Dhru Purohit Show - Could This Morning Routine Help You Live to 100+ with Kayla Barnes

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

This episode is brought to you by Bon Charge, Lifeforce, and Seed Oil Scout.  We know that starting the day mindfully and with intention can set us on the path to achieving our health goals and longevity. Yet, most Americans begin their mornings on autopilot, engaging in habits that disrupt sleep and promote unhealthy eating, leaving their bodies under-fueled. Today’s guest shares her top tips for creating a morning routine that boosts energy and supports daily health. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with longevity expert Kayla Barnes to discuss the most destructive habits people often start their mornings with. Kayla shares the latest research on the optimal way to begin your day, along with her top tips for success. She also explores the latest trends in longevity and biohacking while emphasizing the importance of mastering the basics before diving into new trends. If you’re looking for motivation to kickstart your day and optimize your long-term health, this episode is for you. Kayla Barnes is the Co-Owner of LYV The Wellness Space, one of the country’s most innovative precision medicine and biology upgrading clinics. Kayla is also the creator and host of the Longevity Optimization Podcast and co-founder of the Health Optimization Fund. Kayla is certified by the Amen Clinics (Brain Health) and IIN (Integrative Nutrition). She has dedicated herself to the pursuit of preventive and regenerative methodologies aimed at optimizing female human health. In this episode, Dhru and Kayla dive into:  Destructive morning habits (00:50) Optimal days start with optimal sleep (11:43) Getting morning sunlight (17:33) The traditional breakfast across America (18:44) Starting the day with proper fuel (21:05) Various approaches to longevity and finding what’s right for you (25:10) The basics everyone can begin with (28:50) The road to 100 and beyond (32:20) Beyond the basics: What Kayla is excited about (40:50) Reducing your toxic load and its impact on health (49:40) Consuming microplastics and their effect on health (01:02:55) Who Kayla looks up to in the longevity space and finding balance (1:14:50) Kayla’s journey (1:18:50) Also mentioned in this episode: PlasticTox Test  Emri Mold Test  Vibrant Wellness Toxin Test  For more on Kayla, follow her on X/Twitter, Instagram, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or her Website. This episode is brought to you by Bon Charge, Lifeforce, and Seed Oil Scout.  Right now, BON CHARGE is offering my community 15% off; just go to boncharge.com/DHRU and use coupon code DHRU to save 15%. Right now, you can save $250 on your first diagnostic and get personalized suggestions. Optimize your longevity and track your progress; go to mylifeforce.com/dhru!  With seed oil scout, you’ll be joining a movement towards healthier eating options. Download the Seed Oil Scout App now, and dine like your life depends on it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kayla, welcome to the podcast. It's a pleasure to have you here. You are one of the top, if not the top, longevity experts who's also a female, and you're not just here to talk to women. You're here to talk to men, too, but you bring a unique perspective to the longevity space from a female perspective. And today, we're going to go into a bunch of things, including your extensive, evidence-based morning routine that you feel is going to help you live to 100.

beyond. But before we do that, I was chitch chatting a little bit with you. I want to talk about what are some of the most destructive, not supportive, bad habits that you see that people have in their morning routine, things that are basically starting their day off on the wrong foot when it comes to longevity. Well, there's a lot. So, I mean, it can be as simple as just grabbing your phone right away. You know, we all know we're not supposed to do that, but I would say the majority people do, right? You don't want to immediately activate that fight or flight nervous system, right? That's not how you should be starting your day. I always say you should set your mind before the day sets it for you. And in many ways, people are not doing that. So grabbing your phone, scrolling social

media, being anxious in the morning is definitely not a good way to start your day. But then alternatively, really incredible habits that are backed by science and we know health and longevity like getting morning sun. So we have something called a circadian rhythm. And our ancestors would rise with the sun and fall asleep as the sunset essentially. And we are so disconnected from that. And it's really impacting our biology in a negative way. So by skipping getting some morning sun and moving your body in the morning, you're missing out on improving your dopamine and telling your brain and body essentially through the light that it's time to wake up. These are two really simple and free practices that I don't think a lot of people are implementing.

They're certainly becoming more widely known, but not too many people are implementing. So yeah, skipping morning sun, not moving your body, just a simple walk. So I do sun and walk at the same time. So I'm really, you know, killing two birds with one stone, as they would say. That's a big one. I would also say exercise. I mean, if there was one pill for longevity, it would literally be exercise from improving blood flow in the body and improving oxygenation to increasing dopamine, releasing endorphins,

which improves your mood. There are so many benefits. Not to even mention the benefits that we can get into later of having muscle. Muscle is definitely a longevity organ. So skipping a morning workout, it not only will reduce your energy later in the day because working out actually gives you energy for most people. But that's definitely something you want to incorporate into your morning. And, you know, I made a post. I was telling you about it. And it was kind of like outlying what I see as the normal day of an American.

And this is not to say anything negative, but if you relate with this, you might want to think about changing your habits. Waking up, you're tired, groggy, because you stayed up late the night before, binging Netflix, which I don't know if this is a real quote, so don't quote me, but I think that the the CEO of Netflix said that his biggest competitor was sleep. Awful, right? I mean, it is so not worth it. I can't stress it enough.

Like, I have a hard cutout time that I go to bed and I'm in bed. It doesn't matter. You know, I'm not a big TV watcher, but even if my husband wants to watch something, I say, I'm going to bed. It's simply not worth my sleep. So waking up in the morning, groggy, super exhausted from the night before, grabbing a quick process carb, you know, for breakfast, which is just going to give you a blood sugar spike and then a crash in a few hours,

then you get into your car and you're angry, you know, on the freeway or the highway or whatever it is you're taking to work. And that's because you didn't get enough sleep. You didn't move your body. You didn't set your mind before the day set it for you. So you're yelling at people in the car. You get to work. You're, you know, in your office with your junk light probably.

And that's not helping your biology. Then, you know, you have lunch. it's another, you know, high carb, another spike, another crash, head home, grab a alcohol, a wine, a beer, whatever it may be, neurotoxin. You sit on the couch, veg out, watch TV, and then you continue to watch TV until past your bedtime. And to me, that's such a sad way to live because we deserve so much more. I always say that health is the foundation of greatness.

So when you have health, you can do it. anything. You have hopes, you have dreams. We've all seen the quote circulating on social media that says, you know, like one man has a thousand wishes, a sick man only has one. When we know that chronic disease develops over the course of at least 10 years, that type of lifestyle from the second you wake up to the second that you go to bed, you have the choice. Are you going to structure your day for better health now and longevity in the future? Or are you going to choose to indulge in every single thing that you feel like you want at that moment, which is ultimately going to lead to a lot more pain and suffering in the long run. I thought about it once,

and I was on my way to the gym, and I really just didn't want to go to the gym that day. And I'm like, I don't want to go. And then I thought about what would my life look like if I only did the things I wanted to do at any given time? I wouldn't have anything that I have now. Wouldn't have a business. I wouldn't have a team. I wouldn't have a great marriage. I wouldn't have longevity, good health. I wouldn't have any of those things. So it's really just the idea that we can sacrifice a little bit of, let's say, pleasure for now,

for so much health and an optimal life in the future. Yeah, is that Tony Robbins quote, an old one. One of the first quotes that I remember hearing from him when I followed his work like 20, 30 years ago. I think he said, nothing. taste as good as being healthy feels. And food does taste good. There's a lot of food that's out there that does taste good, even some of the junk food that's out there.

But really, when you truly have health, that is the most important thing. It radically shifts your life, your family tree, your relationship, everything around you. So you mentioned a few important things. And we're going to use these to contrast your morning routine. And you also talk about in your content, your sort of daily routine, your evening routine.

So we'll focus on your morning routine right now. And there's a video in the link in the show notes that people want to watch it. You have an extensive 33 plus minutes where you walk through all the things that you do as part of your morning routine. And you double down on the things that you feel are the most important, like exercise that everybody can be incorporating. So let's go back to your example. So the first one that you mentioned was the mindset piece, right? And the importance of not being reactionary to the day. When we pick up the phone, we're starting our day and we're setting the tone of the day based on whatever inputs that are there.

The news alerts that we're getting where most of it is not necessarily good. It's usually negative. It's not a lot of here's the latest good news that's going on. Here's the worst thing in the world that's going on right now. It could be just random social media stuff, which can encourage, you know, comparison at a very sort of, your brain is very fragile in the morning. It's very impressionable to things. So whatever you're taking in starts to sort of set the tone. And then the other thing that you mentioned that was super key is that your morning routine starts,

even before your morning starts. It's really about how you slept that night. So let's just touch on that for a quick second. What is the amount of sleep that you're shooting for and that you recommend to the patients that are at your clinic that your doctors see? Yeah. What is the target that you're telling patients what they should be getting on a daily basis? Everyone's a little individual with all things in health, right?

So I would say I focus more on the quality of my sleep. So I'm aiming for at least an hour and a half of both deep and REM sleep. That usually puts me somewhere about seven and a half hours. You know, as a woman, I tend to sleep a little bit longer than my husband, which, you know, so not only is there bio-individual sleep differences, but there also can be, you know, sex sleep differences. So I need a little bit more sleep than my husband. we always say, you know, seven to eight hours. And if you're an elite athlete, you might need a little bit more.

