Dhru Purohit Show - 4 Key Factors That Contribute to Skin Aging

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

This episode is brought to you by Momentous, One Skin, and Lumebox. Skin health and aging isn’t just about the latest trendy products—it’s about what we nourish our bodies with daily and the lifestyle factors that impact our overall well-being. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, we bring you a special compilation episode featuring Dhru's conversations with leading experts on the factors that contribute to aging.  Dr. Anthony Youn guides us through lifestyle factors that prematurely age us, including nutrient depletion. He also discusses the latest research about collagen supplements, the role of chronic inflammation, and advanced glycation end products. He also shares how chronic stress can impact how you age.  Dr. Vincent Pedre shares the importance of addressing your stress levels by identifying lifestyle habits and techniques to release stress. Dr. Pedre also walks us through the physiological sigh and shares how this practice can rewire your system.  Dr. Anthony Youn is a nationally recognized, board-certified plastic surgeon. He is known as America’s holistic plastic surgeon and is the author of the best-selling books The Age Fix and Playing God. Dr. Youn also hosts the popular podcast The Holistic Plastic Surgery Show. His new book, Younger for Life, is a complete holistic guide to turning back the clock using the process of Autojuvenation. Dr. Vincent Pedre believes the gut is the gateway to wellness and has helped thousands of people around the world resolve their gut-related health issues. Dr. Pedre is the medical director of Pedre Integrative Health, founder of Dr. Pedre Wellness, and CEO and founder of Happy Gut Life LLC.  In this episode, Dhru and his guests dive into: What contributes to aging and the role of nutrient depletion (1:20) Are collagen supplements worth it? (5:55) The impact of inflammation and advanced glycation end products (AGEs) (18:15) How chronic stress accelerates aging (26:16) Free radical damage and how to protect your skin (33:00) Food as medicine and the power of antioxidant-rich foods (36:23) The connection between stress and gut health (42:08) How to assess your stress levels (44:19) The physiological sigh technique for an internal stress check (52:48) Final thoughts (55:43) Also mentioned: Full episode with Dr. Anthony Youn Full episode with Dr. Vincent Pedre Dr. Youn’s website  This episode is brought to you by Momentous, One Skin, and Lumebox. Optimize your energy and mental clarity with the purest form of creatine made by and used by the best. Go to livemomentous.com and enter promo code DHRU to get 20% off any order. Right now, One Skin is offering my community 15% off; just go to oneskin.co and use coupon code DHRU to save 15% and give your skin the scientifically proven, gentle care it deserves. Lumebox is offering my community $260 off their FDA-registered portable Red Light device!  That's over 40% off! Go to thelumebox.com/dhru and get your Red Light device.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi everyone, Drew Prode here. Skin health has always been a passion of mine. And these days, it feels like everyone has a 12-step skin routine packed with lotions, potions, and countless products. But when it comes to anti-aging, or as I like to say, a longevity-promoting skincare routine, I'm more convinced than ever that our skin is a direct reflection of what's happening inside our bodies. So on today's compilation episode, I'm excited to bring you excerpts for my conversations on this topic with a few people, including America's holistic plastic surgeon, Dr. Anthony Yun, and gut health expert,

Dr. Vincent Pedre. And in this episode, we dive deep into the key factors that contribute to skin aging. So now, let's turn over to my conversation with Dr. Anthony Yun as he lays out the four key factors that contribute to skin aging from his perspective. And he also answers the question, are topical collagen creams worthwhile? Let's jump in. So let's walk through the four things that age us, starting with the basics of nutrient depletion. Why should you care about that if you care about not only how you look, but also everything you're talking about today is also about how you feel on the inside and it's connected to your health span. So nutrient depletion. Let's start with that. So there was actually a study that looked at fruits and vegetables in the United States from the years 1950 to 1999.

and it looked at their number of different nutrients, and it looked at them year by year and how much of these nutrients they basically had. And they found a statistically significant reduction in at least six different key nutrients in our produce from 1950 to 1999. And those did include three really important ones, vitamin C, protein, and iron.

So we do know, you know, there is this claim that holistic health practitioners will make that our soil is depleted, that our industrial farming practices have caused our fruits and vegetables to be less nutritious than they used to be. And this is actually proof for that. This was actually a scientific study that proved that that is true. And that that study ended in 1999.

It's like 24 years later. So now we've got to wonder just how bad is it now. So nutrient depletion is something that we are dealing with as we get older. That's one reason why I'm a big fan of supplements. And supplements is something I do cover in the book. But the other thing that you have to think about is like you mentioned before is collagen. You know, so nutrient depletion is something I think that's really important. I don't have a lot of solutions for it.

