felt like it told me the whole movie.
59:37
It was one of those trailers, yeah. Oh, no.
59:39
So, for Rothy, she knows that she's aware of that, and so she won't watch and it consume content like that.
59:44
I can watch it and laugh it off and be fine, then it won't affect me unless I'm watching it every day.
59:48
And I think it's so important that we we check ourselves that way because you're just making it harder for yourself in a way you don't need to. Right, absolutely.
59:55
I'm one of those people I can't watch horror movies anymore.
59:58
It just affects me way too much. It sticks in my head.
1:00:00
I actually become a scaredy-cat at night and I can't sleep because of the So, I just don't even entertain the thought of watching like even a trailer.
1:00:07
I'd probably close my eyes with that trailer. trailer was haunted.
1:00:10
That was like, "Do not watch the new Exorcist trailer if you want to sleep at night."
1:00:14
That was like, it stayed in me for a while, but uh No, that's great.
1:00:18
Anything else on sleep that you feel as as that one, two, three as we're going over it?
1:00:23
Yeah, so number one is sleep apnea.
1:00:23
Make sure you don't have it.
1:00:26
As you're tracking your sleep, two and three are fix your sleep environment and fix your sleep routine.
1:00:31
So, your sleep environment needs to be like how our ancestors slept when they were cavemen, a cold, dark cave, right?
1:00:37
So, turn the temperature down in your room.
1:00:40
What's even better than turning it down in your room is buying like an Eight Sleep or something that keeps your bed cool itself, but it should be somewhere around 65°. Dark, like totally dark.
1:00:50
Like even the little red lights and alarm clock, cover them with black electrical tape and put them in a different room. And then quiet.
1:00:58
And most people can't get it fully quiet or some people like the quiet even becomes like it becomes noise to them.
1:01:05
So, a sound machine, like a white noise machine, is very, very effective in improving your sleep.
1:01:09
And what's really cool about doing these things is you can do like one thing and see how it affects your sleep score.
1:01:17
And then a week later buy a white noise machine and see what happens to your sleep score.
1:01:20
Like you might not feel it physically the next day, but your tracker will tell you like you went up from 85 to 95 just by buying a white noise machine.
1:01:28
And I've seen it happen over and over again.
1:01:30
So your sleep routine, what I like to tell people is your sleep routine actually starts the moment you wake up.
1:01:37
And there's probably like only 3% of people that the moment they wake up that you go outside expose themselves to sun. Right?
1:01:46
Most people just they go from being inside to going in their garage, getting in their car, going to work, parking in the garage. Right?
1:01:51
Like no one goes outside anymore in the morning.
1:01:53
I make it a point to take me and my kids outside first thing in the morning.
1:01:59
Expose yourself to sunlight.
1:01:59
That sets your circadian rhythm.
1:02:01
Your melatonin is going to start secreting like it's 14 hours afterwards. That's key.
1:02:04
Sleep routine starts first thing in the morning.
1:02:08
And then you know how the iPhone now has like a sleep alarm, right?
1:02:12
So like it's not an alarm clock to wake you up.
1:02:13
It's when you need to start preparing for sleep.
1:02:15
So when that alarm goes off 2 hours before sleep, all the lights turn off as much as possible.
1:02:21
Switch on some, you know, soft orange colored bulbs instead.
1:02:24
And just start winding down your brain.
1:02:26
You know, a big part of that is avoiding electronic devices. Absolutely. Yeah, great advice. No, great great advice.
1:02:32
And all things that I've been practicing.
1:02:34
I used to I used to worry about sleeping at 65 degrees cuz I think it would feel cold.
1:02:40
And what I always remind people is you still have your duvet.
1:02:42
You still have your blanket over you.
1:02:43
Like you don't you don't have to be cold.
1:02:47
Uh you can still wear pajamas, right?
1:02:49
Like it's just cooler in the room.
1:02:49
And that's been done wonders for my sleep, even for sleeping in longer and and being more comfortable.
1:02:57
The cave-like darkness has always been a a big win for me and and huge.
1:03:01
And I think that the we've always tried to have very early dinners and that's been such a huge thing of like we try to eat dinner like 6 6:30 p. m.
1:03:10
Just so that when you're in bed at 9:30 that it's, you know, easier to go to sleep. But Right.