But I think the quality of sleep because, you know, I have a sleep tracker. I use an aura ring. And if you're going to bed for nine hours, but you have eight hours of light sleep, then you're still not going to be getting into those deepest and most restorative phases. So kind of tracking, if you have a tracker, the deep and REM, but you can also self-report. So how do you feel when you wake up? How do you feel when you wake up? I think that people need to start tracking. what they're doing and what they're thinking throughout the day, I always recommend people to make a journal for three days, everything they eat, everything they eat and everything that they do. Because unfortunately, as society, we are so mindlessly moving through life. And to go back to the sleep question, yeah, anywhere from seven to eight hours, you know, the recommendations are, I think, six to eight hours, but I would say seven to eight is better.

But you can go with a little bit less if you're getting ultra high quality sleep. Yeah, I think one thing that was great to see for so many people is once you do start tracking, whether it's aura, whoop, whatever solution you're using, that deep sleep is the first part of your sleep that's there, like when you first fall asleep. And when you are constantly sleeping at different times every night, like one night you're watching Netflix and binging and you're sleeping at, you know, midnight. And then the next night you're tired from that and you're sleeping earlier. that sleep variability seems to, based on some of the research that's out there,

it seems to, in particular, throw that deep sleep off because your body wants that regularity, and the more you sleep at these variable times all the time, you're kind of not allowing your body to kind of get into that place of resting its heart rate, having a little bit of a wind-down routine, which plays a big and important role on getting that quality, deep restorative sleep,

which is where our brain is detoxing, where so many important things are happening to the body. So it's something that I usually recommend to people. Is that something that you talk about as well, like sleep regularity, like doing your best to try to have, at least within reason, you know, plus or minus an hour, a time that you're shooting for going to bed? Absolutely. I mean, consistency, sleep consistency is one of the most impactful things on your overall quality of sleep. And also even sleep timing. You know, ideally you do want to get into bed before around 10 o'clock.

Some of the research is showing that you have a better release of some of the hormones if you get into bed earlier. Because of we know that sleep cycle is going about 90 minutes, right? Because you could be missing out in some of those deeper stages of sleep. And as you mentioned, the brain's lymphatic system is at most active. So many good reasons. But you mentioned that your sleep quality and deep sleep, but there's also a few other things to consider too. So sleep consistency for sure is one. But also if you're eating really close to bed, we know that you won't get into those deeper stages of sleep as well.

So you want to stop eating at least three hours. And I think that, you know, Netflix and snacking kind of go hand in hand for people. I have a whole list of things we can talk about with sleep optimization. But that would be another big one too. Okay. Maybe we'll come back to sleep. But let's keep on going with the theme of morning routine. We're talking about some of the most destructive things that people do in the morning.

Yeah. And it's often, you're not doing it intentionally. It becomes your default plan or your de facto plan because there is no other plan. A lot of people are like, oh, all these crazy morning routines that people have. It's all self-indulgence and other stuff. And, you know, some of it is a sport, just the same way that people are into sports. People are into pushing the boundaries around longevity. I think that people even call themselves like professional longevity.

Yeah, rejuvenation. athlete. Rejuvenation athletes, right? It's like, great, you can be into anything these days. That's a good thing to be into, especially if we can all learn something from it. Yeah. But I think the important point that I wanted to make there is that it's easy to look at that and say, oh my gosh, this seems a little overboard and you don't need a routine, but you always have a routine. It's just whether or not you realize it or not. Everybody has a pattern, a set of things that they do. And the tendency is we just end up absorbing a lot of things that are convenient and our routine isn't as intentional. So one of the most unintentional things that people do is not getting that morning sunlight

that's there. You're such a big fan of it. Is that something that you've always done? Or did you start incorporating that at a period of time? And when you did incorporate it, what were the benefits that you saw firsthand when you started prioritized and getting morning sun? Yeah, I've done it for about five years. And obviously, I'm here living in L.A. now.

So getting morning sun is a lot easier than it used to be when I was living in Ohio in the middle of the winter. So back then I would actually, you know, use a lamp, which can be helpful because I often get the question, oh, I don't live in a sunny area. How can I get morning sun? So you can use like a lux lamp. But without a doubt, it gives me a boost of energy in the morning. And it helps me go to bed later that night, actually, because now that my body is acclimated to actually what time it is, then later I'll get tired. So boost of energy for sure, mental clarity, I feel for sure. And then it helps my sleep later in the evening. Let's move on the next thing.

You know, diet tends to dominate the conversation. Everybody wants to talk about food. And sometimes we don't end up talking enough about exercise and other habits that are there. But let's touch on food for a second. We all know the classic sort of American meal could be cereal or the wellness version could be a very high glycemic, high-courable. carbohydrate, low protein sort of shake. Asaibal.

Asai bowl. Yeah. Which is very common in Los Angeles. A plant-based meal that is kind of devoid of really a lot of protein, maybe even sometimes fiber, because it's very refined that's there. So that can become the way that people start off in the morning. It could also be a croissant, could be cereal, could be just coffee with nothing, which might work well for some people, but actually I've seen in particular does not really work well

for a lot of the women in my life. Yeah. You know, just something that I've noticed. Talk to us about why that traditional version, whether it's the Los Angeles version or the cereal Midwest version, why is that way of eating to start the morning? Why is that so challenging? First of all, you're going to have a massive blood sugar spike in the morning. So, you know, I wear a continuous glucose monitor on and off, but you don't even need a continuous glucose monitor to feel this, right? So you have a big burst and then you have a crash. And so we want to avoid that. So we want to try to keep our blood sugar as stable as possible throughout the day. So therefore, we want to incorporate things like protein and healthy fats. Protein is also absolutely essential. We know that muscle is so

incredibly important, especially as we age and especially for women, that we have to optimize our protein intake. So I think women at minimum should be getting 15 to 20 grams of protein even before they had to the gym. And this is applicable to men too. The overarching theme is that protein first thing. Number one, it's satiating. So you're not going to have a bunch of cravings in an hour. If you have the cereal, well, first the cereal might be, you know, covering glyphosate, which is a known carcinogen. And we can talk more about pesticides and what's on our food and in our food and refined fillers, added sugars, all these things that are not, in my opinion, necessarily real food.

We just want single ingredient foods. I know it's so polarizing. Are you carnivore? Are you vegan or what, you know, what's the right diet? And I think it's just a whole foods diet. So having a very balanced breakfast that's high in protein. So before I go to the gym, I have about 15 grams of protein in a protein coffee. I don't want to have a big meal because it's early when I start my.

workout, but I do have a 30 grams minimum of protein every other meal. So protein is so essential for energy, again, no cravings later in the day and so that you avoid those blood sugar spikes. There was a phase in time in the longevity world where everybody, man and woman, was sort of focused on intermittent fasting and skipping it, not having anything in the morning, touting the benefits of autophagy and other things like that. Was that ever something that you got into And what did you feel then? And how did you feel when you switched to having at least something in the morning to appropriately fuel yourself before you started working out? Yeah, I mean, I've done everything, truly.

I've done all the diets. I used to do really intense intermittent fasting because I was in the mindset, you know, more is better. So I would fast for, I mean, I was having one meal a day at one point. And I felt good at first, maybe the first like couple weeks. But then I realized I was hitting, you know, mid-afternoons. slump. I wasn't feeling as well. And I wasn't even able to get as deep of sleep, you know, at some points because I was eating so little and I was fasting so much. So when I learned that, first of all, not all protocols and men do, men can do better with extended fast. Women, you know,

we have this 28-day cycle in which our hormones are changing constantly. I still do intermittent fasting or time-restricted eating, right? Because I don't believe human were ever meant to just be eating all day long from the second they wake up, the second they go to bed. But now I shifted it up substantially. So I used to wait longer to eat. And now I'm just finishing eating earlier. So I still have some time off of eating. But by far and away, I feel significantly better. I'm increasing my lifts at the gym. My strength is going up. You know, and I can be more intense while I'm there because I do have a little bit of fuel. And for women, It seems to be with a lot of the, you know, I've podcast too,

and I've interviewed a lot of female, you know, experts, MDs, PhDs on what's best for women. It seems that having something in the morning, even small, is really beneficial overall to not only work out, but the rest of your day, energy levels, and just your hormone optimization. Yeah, it's the benefit of trying things, but also being open to changing your mind. Yeah. When you get new information. A little sidebar here. This is maybe a little bit inside baseball, but I'm curious, you know, with where you sit in the world of longevity,

health and wellness, being very active on social media, having your own podcast, also a clinic, and then having a lot of friends in the space, how would you describe the lay of the land of the world of longevity, right? There's so many different takes that are out there. Yeah. How would you, and our audience, I'm asking because our audience hears from a lot of different sources. And just like you, every week there's a new guest that's coming on. And that person believes that their approach this is maybe the right approach. And there's endless content online.