You know, really, it's going to be looking at your macronutrients. It's going to be potentially taking a multivitamin. But where you really, for me, I get into the actionable things is when you do look at collagen and how our skin does lose collagen and the thickness of collagen. So I definitely want to get into that because I think nutrient depletion is something that is super important to realize you have covered it so well throughout your podcast. I don't have new solutions there other than making sure that you follow your macros. I think there's definitely a big trend towards protein that people don't realize how protein

deficient we are, especially as we had older and with sarcopenia. But I would like to pivot towards collagen if that's okay. Can I know, Jack, before you pin it into college here? I think you have a few important reminders just going inside of the book and kind of going through it and looking at your content. One of the most important reminders is because we have people of all different walks of life, some people that are just starting their health journey. is that just moving from an ultra-processed diet or getting calories primarily from an ultra-processed diet

to moving towards a whole food diet with a good diversity, that alone is gonna start putting you in the right direction. And then if you find a good quality supplement, you have a few that might be listed inside of the book and resources on your website as well, some that also actually help out with thinning hair. Yes, that are there. We can go into that later on.

So just even getting a good quality, multivitamin, moving away from ultra-processed foods, minimizing sugar as a percentage of your diet to make more room for better quality calories that are there. And then this kind of overlaps into a few other things that we're going to information, like getting better quality fats, et cetera. So those basic reminders are so key because everybody could use a little bit of tuning up when it comes to just getting out of this sort of environment that we're in

where we're surrounded by things that are highly palatable that want us to over eat, which makes little room for the more nutritious things that are there. Well, and I think, and what you're hitting, too, is that a lot of this overlaps, you know, and so you're talking about ultra-processed foods. And ultra-processed foods actually are super important when you look at free radicals and oxidation that a lot of people don't realize, you know. And when you're talking about, you know, also with inflammation and with having whole foods versus some of these ultra-processed foods, the idea really is that you want to get back to

that diet that I mentioned earlier, where you can. actually name like what that food is made out of versus these products that you don't even know what they're constructed of. And it's the idea of hyper palatibility. But the fact is, is that there is a difference between the food that you eat that's natural, that really in some ways nature has made food so that naturally you're not going to overeat it. You know, so how often do you have a bowl of strawberries and you overeat those strawberries? You know, how often do you, you know, how often do you have chicken and you just overeat necessarily just chicken. Whereas you get a, you know, a can of potato chips or a bag of popcorn or French fries. And it's so much easier to overeat those because

they're hyper palatable. They're literally scientifically made for you to overeat them so that they can essentially make more money off of you. And so yes, I think when you're looking at nutrient depletion, it's a very simple thing to look at, but it's so, so important. So you wanted to talk about collagen. And I know our audience wants to hear about it. So let's talk about it. So, you know, I mentioned earlier collagen, 70 to 80% of the thickness of what your skin is made out of this compulsive collagen. We lose the collagen literally 1% every year. So how do you then replenish the collagen?

Well, once again, like I mentioned earlier, protein. Collagen is a large protein. And some people say, ask me, they'll say, well, if I take a collagen supplement and I use a collagen cream, is that going to replenish the collagen in my skin? Well, collagen is a large protein. And the first thing I want your readers or, I'm sorry, your listeners to know. is that collagen creams make zero sense. Okay, collagen is a large protein. Our skin is a barrier, and it's made to keep things out. Collagen being so large, if you put it on the surface of your

skin, it's just going to sit there. It's not going to absorb into your skin, and it's not going to make your skin any more youthful. So the first thing I recommend is staying away from collagen creams. I mean, if you want to spend the extra money for it, that's fine, but essentially, it's just going to be a fancy moisturizer. You can also throw out money on. out your window in your car just on the freeway if you want to as well. Collagen supplements are a whole different thing. And as you know, they are very controversial. I made a post on TikTok a couple of years ago touting the benefits of a collagen supplement.

And oh my gosh, Drew, the hate was everywhere. Who was primarily giving the hate? Was it sort of people that are in the medical space? There are traditional physicians. There are like athletic trainer type. who fashioned themselves as nutritionists and things, and then just lay people, you know, saying, well, my doctor said this. It's a lot of my doctor said, my family doctor said collagen doesn't work. Interestingly enough, there's a doctor on TikTok, and he's big on social media.

He is a cardiologist traditionally trained. Also, he's had some nutrition training as well. He's got a big bushy beard. He's an older guy, and he speaks with clarity, and he's very positive and confident in. in what he says and in his conclusions. And he made a video basically stating that collagen supplements don't work. And if you're going to try a collagen supplement, just save your money and get gelatin. It's the same thing. And I didn't reply to it.

I'm not going to get an argument with another physician. But I disagreed with it. And very interestingly, literally like a month and a half ago, I saw that video reappear on social media. And as a video is about over, he shows up. swipes it out of the screen and he says, I was wrong. Wow. Yeah, he said, collagen, I did the research, collagen supplements do work, they do improve your skin, and I was wrong. It floored me because how often do you see a 65-year-old physician who speaks

whenever they're out there, you know, what they say is right to come back and say that what they said was not true. Yeah, it takes a big man and I hope that we can all do that. We want to encourage that sort of environment where even I've come on this podcast, say, here's all the things that I've changed my mind on. You know, it's a good trait to have. But that was amazing that he did that. Yeah. And really then when you, so what does the science say? And really, that's what it comes down to. Because people say, okay, collagen supplements don't work. The main argument is that it's a large protein, which is true. And if you ingest it, your body will break it down. And how do you know that it actually gets to your skin or where you want it to go?