1:03:15
All things we've had to work on over time and adjust and figure out, and it's not always perfect, and you know, it's Yeah.
1:03:24
And part of like the eating dinner earlier thing, too, is our caveman ancestors didn't eat after it became dark, right?
1:03:29
And so, it's really food is another item that sets your circadian clock almost as much as light does as well.
1:03:37
So, that's that's a key factor eating earlier.
1:03:39
But, yeah, it's all little things and one at a time and you know, you're not going to change everything overnight.
1:03:43
It might take a year, but you benefit you for the next 50. Yeah. Right? Absolutely. Absolutely.
1:03:48
I want to dive into So, there's a few areas left and I I want to take bits and pieces of all of them.
1:03:54
I don't want to do all of them, but I want to dive into gut health just because it's so I didn't realize for years I was having gut issues because I just didn't know it what they even meant.
1:04:03
I didn't know how to know.
1:04:04
I think today now people are much more informed.
1:04:06
I'm talking about like 10, 13, 15 years ago when I didn't feel it was in the zeitgeist to the conversation as much.
1:04:15
Uh how can someone be conscious and aware if they're not already that they may have leaky gut, that they may have gut issues that they're not fully conscious or aware of or they're being negligent?
1:04:26
I was one of those people who even if there was some discomfort, I would just write it off because you're young and you're fit and you're healthy and you don't care about it too much.
1:04:34
What should people be looking out for?
1:04:36
Yeah, no, that's that's a really good point.
1:04:38
And um once again, you know, by the time you become symptomatic from some of this stuff, a lot of damage has already been done for a long period of time, right?
1:04:47
And so, what I look at here is another one of those biomarkers, one of those see over your own health type of things, which is a biomarker called HS-CRP, highly sensitive C-reactive protein.
1:04:57
Um this is a marker of inflammation. lab can do.
1:05:05
We've been doing it for like 50, 60 years in medicine, but it's a marker of inflammation.
1:05:09
You want this number as close as zero as possible, but a lot of times it'll go up to 1, 2, 3, or 4, and usually that comes from some sort of situation going on in your gut.
1:05:19
So, your gut is the biggest organ in your body protecting you from the outside environment.
1:05:23
Most people think it's your skin, but your gut actually has four or five times the surface area of your skin does.
1:05:30
And so, when that barrier to the outside environment is disrupted, toxins from the outside environment filter into your bloodstream causing inflammation.
1:05:39
Inflammation is when your immune system is overactive, and you not only destroy the toxins, but you start destroying your normal brain, heart, muscle, bone cells, all of it.
1:05:48
So, you need to know when you have inflammation going on in your body.
1:05:51
The first way to tell is by this blood test, and then probably after that blood test has been elevated for months and years is you finally start feeling it in your gut.
1:06:04
So, if you get this measured and you have this a little bit too high, then you start need to looking at your gut as a primary source.
1:06:09
Secondary source would be your oral health, believe it or not.
1:06:13
Like, yeah, totally about that.
1:06:13
That's really That was yeah, go for it.
1:06:15
Yeah, there's a huge association between poor oral health, dementia, and heart attacks as well.
1:06:21
And that's because a lot of inflammation takes place in your mouth.
1:06:25
If you have cavities, if you have gingivitis, etc.
1:06:27
So, you know, if your inflamma- inflammation levels are high, need to go see the dentist, make sure your your oral health is okay, but then you need to start treating your gut.
1:06:37
Here's where a functional medicine doctor can be extremely helpful cuz they can really sort through like what is going on with your gut. Do you have leaky gut?
1:06:45
Why do you have leaky gut?
1:06:47
You know, 10% of the population has gluten sensitivities, 7% is dairy sensitive, or probably even more.
1:06:52
These are just, you know, these are just estimates.
1:06:56
And once you start eliminating those inflammatory foods, the toxins in your food from your diet, your gut starts to heal, and we can put you on a a healing protocol.
1:07:04
Reduces inflammation, and inflammation is a root cause of all the major diseases.
1:07:09
Once you treat inflammation, your chance of getting all the other diseases are much less, right?
1:07:15
So, you got to focus on your gut.
1:07:17
And so, this is where, you know, I tell my patients like, "Look, it's not just about sleep, exercise, and diet.