And that can lead to a little bit of confusion. But I feel like one thing that you're really good at is you're good at sort of simplifying and helping people choose their own adventure that they want to go down. How would you talk about the different sort of up-to-date approaches to longevity? How you have put your approach in the mix? I mean, there are. so many different schools of thought here, right? There are the camp carnivore who think that if you eat a vegetable, then it's poison, and then we have people that are solely tracked on, focused on

tracking their biological age. And there's a lot of little hacks you can do, you know, to reduce your biological age. One of them is, for example, caloric restriction. We know that that works and that will reduce your biological age. But then, you know, it calls into question for women, well, what if you are wrecking your hormones because you're so calorically restricted? You know, it's a very interesting dance, but obviously biological age is a great marker and it's very exciting right now. I think that if anyone feels like they have the ultimate solution for you, then you might be listening to the wrong person because I am very strict on saying when people ask, what supplements are you taking? My supplements are for my protocols. Therefore,

what my gut health looks like, therefore what my nutrient eval looks like. So that's a measurement of nutrient status. And for my goals, I mean, there are some things that are probably pretty widely known like omega's and magnesium and vitamin D status. But in general, I think some people in longevity, and not even a name comes to mind necessarily, they think that they have the exact plan for everybody. But the thing is, is that everybody is so different. And we all have different exposures. Like, I don't think, you know, total toxic burden is being talked about enough for right now it's becoming more popular. But like, if you're exposed to something in your home that is essentially poisoning you, that could be mold, it could be heavy metals, it could be

environmental toxins, then you have to work on that first. You have to get rid of those toxins, get rid of that mold, whatever it may be. If your gut is a wreck, you know, doing necessarily a biological age reversal protocol might not be your first step. I mean, I just got back from speaking and a conference in Gistad all on longevity. And, you know, many of the top researchers were there presenting their work. And there's a lot of exciting things like combination therapies, right, on mice right now. So they're combining like rapamycin with gene therapy, telomerase, and they're stacking things that we know work singularly.

And now they're trying to combine them to see what that does. So there's so many different facets of longevity. And you know, what's interesting is that a lot of the researchers that are actually working on longevity that I've spoken to, I asked them all, what supplements are you taking and they're not taking any? So it's, you know, it's just amazing because we have people taking 150 supplements a day and then we have people taking no supplements today. So I've shared my labs publicly. I've shared what I'm doing publicly, but always with the caveat that this is made for me and it's all based off my labs. So everybody's going to be different. Yeah, one of my favorite themes and why I was

excited to talk to you today is that so much of what's out there, it could be a moonshot approach, to longevity, like we're looking for like that one thing that's going to radically extend lifespan. Nothing wrong with that. Like we should have all options table, let people work on whatever they want to work on. And just because people might be doing today like gene therapy or advanced stem cells or even things that are more widely available like peptides, if you don't have the basics in order, you are probably missing out on so much of the benefits, not just in terms of the potential health span increase that could be coming from avoiding chronic disease, but just how you feel on a daily basis right now.

What do you think of those, when you talk to somebody literally who's like starting from scratch, right, what are those most basic things that you're like, look, before you get so crazy advance here, like we want to nail these few things? What would you say those are? This is such an important topic to me because, you know, so many press articles are featuring what I have in my home, right? Or we have in my home, me and my husband. And that's like hyperbaric oxygen and it's like clinical grade PMF and Anavie.

And everyone's like, oh, what should I get first if I can? And I'm like, well, if you're not doing the basics, you should get none of them because you have to master those. So the basics are everything that we do on a daily basis. So sleep, are you getting high quality sleep? Are you going to bed early? How do you feel in the morning? Movement, and I would classify that between low-level movement, like walk

you want to be hitting around 10,000 steps a day. I get about 15,000, but, you know, I've built my life to do that. And then exercise, are you strength training three times a week, you know, minimum? Maybe one hit exercise per week. Are you doing that? Are you breathing? Even your breath. So I would include breathing in there because it can really help to regulate your nervous

system. And we know that stress, about 80% of doctors visits are related to stress. So we cannot forget managing our stress and we can do that through meditation. We can do that through breath work. So how are you breathing? Are you thinking about that? Are you optimizing it? How are you eating?

You know, of course, nutrition. Are you eating whole foods? Are you trying to completely eliminate ultra-process foods and minimize processed foods? And I would say the last one is we have breathing, sleeping, eating, moving. And social connection too is a big one. So are you having great interactions? How is your mindset? How do you feel?

So I would say those need to be the basis of health, throwing sun that can be in the morning routine. But if you're not doing those things, there's not a supplement or an NED drip. I mean, look, I love these things. But there's not one thing that's going to dramatically change your health status if you're not mastering those basics. And the great thing is that they're all free or very low cost, right?

Another thing I love to tell people to do is ground. So we know that nature bathing and nature therapy is really beneficial for reducing inflammation. So get out and just make contact with the bare earth. I mean, we don't do that anymore. But there's a lot of data to say that it's very helpful for human health. You know, you talked about the headlines. You know, you guys have gotten some press out there on your routines. And naturally, anybody who's had press or marketing for anything they've worked on,

you know that the editors choose the titles and the headlines. I think one of the ones recently that just came out was how you and your husband are going to live to like 150. Yeah. That one, yes, I do believe we can live to 150. I think the oldest person that's documented so far besides maybe anecdotal stuff from China or India that you hear a little bit here and there. I think it's like 120, something like that, 122, something around there. So what do you feel gets us to or gets you guys to 150, right? Is it technology that's already out there avoiding toxins, keeping, you know, the basics,

or is it those things plus maybe something that hasn't come yet, that sort of new technology, whatever it might be, that takes lifespan further than we've seen before as a species? Yeah, it's definitely a combination. So first you have to, you know, not get a chronic disease and not die early. So that's step one. So I think that we are going to see astronomical change. You know, we're going to hit this longevity velocity.

I believe that escape velocity. Exactly. And, you know, seeing some of the things that are being worked on is absolutely incredible. I mean, things from like infusing new mitochondria because we know people have so many issues with mitochondria today to implantation devices that can potentially, and prefacing that these are all, you know, in development and research. and study right now. But because of AI and how much information about human health that we're receiving, I think that we are going to have revolutionary advancements in rejuvenation. So step one is maintaining optimal health for as long as possible. So I'm 33 right now. I think that

I have been born late enough to see these advancements come to fruition. Because if natural, just completely natural. Let's say we can get to 95 or 100, which we know is very possible. And then layer on some of these rejuvenation therapies that are showing to actually rejuvenate organs, then I think we can get to 150 and even beyond. I mean, I feel like I'm being, you know, on the cautious side because, you know, our mutual friend Dave, 180, you know, other people are saying forever. So, I mean, I thought 150 was on the cautionary side. I mean, the advantage. I mean, the advancements that come, like, if you would go back, even like 40 years ago and you would talk to people about what we have available to us today with technology, the iPhone, what's available

to us, not that necessarily a 10 of people are happier because of it. And I'm not saying it's the technology's fault. I'm not, I'm just saying that it hasn't like radically improved people's outlook on the world. But what is available to us, you could have never imagined that 40 years ago. So when you're looking at things like the birth of AI, it's like we can't even really imagine. Anybody who's followed like the work of Ray Kurzweil and seen some of his predictions which have come true, I think he's saying in like 20, 30 something, some crazy is going to go down in terms of like what's possible to us. So I'm team human. You know, we were at a dinner actually a few weeks ago. And they were going around and they were talking about the host, our friend Darshan Schaft.

from Next Health was saying like, how do you feel about the current state of the world right now? And then what are you envisioning for the future? Are you optimistic? Are you not? And it was really interesting. A lot of the people that were there who have kids and can kind of are really worried about the impact of technology on kids, the state of the world, the fact that we might be on the brink of World War III with all the crazy shit that's going on in the world and tension

and foreign affairs, it's easy to have. Sometimes you know so much about toxins. Sometimes you know so much about everything that's wrong in the world. It's easy to have sort of a negative outlook. And then there's the other side of things, which is that even though there's conflict and some very bad things that are going on, the world is in a much better situation than it was. Most people, you know, extreme hunger is going down.

Extreme access to nutrition, healthy water, clean water. Like these all things are improving. And on top of that, for those that have the resources, there's a lot of really exciting and new things that are coming down the pipeline. So I think that is all to be said that there's a lot to look forward to in the future. And we want to make sure that we nail the things that are impacting our life right now, which are a lot of the basics that you've been talking about. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if we can stay healthy. I mean, health span, without a doubt, is first for me, right?

I want to live a long time, but I want to live super healthy. I want to remember my grandkids when I have them. I want to move my body. I want to be able to lift a bag into an overhead compartment. I want to be able to do all of these things, but by focusing on extending health span, and that can just be looked at day by day. Like I always say one win leads to many wins. So start making small changes.

You don't have to be overwhelmed and just implement everything right away. But if you start making those small changes, they add up. and it will be a better future. And I think that in the future, we're going to have a lot of options in terms of rejuvenating our body. So I'm super excited about it. I think there were only, were there three of us who said a five or a four? Yeah, I think there was only a couple of us.