And really the fact of the matter is, is when you look at collagen supplements, make sure that the supplement that you take is made of hydrolyzed collagen peptides. And that's super important because once again, collagen being a large molecule, when you actually take a hydrolyzed collagen supplement, that collagen protein has been broken down into amino acids, which are the single units of protein, and they're peptides, which are groups of two or three amino acids or so. And that's done on purpose so that your body can actually absorb it. So it's like the argument that they have in that your body won't absorb it, it will break it down. Yeah, that's why it's made the way that it is. That's why it's hydrolyzed and that's why high quality collagen supplements typically are hydrolyzed collagen peptides. And then when you actually look at the scientific studies, the studies, there are so many of them and they're powerful studies that do show collagen supplements do create an effect.

There was a meta-analysis of over, I think it was over like 1,200 people published back in 2021. And they looked at people taking collagen supplements for 90 days and they found a statistically significant improvement in the hydration of the skin, in fine lines and wrinkles, and in elasticity of the skin. And that was a meta-analysis. So it's a group of multiple studies that they put together for higher power. There even have been studies that have looked at collagen supplements where you put somebody on a collagen supplement for two months, randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials, and then you actually take a biopsy of their skin after. and you can see that the skin has thicker collagen and the skin is thicker afterwards.

I don't know what other proof is needed. Some people will say, well, maybe if you just increase the protein intake, that will do the same thing. And truthfully, I have not seen a study comparing increasing protein intake to taking a collagen supplement. You know, that would be something that would be very interesting. But there are a lot of studies that are out there that do show that taking collagen supplements can create a profound impact on the skin. Oh, that's amazing.

Do you, as a little bit of a teaser, we'll go into it later on too. But how do you typically take your collagen? And what should people be looking for when they're thinking about getting supplemental collagen? So full disclosure, I have my own skincare and supplement line. And so we do sell our own supplement. That's actually a collagen supplement. That's our number one seller, actually, for supplements.

As far as me, I think it's pretty simple. The best collagen supplement, and there's some supplements out there, you know, the one that we have, it's tasteless, which is great. but there's some you can, if you taste it, it does have a little bit of a beefy taste to it. So you got to try them ones and see what you like. But in general, a good hydrolyzed collagen supplement should dissolve into any type of a hot liquid. So if you like tea in the morning or if you like coffee, for me now, I used to drink a lot of decaf coffee and I would put it my decaf coffee. And then I went to the dentist and my dentist's like, you've been drinking a lot of coffee lately.

And you're getting some standing of your tea. So now I actually just mix it with hot water. And it just tastes like hot water. And so that's what I have a lot of mornings now throughout the week. The other thing you can do is you can mix it into a smoothie or a smoothie bowl. I think that's a nice way to do it as well. Yeah, so it's a powder. You can get in capsule form, but a powder just allows like more quantity.

Exactly. Of you being able to get it in. Otherwise, if you had capsules, you'd have to take like, you know, 20 capsules. Yeah, because those capsules essentially, they're just filled with the powder inside. And, I mean, I take other supplements as capsules. I don't want to take more capsules. I'd rather just put it into my hot drink in the morning and then just drink it up. So we were sharing the four kind of key components that are related to things that are aging us.

And we talked about nutrient depletion. Then collagen was really collagen degradation. People are not getting enough collagen ancestrally. It looks like, you know, from the individuals that have come on this podcast, there was more sort of eating the whole animal in different societies. People don't know, but collagen literally comes from the skin, bones of animals. and that was part of what we ate. Yeah. You know, we never wasted an animal. You would always use something.

You'd put it in a soup, a broth, a stew, something. And I think it's important for people to realize, too, that there are five types of collagen. So it's not like there's just one collagen. And that's something you want to look at, too, with the products that you're using. So, for example, some people will take collagen supplements because they have joint issues. Maybe if you've got fibromyalgia, if you've got muscle aches. So type one collagen is the one that I typically focus on. being a plastic surgeon. That's in our skin, essentially, in our hair and our nails.

And there are some collagen that really just supplements that just focus on type 1. Type 2 collagen is collagen that's in our muscles, and type 3 is in our joints. And so you do want to focus on the right types of collagen too. Some collagen, like the one that we have, has all three, in which case, you know, you can kind of help potentially with a number of different potential issues. Type 4 and 5 collagen really don't really enter the conversation so much. Type 4 is in our kidneys and type five is in our placenta. So those you don't really need to worry about. But the other three, I think it's important to realize that if you do get a collagen supplement, find out what types of collagen are in those because you want to make sure that

you are taking the right one for your potential, your specific needs. That's great. Awesome. We'll link to your website. People can learn more in the show notes. So inflammation was another one. We chatted about that briefly. Anything else you want to say about inflammation before we go to free radical damage? Yeah, I think inflammation, you know, Sugar is a huge part of it. And so as far as avoidance, that's super, super important. But on top, and with AGEs with the advanced glycation end products, the main thing that I look at that causes those to be created basically is sugar.

But you can actually get advanced glycation end products in certain types of foods as well. And typically those are animal-based high-fat foods that, worst-case scenario, are ultra-processed and heated to super high temperatures. So, for example, and this is really sad, but the type of food with the most amount of advanced glycation end products is bacon. And yeah, not good. And so these advanced glycation end products you can get not just from, unfortunately, just from sugar, but you can also get it from other types of foods.