1:07:24
Now, we need to start talking about gut health."
1:07:26
Like, that's another thing we need to talk about.
1:07:28
And so, hs-CRP is the biomarker for that. Measure that.
1:07:32
And then, of course, if you're having symptoms, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, definitely need to get that checked out.
1:07:37
Yeah, it can be so easy to just kind of feel embarrassed about it, or be negligent of it, or to just kind of brush it off to the side, but tell you the number of like men and women that I see that are like, don't want to talk about it, cuz they're just like, "Doctor, you know, like, I have a lot of gas."
1:07:54
You know, they're so embarrassed about it, but it's like, let's double-click on that.
1:07:58
We need to figure that out, right?
1:07:59
Yeah, and it's just and it's just it's almost like it's it's weird what we've been taught to like be ashamed of in society, when these are like really normal, natural things that we all need to be massively aware of.
1:08:13
It's interesting how the most important things in society become the most taboo to talk about.
1:08:16
You know, we're talking about health right now, money's another one in in a different way, or like even like relationship challenges, or things that are vulnerable have become this thing of like, "Don't talk about it. It's It's weird. It's strange." right? Yeah, it's really sad. Yeah, it's really sad.
1:08:31
Like, so Well, hopefully, I mean, stuff like this podcast, you bring it to light, people start talking about it, and bringing it more into mainstream conversation is so important.
1:08:38
Yeah, I think that's what's needed.
1:08:40
I mean, I know for a long time, like, I didn't know who to talk to about things, because you just don't hear it.
1:08:44
And I think when people are talking to their doctors, also having physicians who we feel understand this language.
1:08:51
And that's why I think with you saying that we need to become the CEO of our own health, I think we've always wanted to outsource it to a doctor, or to a health care professional, whatever it may be.
1:09:01
and the truth is no one's going to care about it as much as you. Absolutely.
1:09:06
And so it has to start there.
1:09:07
So this I want to focus on this one because it's so interesting.
1:09:09
So you obviously talk about heart health as one part of your wellness wheel. Mhm.
1:09:16
And it fascinates me because even when I've seen it on your wellness wheel a million times when I've been in and when we know how important the heart is we rarely talk about heart health.
1:09:29
And if we do we kind of do it in a soft way.
1:09:31
We don't really talk about it from a scientific point of view.
1:09:34
And you talk about how important it is to know our levels at 25 years old. Is it APOB? Yep, APOB, right. Yeah.
1:09:44
So walk us through that and understanding what that is, what it means and how do we know? Right, exactly.
1:09:50
So I think everyone's heard about like watching your cholesterol levels, right?
1:09:53
Okay, so right now what happens is you get your cholesterol levels measured sometimes in your 30s if you're lucky.
1:09:59
Usually doctor wait till your 40 and unless it's like over a really high number, no one's really going to do anything about it and then people will start talking to you about your diet and managing your exercise, you know, exercise more, eat better, eat less fat, eat less cholesterol.
1:10:16
Then you just kind of let it go until all of a sudden it's an emergency for you to get on a statin, you know?
1:10:23
And I think it's kind of 10, 15, 20 years too late at that point in time, right?
1:10:28
The damage has already been done.
1:10:31
Um if you do cardiac testing, you'll see that there's already blockages in blood vessels at that point in time and most of the time these are not diagnosed until people have their first heart attack.
1:10:41
No one even looks at the blood vessels until you've had a heart attack.
1:10:46
And it's really sad the way this whole thing goes.
1:10:48
And it's especially sad because heart attacks and strokes could become like an orphan disease, like a disease that never affects us if we just do it right.
1:10:56
And this is where I think medicine has made like a tremendous, incredible amount of knowledge has been gained.
1:11:03
And this is where I try to really encourage my patients to really partner with their medical doctors and really get this treated.
1:11:10
So, when I say know your apoB level, I love apoB.
1:11:12
It's a new new type of cholesterol measurement, kind of lumps together all the bad forms of cholesterol, which I even hate saying bad cholesterol, but it lumps that together, the dangerous forms.
1:11:24
And knowing what your apoB level is when you're 20, 25, that's kind of the baseline where you want it to be, right?
1:11:31
So, as this starts creeping up, you want to start doing things about it with your exercise, diet, sleep, gut health, all of that matters.