Yeah. I went first. And I said five. Yeah. Which meant that you were very optimistic about the future. I am. Yeah. And I think that you can acknowledge that there are challenging things going on, which have

always been going on on the planet, maybe a different shape and form for sure, but also acknowledge that we don't really hear a lot about the great things that are happening. Like what's going on in the world because so many more people have access to education that previously would have never had access? Does that mean everything is perfect? No, but it does mean that there's the possibility for a lot of people to improve their daily quality of life. And we still have challenges. Both can be true at the same time. Yeah, absolutely. And when we think about health span, too, I don't know exactly when it was, but I mean,

at one point, the lifespan expectancy was about 40 years old. And due to, you know, sanitation, antibiotics, things of that nature, we've now got up to 70s. So we need an antibiotic moment, I'll just call it that, where it's game-changing, right? And we can dramatically increase the human lifespan. Yeah, for sure. Just to add on that, because I looked into a little bit more, it was very common for people to live to even our forefathers. If you look back at some of the original signers of the Constitution here in America, like a lot of them live to like 70, 80 years old. The challenge was infant mortality was so high. And it was so risky for women that because, you know, at various points in history, in addition to sanitation, not having antibiotics, other stuff, birthing kids was just. so dangerous and you know 40% 50% of kids may not actually end up making it so because infant mortality was so high and also risky for women as well too you ended up having this average that just got

completely messed up but there i don't think there was any ever a time in history where if you made it to let's say like your 20s that you were dying at 40 years old right it was just that so many kids were dying which was messed up and women were dying too and in childbirth that you ended up messing with the average. It's kind of like that old Bill Gates walks into the bar and the average net worth of everybody there is like a billion dollars. Yeah.

So the averages are messed up. So in that sense, it's actually also exciting because, you know, if we cover the basics, our ancestors before us, as long as they didn't deal with, you know, infant mortality, And as long as you worded off like a major infection, like we've been living into like our 80s for a long time. And even back then, way healthier than now with no obesity, with no chronic disease. Yeah, you probably didn't have your teeth because we didn't have good dental care.

Yeah. And you have one horse tooth and one this, one that, whatever was going on back in the day. But we did it before. And we were probably actually even healthier. We weren't in nursing homes and these other things like that. thank God for modern medicine and all the things that we have available to us, tetanus shots and other things like that, life-saving things that are there.

And we can learn a lot from the past and we can build on that with all the great things. All right. So here's, I'm going to go back to this idea of your routines and the things that you're up to because I'm fascinating about this. Even if it doesn't have the best evidence, is there something that you do that is more on that experimental side, that you're like, I'm excited about this and I just have a feeling that it's really helping me with my health

or potentially going to have me live longer. Is there anything in that bucket? You've already talked about the evidence around exercise, maintaining a healthy blood sugar, maintaining a healthy weight, but is there something more experimental you do? Even if it doesn't have the data that you're like, hey, I have a strong hunch. A lot more of us are going to be doing this in the future. I mean, quite a few things, to be honest with you. I think I've been as of late doing plasmapheresis, which I've,

I think, you know, we know that we're, and it's finally getting out there. I'm so excited. Microplastics all of a sudden, like this week, have been spoken about so much. It's all over and I'm so happy. I actually did a blood test not that long ago to check for microplastics. What tests did you do? Because a lot of people are asking. I only know of one test that looks at autoimmune reactivity with microplastics.

It's by Syrex Labs. I think it's called Array 11. What was the test you did? How do you get it? And do you think it was helpful for you to get a sense of view? your exposure. Yeah, it's not mainstream. So it's called plastic to talk. Plastic talks. They're a small company. It's not, you know, like in the clinic, we use Syrix, Genova, you know, vibrant. Those are like mainstream lab. So this is a newer lab. But, you know, I'm anything I see that is a test, I want to do

it. How much did it cost? Well, they give it to me for free. So I think it's a few hundred dollars. I don't know them necessarily that you should all rush out and do microplastic tests because we need to figure out a really good way to get rid of them. But I think this plasmapheresis can be super helpful except when it actually gets lodged into the organs, which is another disastrous situation because we've now found micro nanoplastics in every single organ, including the placenta and the brain and the testicles. So microplastic testing is very interesting. And even I had a small amount, which I'm not surprised because it's in the air. It's airborne. These micro and nanoplastics are airborne. And we're living in L.A.

And, you know, in big cities, there's more toxins in the air, which is why I stay home a lot with my 10 air filters in my house. So plasmapheresis, I think is really interesting. You know, our mutual friend actually was saying that what they're seeing is they're doing a total toxic burden prior to plasma frieces, which plasma phreases is essentially. dilate plasma exchange and some people are calling it an oil change these days on social media, but it's taking out the plasma, putting back in albumin, and so you're getting rid of that old plasma. And I think it can be beneficial for removing toxins in general, maybe microplastics if they haven't been embedded into the organ yet, but overall, like toxins are so pervasive, whether that be heavy metals, mycotoxins, environmental toxins, you know, PFS, these furrowses, these furrowses,

these forever chemicals that have just been in everything from our cookware to our beauty care products. So I think that plasmapheresis could be a way to reduce that toxic burden. There's other ways to do it too, right? Like sauna, I think sauna at this point in life should be required almost for everybody. Like we have to be detoxing because we were not built to withstand these amount of toxins, right? in our air, water, shower water, personal care products. I mean, there's an unbelievable amount of toxins in our environment. And I don't want that to scare people, but really we should start becoming more aware.

I mean, tap water. Like you could not pay me to drink tap water. And it's so sad that it's not as available, but maybe consider, you know, a reverse osmosis water filter or something and remineralize it. So plasmaphrases is one thing that I would say is pretty, I guess, new. I've done stem cells. I'm getting ready to have, and you know, a lot of this has been self-experimentation. I always draw the line because I haven't had children.

I'm still young, you know, many people in the industry are in their 40s, 50s, 60s in my early 30s. So I want to be careful. I don't want to do anything too crazy. I was offered to do gene therapy. I was going to do fall statin, which reduces your myostatin, and it can help you add on muscle. Again, going back to how are we going to get to? you know, 150 and beyond. If this gene therapy thing proves to be successful, which so far seems

to be going relatively well, of course, you always want to consult with doctors and all that stuff. But some of the people I've interviewed about it, they think that gene therapy will be like a tune-up, right? You go to the doctor as your false tatin levels or, you know, different levels in your body decline, you get them turned up with gene therapy. So I didn't do the gene therapy, but I am intrigued by it. They are working on some like Clotho gene therapies. They're working on. on some, I believe, copper, like peptide therapy. So that would actually be really beneficial for skin health, which is really exciting. So, you know, everybody's trying to maintain a youthful look for a long time.

Something, as I mentioned, I did stem cells. I'm getting ready to harvest my own. So I'm in a position where I'm feeling like for me, that's the best option. So I'm going to do the very light sedation, harvest my own cells, have them duplicated, and then I'll use those in IV drip. So, you know, it's my own genetic material. I still have relatively young cells. And then when we have babies, we'll, of course, bank their stem cells right away.

For the stem cells that you're doing, is this like a Panama Clinic, like one of those? No, actually, you can do it here in the U.S. We're going to start offering it at my clinic. So you harvest your own stem cells and then you send them off to the lab and they preserve them for you. And then they can send you them back in small vials to do in an IV drip or an injection. Let's say, you know, you have a knee issue. or some sort of like localized issue. You could use it as an injection,

but there's so many different forms of stem cells. I'm sure you know all of this, but there's exosomes and then there's, you know, the placental stem cells and mortons do. There's so many different things. But for me, I'm just feeling like that's what I'm most comfortable doing is my own stem cells. And then I'll use those, you know, probably,

I think I'm going to do a twice a year protocol where I do IV drip of my own cells. I don't really have any eggs or pain yet, but should I have them later in life? Like that's, yeah, I get an injury. Hopefully not, but then I would use them for injections as well. So that's a bit, I think, still controversial. Yeah, totally.

And then I've done all the regular stuff. I've done methylene blue. I've done curcumin ivies. I've done, there's an ivy called oliphonilia. I'll say it on here because that's like an olive oil. I feel like people are going to start getting hip with that. I've been doing ozone for years, peptides. We have an ozone sauna at the clinic.

Methylene blue drips. combined with ebu therapy, I have a couple of people appointments booked next week, which is ultra-high-dose ozone. Of course, I have the hyperbaric chamber, which has actually been used in medicine and is in ER rooms or hospitals around the country, but not really used in a, you know, home setting necessarily. It's approved for a few conditions, but I think oxygenating the body is incredible and improving blood flow because many, you know, neurodegenerative diseases,

and ailments stem from poor blood flow. So I love just boosting up my blood flow with the Hopperic and getting all that extra oxygen. That's awesome. It's always great to hear about. And again, as we shared with the caveat in the beginning, if you're listening to all this and you're like, whoa, I'm not doing any of that stuff.

I haven't even heard of some of these things. That's okay. There has to be people that are explorers. You have a clinic, half of this stuff you're looking at because you're wondering, do you offer it at your clinic, in addition to it being beneficial for you? And thank goodness there's people like you that are out there that are trying it, seeing what works, what doesn't work, because it's through that entrepreneurial spirit that we end up making the cost of these things go down and we make them more widely available.