If you grill a steak on the grill, that can also be, you know, potentially high levels of advanced glycation end products. So you're talking once again, things that will age you. Margarine has a lot of advanced glycation end products. as well. Can I chime in on this? I've written a little bit about it. And there's a company that's out there. I forgot their name, but they sent me a testing kit. I have no affiliation with them that sort of helps you measure these advanced gligation end products. A lot of people that have come on this podcast talk about a good proxy measure of it would be hemoglobin A1C.

Right? So you look at your hemoglobin A1C, which is your blood, it looks at the sugars binding inside your body to your cells. And over the course of like six to eight weeks, it's a marker that people use for also diabetes, right, to look at pre-diabetes, diabetes. So on the side of meat being associated with advanced glycation end products, part of what I've seen is that it's when those foods have been charred or overcooked. Exactly. So if you have a lot of charring and you have that literally charcoal that's there, like you go from instead of lightly cooked or sort of, you know, you know,

medium rare sort of piece of meat to something that is super charred. Yeah. The charring is where the extra sort of advanced glycation end products only to mention in so that people don't get spooked that, oh, I got to stop eating steak or bacon, there can be ways to cook things that can be in a very, in a healthier way. We just want to avoid even vegetables that are super highly charred all the time. Once in a while here or there, there's nothing wrong with that. But if every day, as part of a staple of our diet, we're eating meat or vegetables that's charred,

that seems to be one of the things that is the biggest contribute to these ages in our diet and then being created inside of the body. Correct. And I think that's part of it. One of the things I always try to preach to my followers is, you know, it's like you can follow people on social media who appear to have like the perfect healthy lifestyle where you know, they're doing everything possible. They're eating all whole foods.

They're exercising every day. They're doing coal plunges. They're in the sauna. And reality is that the majority of Americans, you know, we're just trying to make a living and stay as healthy as they can while they take care of their kids, while they, you know, try to put food on the table and stuff. And so really what I try to encourage people is just like you said is don't feel guilty if you're at your kids' friends' barbecue and you have a dog from the grill.

That's okay. It's just it's a pattern of behavior where if you're eating so much of that that it can be very harmful But at the same time we do have to live life and part of living life is enjoying it as well And I think too I think you'll see too as you get healthier and healthier for Those people who are making these changes is that you'll find that you don't want to have those foods all the time Because they start making you feel kind of crummy and I do think that there is a huge segment of the American population who just chronically doesn't feel good, but they don't realize they don't because this is just their natural level of living. Like they didn't know, they don't know what it feels like to truly feel energetic and healthy because they've never been given that type of a diet and have been on that type of activity

and all that. It's so true. There's that cheesy old quote from Tony Robbins, but it's so true, and I'm a huge fan of him, you know, nothing tastes as good as being healthy feels. Yes. Right? And when you truly are healthy, and obviously people make jokes about that joke, they make jokes about that quote.

And they'll see things like, well, you've never had a piece of bacon or you've never had, you know, this or that. But really, for our lifespan, when you wake up in the morning and you have energy, when you look in the mirror and you feel like, wow, like I feel healthy, right? Like you're looking at yourself, you feel healthy both from the outside in but the inside out. A big part of that obviously too. Working out, having a low-stressed life.

all the things that we talk about and people practice to the degree, you get started where you are and you continue to make progress, nothing feels as great as that. You feel like you can conquer the world every single day and you're happy and it's infectious. Everybody around you feels like I want to do what he's doing. Yeah. And I think when you look at me being a plastic surgeon, you look at your outer appearance, that can really impact how you feel about yourself too and about, you know, being healthy. you know, some people say, well, what is beauty?

And my first thing would be beauty is really as health in general. And so being healthy, that's oftentimes really for what I try to recommend as a first step to feeling beautiful about yourself. And so just like you said, that makes complete sense. So you touched on inflammation, you know, you being a plastic surgeon and having gone through your medical training, I mean, we have to just briefly chat about stress in the context, you know? Do you feel that stress is really one of the top things that if people have chronic stress, you know, we all have a little bit of stress that we deal with, but what do you want to say about chronic stress?

So you only need to look at the U.S. presidents when they enter office and then when they exit office four or eight years later to know that stress is a huge ager of our body. You made a video on this one time, right? Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's obvious that that's what happens. And so, you know, there aren't studies that I know of that have specifically looked because how do you quantify stress? That's the problem. You know, how do you do a study on somebody who's really stressed, you know,

and see their aging process. It's just there is no way I know of to actually do that. But we do know in general that there are certain activities that can reduce your stress that do actually help you to feel and look younger. And so one of the big parts of my book is talking about some of these strategies, including meditation and how meditation can be huge in reducing the amount of stress that you have and even in improving your appearance. I'm a huge fan of yoga.

Yoga, I think especially as we get older, so many benefits, not only just to our stress level, but also to mobility and to balance, and actually your appearance potentially can be very, very important. And then sleep being a huge part of that as well. I think that's something that our society has really failed us in teaching is how to deal with stress, you know, and really the difference, like I mentioned earlier, about acute inflammation and chronic inflammation, there's a big difference between acute stress and chronic stress. and acute stress being something that is a big focus for anti-aging experts and longevity experts is being a good thing.