1:11:38
But then when it gets to a certain level that's a little bit too high, that's when you want to start doing cardiac testing and diagnosis.
1:11:45
So, there's really great test that can be done now, CAT scans of your heart that can tell you 20, 30 years ahead of time before you have a heart attack if you have a blockage.
1:11:55
And we have great therapeutics now to turn back the time on these blockages, to get rid of these blockages, to prevent you from having a heart attack.
1:12:03
I can't tell you the number of patients that we've had in our clinics that we've done the scan on preventatively, and how many of them actually had to go straight to the emergency room to get a blood vessel opened up, you know?
1:12:16
Double clicking on this just cuz I think it's really important for your audience to know.
1:12:19
apoB and there's another one everyone needs to get measured when they're young is Lp(a) or even younger or old.
1:12:26
If you've never had it done, got to measure Lp(a).
1:12:27
Lp(a) is a genetic form of cholesterol that can't be treated with diet, nutrition, and um exercise, or cholesterol-lowering medication, traditional ones.
1:12:37
And if you're one of the, you know, few percentage of people that have it, you'll still get massive blockages in your arteries at a very young age.
1:12:45
So, most people don't check that until it's too late as well.
1:12:49
And we can treat that now as well.
1:12:51
So, LP little A and apoB two tests everyone needs to ask their doctor about. That's fantastic.
1:12:56
I'm so glad you're like giving us a vocabulary of knowing what to check cuz I think otherwise, you know, I know I'd just go up to my doctor and be like, well, how how healthy is my heart?
1:13:06
And they're going to be like, you're fine.
1:13:07
Like, you know, and it's And I think that's the challenge.
1:13:09
We don't really have a vocabulary or we don't know the exact tests and checks that need to happen.
1:13:15
And again, I think you've given us so many across the board and I just hope everyone who's listening or watching like, please please please go and check these things out because I just want you to live a healthier, longer, happier life.
1:13:25
And you know, so much of this could either make it easier or harder. Right, absolutely.
1:13:31
And I think, you know, there's different types of people.
1:13:34
Some people like you, like you want to know and you want to know as soon as possible because you want to make sure you get it treated or take care of it before it becomes a big problem.
1:13:42
And so, those are the type of people I think will take this information and really run with it.
1:13:45
Then there's another type of people that will take this information, bring their notes to their doctor.
1:13:52
Some of their doctors will say, "Okay, let's check it."
1:13:54
Some will be like, "No, you don't need to do that."
1:13:56
And they'll be like, "Okay, I'll just leave it."
1:13:57
Which, you know, it's fine, but I really encourage people to become the CEO of their own health, become more aggressive and proactive in learning and tracking these things and pushing your doctor on some of this stuff.
1:14:08
And then you have a group of people that just like they don't want their head in their sand.
1:14:11
Like, "I don't want to know until it's a problem. Tell me then."
1:14:14
Which there's not much you can do about that except, you know, take care of them. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
1:14:20
We've talked about brain health before on the show, but I wanted to talk about cancer. Yeah.
1:14:24
And the the reason why I want to touch on that obviously is because I think the rates are just going up and up and up.
1:14:30
I've lost two people in the last 4 years, three people in my entire life, people that I'm like very close to.
1:14:36
This does not include your auntie, your mom's friend.
1:14:40
Like, you know, like not even just like looking around the whole space, but like people that I'm directly close to.
1:14:46
And all from different causes, all from different reasons.
1:14:48
It's something that I think you know, that we all have a fear around because you just hear it so often, and everyone's going through something like you talk about cancer's biggest enemy is being diagnosed at stage one, but that whenever I've had friends or people I love, we always find out it's stage three or four.
1:15:06
So, how do how do we get that?
1:15:09
What what do you need to do?
1:15:10
So, cancer diagnostics, literally in the last five years has become incredibly revolutionized.
1:15:17
And there's two tests that have done this.
1:15:20
Um one is a test called the full body MRI, like the Prenuvo scan.
1:15:24
Which is what we did when I think yeah. Right, exactly.
1:15:26
Yep, you you did you did the full body MRI.
1:15:29
And that happened because we've always had MRI scanners, but now MRIs are becoming more ubiquitous and cheaper.
1:15:35
These are no radiation scans of your entire body, and they're getting quicker, too.