There's so many things that people are doing today that weren't really a thing before. Even the fact that we have olive oil in this country. There was a period of time. Obviously, we were using actually some pretty good fats like beef tallow and other things. But we didn't even have olive oil in this country prior to, I think it was like the 1960s, like was very, very difficult to find like olive oil. It's because some people were like, hey, this would be cool and people initially called it a luxury, just like cars, just like indoor plumbing, just like electricity. It's initially only available for the few, but they develop it and

they start popularizing it and eventually it ends up being something that could be potentially something that all people can participate in. I want to pull on a thread that you talked about earlier because this is a topic that my audience is actually super interested in. And it's a topic of minimizing our toxic exposures. You talk about microplastics. You're doing some pretty advanced things that are there. And there's a lot of basic things that you talk about that everybody can be doing starting today to significantly reduce their toxic exposure. Now, you've talked about a few different things. You've talked about environmental toxins, even things like mold and microtoxins that of there.

There's toxins that you've been very vocal about in maybe clothing that you're personally choosing to sort of stay away from. So help us understand if you had to prioritize for the average person that's kind of out there, if they're looking to significantly reduce their toxic exposure, what comes first, second, and third in terms of the biggest bank for their body? Water filtration. So, and you can get a great reverse osmosis. water filter for a couple hundred dollars, because microplastics is a massive issue.

Not to mention, I actually love a resource called the EWG because every water source has different level of contaminants, right? And so you can type in EWG, go to their local tap water database, and you can see everything that's in your water in the level. So no dangerous chemicals being in this tap water, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, all sorts of things. So I think getting a super high quality water filter and use it for more than just drinking too. Like my coffee in the morning, I use the reverse osmosis water. I try to use it for cooking. I use it for a variety of different things.

But getting high quality water filtration is a game changer. Second is just try to eliminate all plastic use. So we know that these plastic water bottles, they are filled with microinananoplastic. So I think the figure was somewhere around like if you reduce all of your plastic water bottle, you reduce your microplastics by about like 90,000 or something per year. So if you just use glass, you can get one glass bottle. You can refill it. You can take it with you. That's going to be a game changer. Same thing with those little plastic cups, you know, that are at coffee shop. So I loved it, actually, when I was on the flight from Europe back to the U.S., you know, they have a lot higher standards

in terms of food additives and everything over there first of all was in glass, which was, you was beautiful to see. Second thing, though, there was a warning label on the little coffee cup that said that there's plastic in it because a lot of people don't think about the coffee cup, which is paper, being lined with plastic. So that's another way. And in a simple, easy, affordable way to do that is just take your own coffee cup into the coffee shop and they'll usually just fill it. Sometimes I think they even give you a discount for bringing in your own vessel. So those would be two big things. I would say investing, if you can, in a high quality air filtration system because our home should be as low talks as possible.

You know, this is where we're spending most of our time, specifically our bedroom. So having a great quality air filter in your bedroom, I'd like HEPA air filtration is going to be a game changer because there's also the microplastics in the air. And depending on where you live or what you live next to, you could also have other chemicals. So it could be next to a manufacturing plant. There's a variety of different things. When it comes to mold, I mean, there are some tests. mold can really wreck people. I know that you know this, but if you have symptoms, you know,

there's some relatively affordable tests on the market. If you suspect something, you could do a test and see just to make sure you don't have mold because the longer the exposure, usually the worst the symptoms get. That's a big one for molds. Any tests you would recommend or any resources on that topic? Yeah. There's a test called the Ermi test, ERMI. So it's really easy to do. It's a swiffer pad. You go around your house. You do like 10 spots. You send it in. And they give you, you know, a report on, on the status. So I think, yeah, mold is, I've, at the clinic, I've seen some really sad experiences with patients that have had mold exposure and have been almost bedridden. So watching out for molds and mycotoxins. And mycotoxins,

as you know, can be found in food too. So mostly grains, a lot of times can have some of these mycotoxins. So just being aware of that as well. And clothing, I think, is something that is not talked about nearly enough, but again, can have heavy metals, is loaded with microplastics. So I am choosing, for the most part, I mean, first of all, I'll say it's very hard still to find clothing that is organic and natural fibers and that looks good too. I mean, some natural organic companies just looks like a moo-moo, which, I mean, it's okay, I guess, but I work really hard. A mu-moo?

Yeah, you know, like a square box. I don't know, moo-moom. I don't know. It's not flattering. We'll say that. But there are a few brands out there that I really love. And they're using natural materials. What brands?

Do you want to give them a shot out? Skin is my absolute favorite. Skin worldwide.com. Yeah. And their owner is amazing. She came from big fashion, but started to realize that, you know, she wanted to use natural fibers and organic.

She started saying that the materials were not promoting health. And so by choosing organic and natural fibers, you know, it's unbelievable. I actually was reading that they used to use linen sheets in hospitals because there's actually a frequency to sheets. We don't have to get into all bio-energetic medicine or anything. But, you know, natural fibers are more, are healthier for you without a doubt. So that's a big one too.

And you can just start slowly swapping things out. For women, our personal care products, specifically fragrance, is oftentimes has phallates, endocrine disruptors. I know you know this, but we are moving towards a fertility crisis here in the United States. And that is heartbreaking and just extremely sad. I believe the rates have been decreasing at about 1% per year over about the last 30 years, which 1% doesn't sound like a lot. But when you add it up, it's a big problem.

So these endocrine disruptors, we want to be really cautious of. So I eliminated all traditional fragrances probably a decade ago. again, you can go to the EWG and look at their skin deep database. It's great because it ranks products. It can help teach you what chemicals to kind of pay more attention to. But fragrance is a big one. And if you think about it, you're spraying the fragrance right onto your thyroid, right onto your lymph nodes.

Same thing with deodorants, you know, the deodorants with aluminum. So it should be a thing in the past. So it's not necessarily that you have to overhaul your whole life, but you want to start working towards making small changes to, upgrade your personal care products, cleaning products in the kitchen. You know, I mean, autoimmune conditions seem to be exploding right now. And I think they're about four times more prevalent women. And that could be for a variety of different reasons. But a lot of these makeups, hairsprays, shampoos, you know, different body lotions, you know, a lot of them have endocrine

disrupting, hormone disrupting, and foreign ingredients to our body. So I try to keep it as simple as possible. like a lotion, I use raw, unrefined shade butter. It's not expensive. You know, there's some products on the market, super expensive, affordable, and very simple. I try to, again, go to the idea that you want to have the least amount of ingredients in your products and just keep them as simple as possible. And it's, we're living in a time where it's pretty easy to swap out. Like I have makeup on right now.

It's all organic makeup. There's some really good brands. So you don't necessarily have to sacrifice. We're not saying, you know, never wearing makeup. up again or never use a fragrance, there are good alternative options out there, but you can really reduce your toxic burden. And I test my toxic burden frequently. And all the things I'm doing, it's working, you know, because I see I have no toxins. Are you familiar with this test? I've seen a few different toxins test. I've seen like doctors data has some tests. Which one are you

using? This one's by vibrant wellness. And they combine four different tests. We're looking at heavy metals, environmental, mycotoxins, molds. So it's pretty comprehensive. And I have no toxins in the high range. So that's showing what I'm doing is working. I'm taking extra steps. And then, you know, even throughout the home, this is getting like, you know, a lot. And I don't want people to be overwhelmed.

So please stop me if I'm going doing too much. I think people are smart. I think people want to know the full range of things. We're all adults. And the only people that I see that get frustrated are people who just tune in or maybe recently gets clipped on social media and they leave a quick comment because they didn't really have a grounded way of starting the day and they're upset because whatever it might be. So I think people are smart.

They're adults. They can understand that we're talking about a range of options. You're not telling me to work on all this at once. And you've got to start with where you are. Even home optimization. I have this home optimization checklist. I should send it to you and put in the show notes maybe. But things like couches and beds.

so our bed is completely organic because they can have VOCs inside of the mattress and on the couch. They actually used to use this. They don't use them anymore, I believe, but they used to put flame retardants on the couch. So that people smoking cigarettes wouldn't. I think they still do. I think that they might sometimes. Okay. Like anything you buy, we bought this like restoration hardware, like fancy couch.

And the person there was like into like my podcast. and everything. And they were like, hey, just so you know, like, we're mandated by the state of California. Oh. We have to. We have to put flame retardants on it. Wow. I thought, I thought it was done, but apparently not. We're looking to that. All fact check it afterwards, but that's what I was told is that we were mandated because so many people, again, this comes from a good place. So many people were falling asleep on their couch with cigarettes and the whole place. You know, these couches would just ignite. Yeah.