Hence, all these people jumping into cold bathtubs and trying to stay in them for as long as they can versus chronic stress, which is a stress that so many of us here, especially in the United States, and even really around the country, around the world, they're dealing with when you've got stress of paying your bills, when you have stress from work, obligations and all of that. That definitely is aging to our bodies. trying to take ourselves out of that as much as we can, I think is so, so important. One of the foremost researchers and scientists in the space is a Dr. Alyssa Appel. I'm not sure you've heard of her, but she's from University of San Francisco,

University of California, San Francisco. And she wrote a book, I believe it's called Stress Prescription. She came on this podcast. She actually has a bunch of studies that she's put together about how chronic stress literally ages the body. Interesting. I'll send it to you. Yeah.

So it's a really great sort of pull thread. Yeah. and some studies that she's been involved in as well. But yes, minimizing that sort of chronic stress is, do you think that there's any, I'm just asking for your experience on this, people who have less chronic stress in their life have less wrinkles in their face,

especially if they're eating healthy because they're just not, you know, they're more at peace. Is there any association to that at all? You know, I think that there is. I think once again, the problem is how do you quantify that? You know, when you look at stress, like we have studies that have looked at taking, let's say, vitamin C. People have a high, a diet high in vitamin C. There are studies that show that they have

less wrinkles than people who have lower diets lower in vitamin C. But the big question is, is how do you quantify stress and its effects on wrinkles? Just real quick, just all of a sudden it brought me back. We talked about collagen. It's the same idea and similar like one of the things I think that there's a, we can make in medicine we can make conclusions based off of what we see in general that may not be quote unquote evidence based

where we may not actually have a scientific study specifically that can that can support it but we know by looking at the facts on the ground that this is most likely true. Clinical experience. Exactly. And one of those just to bring up because it's something that really is kind of becoming

dogma and holistic health but has never actually been proven true is bone broth and its effects on the skin. Okay, so we talked a lot about collagen just a few minutes ago, and I have friends of mine, colleagues of mine, who say, oh, you take bone broth, it's going to make your skin better.

It's going to improve the collagen of your skin. And it makes sense because bone broth, you take it and you know, and you cool it down and it becomes a gelatin, and that's basically pure collagen. But there is no study to show that taking a bone broth, that drinking bone broth at all will improve your skin.

There's zero studies to support that. But, Drew, there are zero studies to say that it doesn't do it. And the studies just haven't been done. Yeah. So, you know, unfortunately, like in traditional medicine, then, you know, you will have a physician to say, well, bone broth doesn't make your skin better. Where are the studies to prove it makes your skin better? And there aren't any. But at the same time, does that mean that your negative conclusion is true? That then because there are no studies to support that bone broth doesn't improve your skin, it must not improve your skin?

No. Once again, we can use deductive reasoning to say, okay, bone broth is filled with collagen. Collagen supplements have been shown to improve the skin, so it makes sense that bone broth should improve your skin too. Yeah, not to mention the fact that probably if people are drinking bone broth on a regular basis, they're getting just the hydration aspect that's there. It's kind of like when people would say, hey, juicing, you know, I think that part of what's happening now as the wellness movement and the health movement grows up is that people are being more skeptical about claims that are not backed up by things. Because there's nothing wrong with somebody saying, hey, look, I drink bone broth every day and my skin looks fantastic versus somebody saying bone broth absolutely is going to transform your

skin. And there's so much research that's out there. And they don't point to any research that's there. That's where we want to stay away from those individuals that are saying things like that. What you're really talking about is something important that individuals like Dr. Jeffrey Blan, who's the grandfather, father of functional medicine, he says the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. There you go. Right? It's just because a study hasn't been done doesn't mean, and doctors can fall into this too,

that, hey, there's no proof that this thing happens. Well, you may have not looked into it, but also maybe a study hasn't been done. Yeah. But all that to be said, you're a fan of bone broth. I am. Yes. Yeah. And I think that that definitely is something that if you do want to improve the collagen of your skin and you like the taste of it, then by all means, that's something that I do definitely recommend. And that goes back to what you mentioned before is that our ancestors would eat the whole animal, you know, and that's one of the benefits of bone broth is you take those parts of the animal that normally we wouldn't necessarily consume in our society. And you can use that for, you know, good means, essentially. We talked about it a little bit, but number four in your list was free radical damage. Do you want to just go into a little bit more about free radical damage and why it's so important

to protect our skin from free radical damage? Yeah, so free radicals, once again, that's oxidation, huge cause of aging of the skin. I mean, years ago, people thought that that was the main reason that we age, period, was free radicals. Now I think we know better that that's a component, but not necessarily the only reason why we age. So put it very simply, free radicals can damage collagen essentially, can damage our DNA of our skin because of the process of oxidation. So free radicals are essentially these molecules that are damaged that try to steal electrons from essentially our healthy cells. And by doing that, they can actually damage then the DNA of our cells and cause the cells

to essentially prematurely age. So free radicals are something that is a byproduct of our natural metabolism. So just being alive, your body creates free radicals. So that's not a, you know, necessarily a negative thing. But the problem is, is that in our society, and even based off the food that we eat, our body can get overrun by free radicals. And so you can get free radicals by eating certain types of food. The type of food that is that is most filled with free radicals in general are the ultra-processed foods. So yes, foods can contain free radicals. Also, you can get free radicals from things like pollution, from smoking, from different types of lifestyle things. Actually, exercising can create its own free radicals.