1:15:38
So, we can do the whole body in like under an hour.
1:15:40
I always say if Steve Jobs had one of these, he'd still be alive today, you know?
1:15:42
So, it's a scan that scans your whole body for not just tumors, but also other anatomical abnormalities that can kill you, like aneurysms in your brain or your aorta.
1:15:53
So, I think that's a very useful test.
1:15:55
It's controversial because you do find a lot of what's called incidentalomas.
1:15:58
These are incidentals that you end up chasing down a rabbit hole as far as what is that thing over there?
1:16:05
But, if you can tolerate a little bit of, you know, having diagnostics done and a little bit of stress while you figure out what those things are, you'll know a lot more about your body in enough time to take care of an issue.
1:16:18
So, that's one technology.
1:16:21
The second technology, which is truly revolutionary, is the liquid biopsy.
1:16:24
This is the Grail the Galleri Grail test.
1:16:26
And um this is a blood test that you can do, and you just send in a vial of blood.
1:16:33
They check it for little fragments of DNA from active tumors in your body, okay?
1:16:38
And so, it can diagnose 50 of the most hard to diagnose tumors at very early stages.
1:16:45
And um right now, unfortunately, this test is expensive and not covered by insurance.
1:16:51
My feeling is as the technology evolves, it'll become cheaper and cheaper, of course, and it'll become the new standard in medicine is to check everyone for this once a year.
1:16:59
Because the reason cancer is so hard to treat is because of being diagnosed at stage three or four when it's sometimes metastatic, right?
1:17:07
And then it's almost it's you have to go chemo, radiation, surgery.
1:17:11
It's so hard, but once you diagnose it at stage one, it's like it's not even had a chance to get there, right? Mhm.
1:17:18
So, this blood test, if you can afford it right now, you know, once a year, I would start doing it for if you can't, it's going to get cheaper. Keep your eye out on it.
1:17:26
I think it'll get cheaper really quickly as a lot of technology is becoming right now.
1:17:29
It's going to revolutionize the way we diagnose cancer.
1:17:32
And then everyone, in addition to those, you can't just do those.
1:17:36
Each of those detects its own things, right?
1:17:38
You've got to get your colonoscopy, do it early, especially if you have a family history of colon cancer. Yep, exactly. Yeah, very important. scared for like a week. Yeah, it was like Yeah.
1:17:51
Yeah, it is scary, but the nice thing about colonoscopy is not just diagnosing cancer.
1:17:54
Like if you go in there and you see a pre-cancer, you can remove it immediately.
1:17:57
So, it's like treatment as well, right?
1:17:59
And then for men, get the PSA test, which is a blood test for your prostate.
1:18:03
For women, make sure you get your mammograms and make sure you get your OBGYN exams.
1:18:06
That's kind of like the array of preventative diagnos- nostics you want to do now in the 21st century to you know, basically diagnose cancer before it before it kills you, you know, as soon as possible.
1:18:20
And how how do we cancer-proof our body?
1:18:24
Cancer-proofing is done by doing all of the other things that we talked about today.
1:18:28
Getting 7-8 hours of sleep, making sure that your nutrition is comes mostly from whole foods, not processed foods, and exercising and not being sedentary.
1:18:38
The other thing is eliminating toxins from your day-to-day life.
1:18:43
And so, we can talk about that a little bit if you like, how to eliminate toxins.
1:18:46
So, the predator principle on that is realize where do you spend the most time, right?
1:18:50
You spend the most time probably at work and asleep in your bed at night.
1:18:54
That environment, the air in that environment, you want that to be as clean as possible.
1:18:58
So, you want to detoxify your air, your water, your food, and chemicals on your skin.
1:19:03
So, air, buy a air purifier for each one of those environments if the air is not perfectly clean.
1:19:11
For your water, um I recommend getting a under sink reverse osmosis system in your kitchen, um where you drink get most of your drinking water, drink it out of glass bottles for the most part.
1:19:22
And for your food, organic or go to that website called ewg. org.
1:19:24
And finally, for the cosmetics that you use and the stuff you put on your body, there's a great app called Think Dirty.
1:19:30
And it you can put any product in there scan the barcode, it'll tell you the level of toxin, and recommend to you the most non-toxic products.
1:19:39
You do that, you've covered 80% of the landscape, like you're you're living in a mostly non-toxic environment.