And obviously that comes from a good place, but these flame retardants are incredibly toxic. Exactly. So, you know, we went out of our way to find, you know, a couch with no, no stain repellents, no flame retardants, nothing of that nature. It's a very, like, obscure area at this point for, like, organic couches, but you can find them. Or lower toxin. Even some of the brands are doing, like, more of a lower toxin option. Same thing, you know, with carpet.

you really just want to. So we have all hardwood floors with no varnish or stain because, again, we want to just try to reduce those VOCs. And then in the bedroom, too, thinking about EMF pollution, electromagnetic fields, I actually sleep in a Faraday cage. So my bet is it's an organic, 100% got certified organic mattress. Then I have a grounding pad, which is, you know, grounded to the wall. And then I get the benefits of grounding while sleeping. And then I have 100% organic sheets. and then I sleep in this cage that, well, it's a sheet, but it's also like a ferity cage, so it's

threaded with silver. And I have an RF and EMF reader. And when I take it into the cage, it does go to zero, which I'm so excited about. So, you know, there's been so much controversy on EMFs, right? Like, oh, that's not ionizing. It's not harmful. Well, that might be in small doses, but extended use, even cell phones on the packaging, tell you not to put them up to your head. So, these things all add up and you know everybody has a different size cup for their toxic burden the amount that they can withstand before it tipped over and they develop a chronic disease but we just want to be as conscious as possible in terms of what our surroundings and our home has in it and what that's doing to our biology a couple of things I'll add to that is that you know even just

opening your windows yeah even in a place like Los Angeles there's a few different devices that I've used to measure air quality. One of them is called Aware. And we had one in our old studio. We have one in our new studio there. I have one of my bedroom. It's a little monitor. I think it's like $112.

And it'll tell you, like you'll give you a score from zero to 100. And it ranks all these different areas like VOS, off gassing, carbon dioxide, just from like if there's too, if there's not enough circulation, too much carbon dioxide in the air in a room that's not ventilating. That's not ventilated. It makes it harder to focus. You can't do so. So they rank all these different areas. They look at even temperature. And you can set it to like, hey, help me sleep.

Help me focus. Help me do this. And one of the things you see uniquely across the board, even in a town like L.A., which is not known for necessarily having like the best air quality, although they've made a lot of improvements, just even opening your air, even if you don't have filters. And like you, I have filters in every single room in the house. It makes such a huge difference. And we know from the EPA, I think this was a study that was done in the 80s, we'll link to it in the show notes.

Indoor air can be 300 times more toxic than outdoor air because of all the stuff that we have. So even regardless of where you are, even if you don't have a filter, opening your air, you know, getting new air in makes a huge difference. I don't know if you've seen this, but I've heard this quote a lot. I'm still having a hard time fathoming it, but I guess it's true. Have you seen this quote that the average person is eating a credit card worth of plastic? in a week. I guess if you're eating a lot of processed foods and it's sort of, I think part of that also comes from a lot of the, it's not just like packaging exposure or microwaveing in plastic

and some nanoparticulates coming off. I think it's also the more processed food you eat, the more that those factories are literally using sort of micro nanoplastics to like coat the equipment or to do this or to do that. still, it blows my mind that it could be a credit card a week, but I guess that that's the statement. I even saw Rhonda Patrick repeat it in her microplastics episode this past week, which is crazy because you and I are obviously not getting that much plastic.

So for every person that's getting, for us that's not getting it, there's probably someone out there that's getting two credit cards worth of plastic in a week. But one thing that was really nice from all the different people that I've talked to about this topic, including Dr. Yvonne Burkart, a toxicologist who's come by a podcast. before, used to work in the industry to develop crazy fragrances and other stuff, got completely sick and then got on this like campaign to like help especially women completely clean up their lives. I love that.

I think our episode on YouTube has like over a million views. You got to meet her in interview. She's amazing. The way she explains and her advocacy is like she's so good at things. But when I've learned from her and other people that are in the space is that the biggest microplastic exposure is most likely going to be coming over your lifetime from water. So at least if you filter your water, a lot of other bonuses you can do. If you have that done, maybe you're thinking about clothing, which is something that you talked

about earlier. Maybe you're thinking about other aspects. Maybe you're bringing your own coffee mug that's there. But if you're starting from scratch and you're worried about microplastics and how they're building up in the heart and in the brain, just filter your water. At least that's one big step in the direction of significant. significantly reducing your toxins in the space. But I still can't go over to the fact that we're having a credit card worth of plastics every week.

I mean, it's totally insane. That's nuts. It's so reckless and so frustrating that these big companies, like, they're just excited. Oh, they're excited that they're doing Teflon pans. It's like, but you should also have a responsibility to make sure you're not poisoning people because it's not fair. It really isn't. That's like a whole other topic. But it's just, it's so sad because I do know that it's expensive to. live a really healthy lifestyle, unfortunately. But doing, you know, what you can when you can,

I think, you know, is a really good step in the right direction. What's your perspective, zooming out for a second? You know, we're in this place. We're coming up to an election period here in the United States for our listeners that are, you know, in the U.S. And recently there's been individuals like Kelly means, Casey means, who I know you're close friends with. There's been a lot of sort of these Senate testimonies, these hearings, what role and perspective, you know, because you wear a lot of different hats, you're both an entrepreneur, you are a wife, a daughter, you know, you want to be a mom one day. There's an understanding also, too, of like, you know, we saw during COVID what happens when the government comes in with their own mandates of what they decide what's healthy and what's not

healthy and starts telling everybody you have to get this therapeutic or you have to do that or you have to mask or you have to do this thing. What's your stance of what role government will or won't play in terms of helping us clean up this mess of toxic soup that we're in? It's such a hard question. I mean, in general, I think that the government should really have no involvement in our personal health, right? I mean, I hate to say this, but like look at our directors of health across like nations across the world. It's like, these are not necessarily the most healthy people. So I don't think that the government has any idea what health actually even means.

They have no clue. And quite frankly, until, you know, RFK and Callie and Casey and everyone's starting this, like, conversation, it really wasn't even being talked about in a political stage, to my knowledge. So I'm super excited that they're doing that. Unfortunately, some of the articles are absolutely ridiculous of like, you know, what was it the Woo Woo Caucus? That's what they said. It's like, come on, this is such a joke.

You know, they're incredibly intelligent people all highly degreed. So, but unfortunately, it is going to have to require some government involvement, right, to change some of these policies. Like, I know that they're pushing. I was having a conversation with David Furman. He's at the Buck Institute of Aging, and he has a great lab there. And, you know, there's the concept that we would love for the world to be plastic free. I think somewhere in 2040 plus or something. So that would require government's intervention, right?

They would have to agree that companies would have to stop using additional plastics or plastic at all. So in terms of health, I think the government shouldn't have a role because they don't know what health means. But to get us out of this hole with the toxins, they'll have to be, I think, some regulation on companies. What do you think? It's tough because anybody that you give a bunch of power to to say what's healthy and what's not, then as soon as somebody who you don't agree with gets in the administration or is in these super influential roles, they could say, well, hey, we need everybody to stop eating meat, right? Because that's actually healthy for things.

But the way that I see about it is that this awareness is, you know, government isn't just one person, as we all know, It's a lot of people at a lot of different levels. And I think it was, I think it was Max Planck, a German physicist Nobel Prize winner. This was in like the 1800s. He won the Nobel Prize and he said, you know, advances in science, and you can apply this to any field. Advances in science don't happen when the old guard one day wakes up and says, oh, you know what, I've been doing things wrong.

Yeah, that's true. Fluoride, I thought was good, but actually I'm convinced by the evidence. It's not good. It doesn't happen that way. It actually happens, and this was as a direct quote, it happens one funeral at a time. The people who are in charge who feel like I could do no wrong, I've always known it, this is the exact way it should be. They die one day, right? They get older, they retire, they die one day, and a new group of people kind of come in and they have a new perspective.

So the way that I look at it is I'm not waiting for the government to come in or a regulatory agency to come in and make these sweeping changes. all of a sudden make us all healthy. But I see what Callie and Casey and some of our other friends are doing as raising awareness and momentum. And it's the people speaking up. And through that process, there's going to be some young girl that's watching that who gets excited to start some company that's out there. There's going to be some young boy that's out there who says, wow, I wonder if we have

microplastics from all these electric toothbrushes. Let's find a better biomaterial that people can use for. toothbrushes. So I think it's a combination. At the same time, I am very excited about, you know, all the checks and balances that we have in the U.S. I don't know if you saw this, but at the end of August, there was a federal judge in Northern California, Judge Chen, who basically has been looking at the evidence base around all the evidence of is fluoride potentially toxic, especially to young kids, in particular to the IQ of young babies. And this is been a seven-year-long case. It's been a few citizen activists and lawyers who sued the EPA

using this toxic administration act that was passed during the Nixon administration and that nobody was really using that act. But it basically says that if the citizens feel that the government is not looking at something being potentially toxic to the citizens' health, they can sue the federal government. So you had a bunch of citizens that sued the EPA seven years ago and finally a ruling got placed by this federal judge and he basically told the EPA it's not clear based on the evidence that fluoride you know it's not clear that it's like not doing anything bad to people you have to look at the updated evidence and the EPA got kicked the EPA was like dragged through this process like kicking and screaming and finally the judge

was looking at data from all around the world and saying holy it is not clear that fluoride is safe. In fact, some of these studies are showing that it has a major impact on the brains of young kids. And some research out of Canada in particular where they had one town that fluoridated, one town that didn't. And they looked at the town. It was a natural experiment that was taking place. The town that didn't fluoridate, again, one study, but it was published in JAMA. It was actually so controversial the editor had to come out and basically defend the fact that they were even publishing this study. And they found that the town that didn't fluoridate, the kids, especially young boys for whatever reason, we don't know why, their IQ was like

five to ten points higher from like a young age when they didn't get Floyd. Again, one study. So that's all to say that we need these different checks and balances. And I felt excited about the fact that there was a judge that basically went back to the EPA and said, you actually have to look at the science and come back and give updated guidelines because you guys are basically ignoring all the research that's out there and saying, you know, you're sticking your fingers in your ear and covering your eyes and saying none of this matters. Yeah.