That being said, when free radicals can become a problem is when your body gets overrun by them. Your body will create antioxidants naturally. Antioxidants essentially donate the electron to the free radical to neutralize it so that it does not then damage the cells of our body. And our body will generate its own antioxidants as a way to combat free radicals. But when there's so many free radicals that are essentially attacking your body, you know, from once again, types of activities from those types of foods and you enter a state of oxidative stress and that's when the free radicals are excessive and your body is essentially prematurely aging from it so what is your body's natural defense against free radicals well once again antioxidants and you can actually take

antioxidants by mouth and you can apply it onto your skin and that's what i usually recommend as a kind of a two-pronged approach now interestingly enough okay you know one of the big things with my book and I'm a big fan of integrative medicine, is combining the holistic with the traditional. And as a traditionally trained plastic surgeon, you know, that's something that I always am looking at traditional medicine as, you know, as like the gold standard for evidence-based medicine, but it does lack, unfortunately, a lot of things.

Interestingly, Drew, if you were to ask one of our holistic practitioner friends, what's the best way to get beautiful, healthy skin? They would say, heal your gut. and then your skin will follow. If you ask a dermatologist, what's the best way to get healthy, youthful skin? They'll say, wear sunscreen and use a retinol. And if you ask a plastic surgeon, they'll say, have a facelift, get some Botas, maybe a laser treatment.

And really, in the end, it's combining the best of both worlds, I think, that's going to be your best option. And so when you look at antioxidants, it's consuming them, okay, in foods, but it's also applying it to the surface of your skin as well. What are your favorite foods that you would be telling people, even as basic as it might seen, it's that reminder about the power of like food is medicine. So let's talk about foods first, and then we'll go to topical. So yeah, the big thing with antioxidants is that you want to eat the rainbow.

And this is something you've heard on your show. If you've been following Drew for a long time, you've heard this said before. But eating the rainbow fruits and vegetables is super important because it's the actual pigment in the fruit or the vegetable that is the antioxidant. And so if you eat, let's say, a green leafy vegetable, you're going to get different antioxidants and if you eat like an orange fruit versus if you eat a yellow vegetable. And so the idea is by eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables in a plethora of different colors and you're going to get a variety of different antioxidants that's going to give you

even better protection overall. And so that's in general what I recommend. Now, ideally too, there are certain, especially fruits that have a higher glycemic index than other types of fruits. And so essentially they may raise your blood pressure faster. And we mentioned earlier about sugar being a cause of inflammation. So ideally staying with some of the lower glycemic index fruits, if you can, fruits essentially berries are a really good source of great antioxidants,

lower glycemic index. So you can kind of help with the inflammation part of it, and you can help with the oxidation part of it at the same time. So that's going to be my favorite type of fruit. With vegetables, you know, I'm a big fan of green leafy vegetables and darker green leafed vegetables like spinach, I think is great, kale. All those I think are really, really good. But ideally you do want to focus once again on the rainbow.

It's not good if all you eat are green leafy vegetables. If all you eat are just, you know, orange fruits, you really want to mix it up. Yeah, and people can even toss in things like kimchi, right? Kind of like that. You grew up eating kimchi. Yes. And so, you know, that too, when you're talking about inflammation, there are inflammation reducing foods, I think, that are super important.

And, you know, when I look at inflammation reducing foods, going back, I know we're talking about free radicals, but when you go back to inflammation and kimchi is a huge thing, I look at two main ways to reduce inflammation in the diet. Okay, and that would be eating mono-unsaturated fatty acids and omega-3 fatty acid-rich foods, and then eating probiotic rich foods as well. Okay. And so there are foods we mentioned earlier that add to the inflammation in our body. There are foods that can reduce inflammation.

So for the omega-3 fatty acids, you're looking at cold water fish. So salmon, tuna, trout, mackerel, that type of thing. For monosaturated fatty acids, olive, olive oil, olives, olive oil, avocados, nuts, and seeds, I think, are great sources. And then the other group, once again, is going to be hitting the microbiome. And I'm happy to go over that. That is where a kimchi kind of comes into play here. Yeah. I wanted to double click on one thing that you shared, which was the ultra-processed foods and free radical damage.

Yes. And kind of linking that back to also ages is highly fried food is also one of the things because of its nature and ability to sort of create a lot of acrylamide because you have carbohydrates that are highly fried so all the proteins get denatured. We wrote a newser about this. I think it was called the gut, the food mood connection, Tesla, you can bring it up. But basically, there was a huge research study that was done that we've highlighted in our newsletter to our listeners talking about there was 140,000 people that were looked at over a period of time and they found, I won't have all the details, but we'll link to it below, that the number one food that was associated with depressive-like symptoms was actually French fries. And when they looked into it, that overconsumption of highly fried food and French fried is the number one.