1:19:46
I'm sure there's people that have other things that they do, but that to me are the keys.
1:19:48
Yeah, my wife is my Think Dirty app.
1:19:51
Like she can figure out She's like He's checked every product.
1:19:56
She got us to switch to glass bottled water.
1:19:58
She put the reverse osmosis system in.
1:20:02
Like she's just so on top of all these stuff, and I'm like, if I didn't have her in my life, I don't know what I'd be doing right now.
1:20:07
And it's incredible how these And And also, you know, when someone recommends these things I mean, when my wife first came up with this reverse osmosis water thing, I was like, come on, like, do we really need it?
1:20:18
Like, you know, and and it's interesting how do we have such random resistance to a lot of these things.
1:20:23
We kind of overthink it or we we underthink it, where we just go, oh, well, that can't be that such a big deal.
1:20:28
Like, I think the whole bottled water thing is now blown up.
1:20:31
When my wife was talking to me about it like four, five years ago.
1:20:33
And at the time it was like I could have been a bit like, "Oh, no, it doesn't matter.
1:20:39
It's just a plastic water bottle."
1:20:41
And now you see the research, right?
1:20:43
And so, I think it's so interesting how like if you have someone in your life, your friends, your family who are recommending things to you, be open-minded about it because you have no idea when it's finally going to be proven.
1:20:53
And I'm hoping that anyone who's listened to this episode, please, please, please share this episode with friends and family members because I think what Dr.
1:21:01
Shah has done beautifully today is he's laid out step one, step two, and step three.
1:21:05
And so, whether you're someone who's just getting started in your journey, or whether you're someone who's trying to refine it and improve it and enhance it in a deep way, you know, you've kind of given the pathway for all of those. Well, thank you.
1:21:16
And you know, you're right, it's so easy to be skeptical, right?
1:21:18
It's hard to be not skeptical and open-minded and do your research and really dive in.
1:21:25
But, I mean, you do such a good job of, you know, trying to get people to break through that barrier of skepticism and opening their mind to new possibilities that I think if people were to like just kind of even if they pick up one thing and research it on their own, you're going to make a positive change, right? I agree. Dr.
1:21:40
Shah, you've been incredible today.
1:21:41
I mean, you've given us such a wealth of insight.
1:21:43
And like I said at the beginning, I want this to be the episode that you come back to to go, "If I'm looking at my gut health, what do I need to focus on?
1:21:51
If I'm looking at my nutrients, what do I need to focus on?"
1:21:54
Please, please, please take a screenshot of this episode right now.
1:21:55
I want you to make sure that you tag Dr.
1:21:59
Shah and I on social media so that he can see what resonated with you, so that I can see what's that one thing you're trying, what's that thing that is now your day one, not your one day.
1:22:07
What is the thing that you're putting into practice that is going to shift how you feel, that is going to shift how you live your life.
1:22:15
What is the thing that you've been avoiding measuring that you're going to measure from now on to make sure that you can start taking the proactive steps in avoiding some of these challenges that you can. Uh Dr.
1:22:27
Shah, I want to ask you the final five, of course, which we do with every guest.
1:22:31
Uh but I want to make sure that I ask where should people find you?
1:22:32
Where should people follow you?
1:22:34
Where can people connect with your work to continue to be educated?
1:22:39
Yeah, so, you know, I've been doing this course for my patients now for many years, and um a lot of them want their family and friends to do this, but they might be living in different countries.
1:22:47
So, I recently started putting the entire course on my Instagram page. So, @DarshanShahMD.
1:22:54
If you go there, like it's all kind of in order.
1:22:55
We're going to start with nutrition, then move on to sleep, and move on to exercise, etc.
1:22:59
And over the course of the year, we'll have all the content on there, but in a sequential fashion. That's fantastic.
1:23:04
So, Darshan Shah MD on Instagram Right.
1:23:08
is the place to go and follow.
1:23:08
We're hoping you're going to upload it to TikTok as well. So, Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
1:23:13
We need to We need Darshan Shah MD on TikTok too. I love it.
1:23:14
Both of them would be amazing. Right. Dr.
1:23:18
Shah, these are your final five.
1:23:18
We ask these to every guest.