So it's going to be complicated and it's going to be messy, but I just appreciate the fact that there's people that are creating some noise and there's these special moments in history. Well, we'll look back and say a whole generation of people started caring about a subject that wouldn't have if there wasn't noise that was being made about it. I mean, I agree. And the other side of it, too, is, you know, we have the power to vote with our dollars. Like, we're forcing companies to roll out organic lines that never had them, right? I mean, if you don't buy and if you were in a position to not buy from companies

doing the wrong thing, then, yeah, there are smaller companies that you can support, and those companies will grow. So, I mean, yeah, absolutely. I still, you know, I mean, because when I think about it, it and I sometimes get comments, you know, like, well, you have to have resources to, like, be healthy and it's true, which is so unfair. So, I mean, obviously, like so many things just need to be overhauled completely from, you know, the way that our food system works and big food and, you know, a variety of things in the medical

system because it's just a sick care system and there's really no prevention in conventional medicine. But I'm excited for where we're going because people are making a lot of noise about the topic and people are by purchasing with their dollars and they're supporting companies that are doing really good things. But without a doubt, to be very clear, 100%, please do not wait for the government to create your health for you because that will probably never happen. So you have to take charge of your health right now because you're the only person that is responsible for that at the end of the day. I want to switch topics here as we are winding down on our interview, I want to ask you, who do you look up to in this space

that has? And it may not be anybody. Could be friends of yours. You know, you've been very clear. I think you've been very clear. I've seen you write about it and stuff. You want to have a family one day? Is that accurate, right? I want to have a lot of kids, actually. Yeah. So you want to have a lot of kids one day. You know, a lot of the world of longevity and even sometimes the world of biohacking in wellness, naturally there ends up being a male perspective that's there. And then sometimes it's individuals who don't have like a full, like young family that they're raising and all the sort of ins and outs that come with that. Right. Is there anybody that you look up to look up to in this space that is, you know, has kids? And what do you think are ways that your life will change or have to

maybe expand a little bit? And what are some of the ways you don't think it'll change when you have kids in the future? And I'm asking this because I want to have kids. It's the next chapter for my life, for my wife and I. And I feel like I always get the most balanced view on longevity, health, and wellness for people who have kids because they realize, like, kids are largely who they are when they come into this world. And you can be the number one expert in any kind of field.

and your kid could all of a sudden, you know, have a propensity to indulge in sugar or you're doing the best you can and you have them at this private school or whatever. And still it's that day that like the teacher brings in cupcakes because it's some kids, you know, birthday. So just what's your perspective and what matters to you the most? And is there anybody that you look up to in this space that has kids and cares about longevity and is investing serious resources into it? Yeah, I would say Ben Greenfield is a really great example.

Ben, Ben's a great guy. He has two twin boys. And obviously he's been known in longevity and biohacking for many years over a decade, I believe. But he, you know, I've been at dinners with him, you know, longevity events. And he's brought his kids on an occasion. And they're super well-mannered. But, you know, I think he's doing something called unschooling kind of. It's a lot of like nature.

and he's sending them off to, you know, have all these amazing experiences. And based on what he's posting that I see on social, you know, he's, they're doing some of the stuff with him, right? They're understanding and learning. He's teaching them the value of high quality food, how beautiful it can be making it yourself. They had, I think at one point, a little cooking channel or something, right? So he's instilling these values into them. And, you know, I think sometimes they're doing cold with him and they're working out together.

and it feels all very unforced, right? Because people have asked me this question. I have this super strict routine that I've had for a very long time. Every day I'm in bed by 9 o'clock at the latest asleep, actually. And of course, that's going to change. And I know that. But I think I can still, the goal is to continue to prioritize a lot of these health habits because it's going to make me a better, in my opinion,

it's going to make me have more energy to be a better mom. show up in ways that I really want to. So we'll see when we get there. I mean, you know, we'll see if, you know, I want to have maybe my mom come, come live with us on a little unit or something. And I know, of course, everybody can't do that. But I mean, that's probably what my goal is going to be is to be, you know, present, but also have, you know, a family member really close.

And I think that's good for community and socialization, too, for the children. but I'm excited. I'm not going to force my kids. At least anything could change anytime, right? I'm, of course, going to put them in organic clothes and minimize their micropastics. And I've been preparing to be a mom for over a decade because I, you know, my microbiome is going to go to my children.

My mitochondria are going to go to my children. My epigenetics are going to be passed on to my children. So I've had that in my mind well before I ever found my husband, you know? So that's a big part of it too. I wanted to show them the beauty of natural food, growing food, how good it can make you feel. Because at the end of the day, you're not going to be able to control them. You can only show them. You can only put them on the path.

They're meant to go, you know, and hope that they follow it. For some of our listeners, this is going to be the first time that they're getting a chance to become familiar with you. Who is Caleb Barnes? Describe a little bit of your world and some of the projects that you're up to. Yeah. Yeah, it's really all a very specific topic matter, all health and wellness. I got into this a long time ago, actually. I started studying nutrition in college, and I grew up on the standard American diet.

I thought Pop-Tarts were an acceptable breakfast. I was eating like wrenzy puffs and all the stuff that, of course, I would never have now. But when I started to change my diet, I felt so much better. I'm like, whoa, food can do this. What can other things do? And I just got obsessed with human optimization. shown. What was your family life like growing up? Were your parents into health? Like, how are they eating? Yeah. I mean, no. I mean, I still, you know, my mom tries to like hurry up and scurry and hide all of the bad foods and like bring out the blueberries. Yeah, when I visit. And, you know, she's doing it. She knows, you know, at dinner, she'll like a holiday. She'll make me like my own meal, which is so nice. But no, I didn't grow up in a healthy family. Very standard American diet. A lot of people think actually, given what I have now that I grew up wealthy,

I didn't. I was on, you know, food stamps at times in my life. I, if anyone's been on the free lunch card, I know all about that. So I worked really, really hard to get to where I am now. And I was very blessed to see health as this like foundation of greatness, as I said earlier, at a really young age. Because I started my first business when I was 17. I had no idea. And I don't even know if I should call it starting a business. Like 18 technically, my LLC was established. But I always knew I had a really high hopes for myself, but I knew that I was going to have to have the energy and the stamina and the focus and the perseverance to get there. And that's kind of how I found health combined with shutting nutrition and changing my diet. So yeah, we opened up, I co-opened up a clinic,

the first one's in Ohio, four years ago, and it's a longevity precision medicine clinic. It's the most rewarding thing ever because I would say about 50% of our patients are really high achievers like CEOs wanting to improve longevity, reduce their biological age, all that stuff. But then the other 50% of our patients are struggling with chronic disease and they've been to many specialists in the conventional medicine system and they find us. And you get to watch this beautiful experience of them. Number one, maybe finding out what's actually going on for the first time by peeling back those layers, doing tests, looking at things that conventional doctors aren't looking at and then seeing them feel so much better. So that's,

that's the best part about owning a center, you know, like this. Outside of that, we have, I have the podcast, which is so much fun. I have a studio here in L.A., and we focus on men and women's health, but I'm really moving it towards female. So I want to get any females you know, medical doctors, experts, feel free to send in my way, but I want to really, I want to offer something to women that I don't feel like we currently have enough of. There's some amazing women in the space, but I want a podcast that's really focused primarily

on female health. So and female health optimization later this year or early next year, I want to. So I have a membership, like a community online. I made it what I think is quite affordable, but that we can talk about for women, by women, issues, protocols, stuff like that, female longevity optimization community. But I'm going to start taking a portion of that. And I want to start to help fund human female studies. because we don't have, we don't really have literature or data on the most basic protocols,

like cold therapy for example. Like most of these things are done on men for men. And so, you know, we're kind of coming around to the idea that maybe constant ice baths. I'm talking like ice is not best for women. We have landed on, and the experts I've talked to say it's better about 55 degrees, you know, a little warmer and not as often as men are. are able to withstand. So investing in, you know, studies on human women is really exciting. I have a great relationship with like, you know, aura ring and natural cycles. So I feel with the fact that

we have the data of where women are at in their cycle, we should be able to get some pretty high quality studies out there. And yeah, I mean, I'm working on working on a few other things that are exciting, all just to help women, like, thrive and feel their best and optimize their health. What do you love the most about now being in L.A.? Right? Because you're from the Midwest. Yeah. Yeah.