That's why potatoes are one of the top vegetables that we consume here in North America. It was correlated with these depressive symptoms, primarily because they felt that there's this free radical damage that's happening to the body and the brain. So it's not just aging our skin. These things that you're talking about that will make our skin look better, they're also going to be protective for our brain because we're going to be avoiding things like high levels of free radicals from things like acrylamide inside of the diet. Yeah, and that's one thing is when you do look at free radicals and oxidation, fried foods, that's, you know, ultra-processed and fried foods are the two big sources that you want to try to avoid, period.

But it's tough because in our society, it's just everywhere, you know, and so trying to do your best to try to avoid that definitely is a way to go. Yeah, start off with minimizing. Yes. We're not talking about the French fries here and there, the occasional trip to even a place like McDonald's. Yeah, I mean, if you're visiting from the Midwest and you come to California and you want to try and in and out for once, feel free, you know. I mean, it's kind of a right of passage when you come to California because we don't have it out east. But at the same time, you know, it's like my wife used when my kids were young. They would say, okay, this is a sometime food and this isn't all the time food.

And that's going to be very much a sometime food. That's great. So in my opinion, and as the science starts to show, there's no question at all that the food that we eat contributes greatly to our skin health. And it goes back to this idea that Dr. Yun discussed that chronic inflammation from long-term stress and our diets and everything else that we experience can accelerate skin aging. And now, after Dr. Yun, I want to dive into my conversation with Dr. Vincent Pedre as he shares a little bit about how stress impacts the gut. And Dr. Pedre also shares simple tools to reduce stress. to improve your gut health and overall quality of life. Let's listen in.

You can't out diet and you can't out supplement a stressed out lifestyle. It's going to affect your gut health. So for me, it filters down first from shifting the mindsets, shifting the way you decide to live in this world, the amount of time you devote to self-care. mindfulness, meditation, breath work. Because if you don't deal with this, then it's going to be a block. It doesn't matter that you're checking off all the boxes.

You're being perfect and you're doing the right diet or you think, quote unquote, because I've taken care of many people over the years that come in and they think they're doing it perfectly. You know, they're eating their kale salads and whatnot. And their gut is a mess. But they're inhaling their food at lunch at work because they can't take a lunch break. and then right after the work they're running to a business dinner and maybe they're not eating the best diet because they're eating out all the time and they're never getting enough sleep so their life is imbalanced and yet they want just the right diet which we'll get into that has to be

personalized when it comes to gut health it can't just be a one-size-fits-all and they they just want you know, the supplements in the diet that's going to fix all this. And yet the elephant in the room is the stress and their lifestyle that they're not addressing. What are some of the questions that you ask people about their lifestyle that give you some sense of where do they fall in the stress spectrum? Because as we talked about earlier, everybody's dealing with some version of stress in our modern lifestyle. And especially if you have kids, right, that brings up a whole other component and how we're all trying to navigate. what are like are you asking about their sleep are you like what are some of the things you're looking at what are the most important indicators like if somebody's telling you how this area

of their life is going that's an indication of like you know okay you're probably dealing with a level of stress that's directly impacting your gut health yeah um you know first of all in functional medicine, it's very personalized. And the way I think of myself is I'm gut, body, mind, spirit. So when I'm speaking to a person, I'm evaluating all levels of that through our conversation. Part of it is how they speak. Part of it is how they reveal the information. Question might be like, take me through a day.

What is a day like for you? What time do you wake up? When do you eat breakfast? What do you do? Like, do you work out? Are you rushing to work? Like, what is your, what is your day like? Like, help me understand what your life is like and what that involved? Because then I'm trying to tease out not the stresses that they're going to present to me because if I rely on them, they might be say, well, I'm not that stressed. Like, oh, I sleep okay. Like, okay, what time is your bedtime? How many hours of sleep do you get? What time do you wake up? because if you're not getting at least six hours, but more ideally seven hours asleep, you're increasing inflammatory signals in your body. And that's going to affect your gut.

And then that's going to affect your body. So it becomes like this. So understanding all of those things, do you skip lunch or do you eat lunch at irregular times every day? Do you eat lunch at 1 p.m. one day? So I don't stop at just like what do you eat for lunch. I want to know what time are you eating lunch 1 p.m. Well, do you eat lunch at that time every day?

No, some days I'll be busy in meeting so I don't eat till three. Some days I'm not like finally eating my lunch at 4 p.m. I'm like, well, do you know that by doing that you're actually throwing off your gut bacteria because the time that you eat is setting the circadian rhythm of your gut bacteria and you're confusing the hell out of them by eating at all odd hours.

and that actually causes metabolic disturbance that will increase gut permeability and then increase insulin resistance and make you gain weight. And you're wondering why you can't lose weight. So I look at all those things and I look at the little hints of aspects of their lives.

You know, like, I don't know why this one is coming up, but I mean, I'll just say it. You know, sometimes it's yet another example of where people don't realize the impact always of things that have happened in their lives. Because obviously in functional medicine, we're doing a timeline. And all of this is to understand who you are. You know, in the same way that I created a quiz in my book to understand what is your individual circumstance. So then I can give you the best plan for you.