1:23:20
Sometimes a different mocktail of of all of them, but we need one word to one sentence maximum for each question.
1:23:27
So, question number one, what is the best health advice you've ever received? Get up and start moving. Nice. All right.
1:23:34
Question number two, what is the worst health advice you've ever received?
1:23:37
Let your doctor watch your blood markers. All right. Wow. All right.
1:23:43
Uh question number three, what is something you used to be skeptical about in terms of health and wellness techniques, but now you swear by it?
1:23:52
Yeah, this whole um field of eliminating toxins from your day-to-day environment.
1:23:56
I used to think it didn't matter, but it matters so much.
1:23:58
Again, yeah, you think, oh, air purifier. Like, it's just yeah.
1:24:02
What are they trying to sell me, but it does make a huge difference. Right.
1:24:05
Uh question number four, what is something that you used to swear by for your health, and now you actually think, ah, no, I don't need to focus on that anymore? Intermittent fasting.
1:24:15
I know a lot of people will get upset at that answer, but I think there's a lot of science to the contrary now.
1:24:23
Let's Yeah, let's dive into that.
1:24:25
Let's segue into that for a second.
1:24:26
Yeah, so intermittent fasting is great for people that need to start eating less calories on a day-to-day basis.
1:24:33
It's a good way to manage your caloric intake.
1:24:34
But like I said earlier, a lot of people end up taking less protein, and so they lose skeletal muscle mass, and that's what happened to me.
1:24:44
I was intermittent fasting, I started and my skeletal muscle mass on my scale started like plummeting.
1:24:47
And I was like, "What is happening?"
1:24:48
And it's all because of intermittent fasting, so I stopped it.
1:24:51
So, it's really more about what molecules you're putting into your body, I think, rather than the timing of it.
1:24:58
And I think um you know, you really want to be careful if you are intermittent fasting that you're still getting your protein intake, and you are also not in the category of people that are either pregnant or breastfeeding or you know, an athlete.
1:25:11
I think I've seen a lot of athletes actually cause a lot of damage to their metabolism by intermittent fasting.
1:25:16
That's I I mean, I'm not an athlete, but I found that when I was experimenting with it.
1:25:20
So, I do I stop eating dinner by like 6:30 p. m.
1:25:24
, and I don't eat until the next morning until 9:00 a. m.
1:25:26
So, that's the closest I get to it, but I'm someone who needs to eat three meals a day, and I don't snack a lot.
1:25:32
And so, for me it's like those three meals are my main meals, and I'm very happy with them.
1:25:36
So, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
1:25:37
So, I eat breakfast at 9:00, lunch at 12:00 to 1:00, and then dinner at 6:00.
1:25:41
And it's like for me that keeps my energy steady.
1:25:46
I'm not overeating or under eating any point. Like it works for me.
1:25:48
And so, I've always I've always been interested in that as well because I I've always found myself feel healthier, happier, and stronger when I'm doing that. Yep, and that's the key.
1:25:59
You have to go by how you feel, and Yeah.
1:26:01
and um I think you said another key where you don't have to snack during the day.
1:26:05
Like you obviously didn't call foods and you're eating an adequate quantity where you're not having a snack. So, Yeah.
1:26:11
that's another key as well. Yeah, absolutely.
1:26:13
All right, fifth and final question, Dr.
1:26:15
Shah, which is if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?
1:26:21
Get yourself a group of friends that you're so happy and proud to be around, that you share common interest in where you want your life to go, not just where it's at right now. It's a great answer. Everyone, that's Dr. Shah on On Purpose.
1:26:36
Thank you so much for listening and watching again.
1:26:38
I hope that you take away and practice as Dr.
1:26:42
Shah kept saying, just one thing from this episode and watch how your life changes. Again, a big thank you. Follow Dr.
1:26:48
Shah on Instagram at Darshan Shah MD on Instagram and on TikTok, soon to come.
1:26:54
Uh make sure you do that and I hope that you stay happy, stay healthy, and stay well. Uh thank you again, Dr. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jay. Thank you.
1:27:02
If you loved this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with Dr.
1:27:04
Daniel Amen on how to change your life by changing your brain.
1:27:09
If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with a healthy brain.
1:27:16
You know, I've had the blessing or the curse to scan over a thousand convicted felons and over a hundred murderers, and their brains are very damaged.