Ohio. Ohio. Yeah. Like Cleveland. Cleveland. Yeah. Like was born in Grafton, Ohio, which is like a tiny town. People drive, you know, like, what are those farming equipment?

Farming equipment. Tractors. Yeah. Tractors. Yeah. Wow. I've been in L.A. for a year and I can't remember the word tractor. What do you like the most about being in L.A.?

And do you think that'll be every time where you're thinking? you know, once you have your nine kids or how do you want, seven, yeah. Do you think you'll move out, move on from L.A.? Yeah. I mean, I love the community in L.A., right? I mean, you're here. There's so many people here that are our friends. It's really nice and fun, like random longevity dinners on a Wednesday.

You're not doing that in Ohio, no shot, unless I was hosting it myself. And there's like three participants. So that's really beautiful. I love the focus on farmers markets, regenerative farming. I am so excited. There's just like regenerative farm box that I order now. And it's so beautiful. And it gets there every Friday.

And I'm always so excited. Can you mention the brand or? Yeah, it's called Flamingo Estates. Okay. Have you heard of this? Yeah, for sure.

Gorgeous. So Casey has inspired me. I'm just going to start growing my own food on my back, you know, in little planter boxes. She's so good at that. She's amazing at that. And, you know, the longer the vegetable is picked from its source,

it's losing nutrients. So, I mean, it's like I want to get the highest quality of food possible. I mean, I love Airwan. That's a fun experience. The healthiest grocery store. That's great.

But really just the community and the sun, the sun and the nature too. The people make such a difference. You know, when you're an early adopter of a lot of these things in general, but then you're living in a small town. And I didn't grow up in a super small town, but I didn't grow up in like a big city. I grew up mostly in Delaware. Yeah. And south of Philadelphia, about like an hour away from Philadelphia.

Like Delaware doesn't even have like a major airport. that's there, like our town is like, not small, but like it wasn't like very easy to get exposure to a lot of these things that you get exposure to in like New York and other places. And I got into, I got in the world of wellness because I had a really bad skin in high school. And I didn't realize until later on that I had a really bad issue with dairy, like a dairy sensitivity. And I got off a dairy and like my skin cleared up in like a month. Unfortunately, that took me down the path.

I mean, it was what it was where I kind of became a strict. vegan for like seven years. But that's all I knew at the time. And I talk about that story all the time. And, but ultimately, I ended up finding my way when I kind of learn more about the world of like integrative and functional medicine. But, you know, when you come to these cities and the people that you meet, especially in a place like L.A., it adds a richness to your life. You know, it really adds a level of richness. And you feel like, you know, everybody, even the leaders in the space like yourself, we all want to like belong and connect with other people and do fun stuff. I don't know how long will be in LA, but eventually my idea is to convince enough people

here to like just buy a huge pot of land. We'll do biological homes. So biological homes are like A to Z the healthiest homes on the market. So how everything from how the wiring is put in and reducing the EMFs, hardwiring, all of your computers and electronics and not using any VOCs and paints and EMF blocking paint away from EMFs in general. So just building like the healthiest homes ever. And then we can all live near each other, have community, have like a massive, you know, regenerative garden space with animals.

And that is my ideal long term. There you go. Two things about that. Number one, if people want to participate in that, you know, one day could be five years away, 10 years away,

can they reach out to you and ping you? Yeah, send me a message. I mean, we'll find the land and get it up. Yeah, all right. All right. So reach out. We'll link to your social media.

Number two, there's actually a woman in Italy. I'm blanking on her name, but she runs an organization. And they literally have made a little small town in Italy where they've built these homes. Like they literally don't have, they built their own school for the kids. There's these families that all got together. I think it's like 12 families, maybe a little bit more. They don't even have Wi-Fi. Everything's like hardwired.

Like, it's pretty exciting. And she ever said, like, tell people, like, if they're going to Italy and they want to take a tour to inspire what they're doing in the future, in fact, she actually asked me for an introduction to Tom O'Brien, the chiropractor, who talks a lot about autoimmune and other things like that. And he ended up, he spends a lot of time in Italy, and he went. He said he was super amazed. So I'll find her information. I'll send you. Yes, please do. Okay.

Last few questions here while we wrap up. My audience, you know, it's probably about 70% women, probably a lot of people that are in that demographic. that you're also talking to. They're thinking about healthy aging, pari menopause, menopause, other stuff, longevity. They're trying to put it all together. What are one or two interviews you've done in the last year that we can link to in the show notes below that are a great, like, listen after this, like some female that you interviewed who like you were really blown away by the interview or it meant something to you?

Anything come to mind? My interview with Dr. Keneally, she's a medical doctor and she oversees a few cancer centers in the L.A. area, more so Irvine. But she is incredibly articulate. She is very into, you know, many of the ancestral habits. So I found the interview to be absolutely incredible. So she also has an amazing energy. I just really gravitate towards her as a person.

But it's also incredibly, she has some controversial ideas around cancer in general. And I think it's worth a listen. So that's a great one. they see patients? Do they treat cancer patients? Yep, they do. Are they all modalities or no, they kind of only do certain modalities? I don't know the exact list of services. I believe she can work in combination with, you know, traditional therapies and supportive therapies. They also offer something that's really exciting out there called QT imaging, which is a new version of breast imaging. A lot of the people that I talk to in the breast health space,

they believe QT imaging is going to eventually replace the mammogram. I'm not sure, but it's exciting new technology that's very non-invasive. So they offer that there as well. That's awesome. I'm going down to Dr. Caneli is going to do some ebu. I'm going to do some bioenergatic testing, maybe some vitamin C drips or something while I'm out there in a couple of weeks. But I just think she has a really interesting perspective, and she's been doing this for a very long time. So I think that's an interview worth listening to.

Amazing. Another interview that actually is also related to cancer that she gave me chills. So Dr. Jen Simmons, she was a surgeon. She was removing breast cancers, you know, and in medicine, the hierarchy is, you know, surgeons are really at the top, right? So she had operated on women removing breast cancer for years, and then she got breast cancer. And her doctor told her that she needed surgery. And no way am I advocating or giving an opinion on this.

I'm just talking about the interview. She didn't have surgery. She started to learn about functional medicine, which, you know, she wasn't taught in all those years of school. And she ended up, you know, putting her cancer into remission. And now she does a lot of functional medicine approaches for, you know, preventing, of course, cancer, which is the ideal situation. But I just found her story to be so compelling because it's not every day that a surgeon walks away from being a surgeon to go kind of back to the basics. of medicine and looking at it through the functional medicine lens.

And it was just, you know, it was really a powerful story. So I think that's a great one too. I'm very curious about both of those. My mom had breast cancer, knock on wood, she's doing amazing now. But, you know, we had to put a whole team together for her. Yeah. And, you know, luckily there was some great functional medicine doctors that were part of that. In fact, one that herself, she was a breast cancer survivor, Dr. Liz Boehm.

She's based in Lenox, Massachusetts. but both of those sound like super interesting interviews. I'm going to listen to myself. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's a couple other good ones. We'll just keep it short. But Amy Killen, she's great.

She really focuses on menopause and HRT. And there's so many great women that I've interviewed. I just did an interview last night with Dr. Stacey Sims. So she's like, you know, she's just, she is so articulate and female exercise, science, nutrition. So that'll be a really good one. too. It's exciting. Well, we'll link to your podcast, but for those who are listening, they might be driving right now, working out. Do you want to just mention the name? Yeah, longevity optimization with Kayla Barnes lens, but it's just longevity optimization.

Kayla, this has been great. This is our first time, like, sitting one-on-one and getting a chance to, like, catch up and connect and everything. I've loved it. I really appreciate the perspective that you bring to the space. I appreciate your, and want to acknowledge, like, your aesthetic, you make it look really cool, which obviously draws in a whole. whole audience that that, you know, they like that. It feels like high fashion. It feels like something super nice, maybe bougie a little bit, right? However you can reach people, right? You reach people through all different ways. And so I want to thank you for your contribution to this space and your perspective. And I appreciate you being in Los Angeles. It's been nice to get

to know you through some mutual friends, Casey and many others. And I'm so glad that we got a chance to do this. I know. Same. I feel like we've been connected for like years online. But It's been a real pleasure to be here and just get to know you more. We have a link in the show notes to your podcast, your Instagram, which is fantastic. And we'll also link to your clinic just in case somebody's out there and they want to go to the Midwest and see you guys. Yeah, absolutely. That sounds great. Thank you.

Kayla, thank you for being on. We are excited to have you back on in the future. Thank you for having me. Hi, everyone, Drew here. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me.

And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share it with a friend. Share it with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter. And it's called Try This. Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy-to-digest protocol of simple steps that you or anyone you love. can follow to optimize your own health. We cover everything from nutrition to mindset to metabolic health, sleep, community, longevity,

and so much more. If you want to get on this email list, which is, by the way, free and get my weekly step-by-step protocols for whole-body health and optimization, click the link in the show notes that's called Try This or just go to Drew Perot.com. That's D-H-R-U-P-U-R-H-I-T-com and click on the tab that says, try this.