And had this guy had been referred to me because he was having had some gut issues and had some fatigue. He's 33 years old. And we're going through the history and I'm like, yeah, and then are you single? Were you married? He's like, yeah, I was married, but my wife died of breast cancer. And then he just kept talking. It was just kind of like a mention and keep talking and and went on to other things. And I let, you know, I try to let people, you know, and that's what we learn, motivational interviewing and allowing people the freedom

to express themselves without interruption. So I'm listening and listening, but I made a mental note. I'm like, can we go back to your wife who pass from breast cancer? Like, how old was she? 29. And how did that affect you? The guy cried. And he then told me that he had never shed a tear because he had to keep it together for him,

for the family. And, God, it's like making me tear up a little bit. You never know, like, where the healing portal is going to be. for someone. So he came to me because he had some gut issues and was having fatigue, referred by an allergist friend of mine. He thought he was coming because of that, but it was really coming to talk about having lost his wife and how that impacted him. And he had that moment with me where he felt safe enough to cry. And I held that space for him And then, you know, did the usual because I'm always operating at multiple levels.

So gut, body, mind, spirit. So I'm always calling in all of those levels in my healing interactions with people. And he came back a month later. And he's like, all my issues are gone. Wow. He had unprocessed emotions from having lost his wife. at a young age and having to hold everything together and be positive for her, for the family, for everyone, that he never had given himself the space to feel the impact that it had on him.

And allowing that escape valve to move, you know, because ultimately, you know, like I said before, the gut is where we're digesting, we're like, we're processing, the way I see it is we're energetically processing our emotions through the gut. But the whole, the process of healing is processing, the emotion is not holding it, is feeling it, allowing it to have its expression beyond words, beyond what your mind can know, but the way that your body can feel it and then let it move through you. And that's where the healing is. And I mean, sometimes, like, things like that surprised me because I think, like, you know, I thought it was so simple.

Like, let's go back and talk about this. This is huge. And I had no idea what an impact that moment. And me not brushing that off and going back to that one question that allowed. that allowed him to have that opening and that release that he needed in order to heal. And, you know, I've seen that a lot with gut health issues. There's always an energetic interlay as well. And that's why I think that, you know, for me, the breathwork and the meditation that I talk about in the book,

and we created specific meditations and breathwork, like even breathwork, on how do you breathe before you eat to get your body into a state where it's ready to receive and digest that food? Like, do an internal scan first and see, are you riled up? Are you stressed right now? Then don't put food in your mouth. You're not in the right vibration to receive that food, check in. Do what we call a physiological sigh if you're really under a lot of stress. That was contributed by my friend Sachin Patel, who's I just interviewed for the book and he's, you know, that's, who knows, panned it down from thousands of years of wisdom, of understanding that we have our own portable stress-busting machine within our own body.

bodies and a big part of that is your breath and your lungs you want to walk people through that real quick just the the sigh yeah so I mean ideally you want to you want to be grounded you want to make sure that your your feet are on on the floor like grounded connected to the earth because a lot of us when we're stressed we're kind of up here we're we're functioning in the higher levels but we're not really embodied so part of it is like bringing yourself back into your body. So then you want to close your eyes and kind of tune into your breath. And we're going to do this three times.

You're going to, when you're ready, you're going to take a deep breath in through your nose and you're going to let it out with a sigh or an awe, whatever feels good. Like, ah, you're going to breathe in again and another big ah. And one more time, deep breath in. And imagine your body just being filled with light and the energy and then release that. And just three breaths is enough to shift your internal state. You know, maybe you need more. You do the three breaths and you check in with yourself.

And you see, where am I? Am I completely ready to assimilate and receive? Or is my stress lower, but it's... still present so maybe now you need to do a round of box breathing where you inhale for four hold for for four exhale four seconds and then hold for another four seconds and that can continue to rewire your system so then you bring yourself from a place of high stress to a place where your body feels safe and ready to assimilate and you got to imagine that has all sorts of implications when you're doing that throughout the day it's going to be easier for you to fall asleep later on it's

It's going to be easier for you to feel like you're not shoving down a stressful situation. How did that feel for you right now? Just pausing and doing that, just three breaths. Yeah, it felt great. It felt great, absolutely. Just brings you back into the present moment and connects, you know, we've had Dr. Andrew Huberman on the podcast a couple of times and he talks about, you know, not too much, but increasing our interception so that we know actually what's going on inside of our body.

Yeah. Do we know? I would call it embodying. embodying yourself, like coming back into your body, which is, which you can do through the breath and through focus, like bringing your focus down, especially into the lower energy centers or down here into the gut. We all want to age well. And attending to your skin health goes far beyond just what products you use or put on its

surface. Supporting your health from the inside out is truly the key to healthy skin. In addition to making sure you're getting your right nutrients, antioxidants, and anti-enformers, inflammatory inputs, dealing with lifestyle factors that lead to chronic stress, which we want to avoid, is also so influential to aging well from the inside out. I hope you enjoyed today's compilation episode with Dr. Pedre and Dr. Yun, and if you did, share this episode with a friend. Thanks so much for tuning in. Until next time.