Dhru Purohit Show - Why the Gut Health of 100-Year-Olds Could Change How you Age | Dr. William Li

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

This episode is brought to you by Branch Basics and AquaTru. Longevity doesn’t require fancy gadgets. It just requires simple habits like eating real food, getting quality sleep, staying active, and maintaining connections. Today’s guest shares practical tips from his research and travels to help you build a long, healthy life. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, we’re revisiting one of our most talked-about moments with Dr. William Li. He shares what he has learned about centenarians through his research and travels, highlighting the key traits they share, such as the presence of four specific gut bacteria. Dr. Li also explains the role of the “Hope Molecule” and its powerful impact on the body. If you’re looking for practical tips to support longevity, this episode is for you. Dr. William Li is a world-renowned physician, scientist, and author of the NYT bestseller Eat to Beat Disease. His research has led to 30+ medical treatments for over 70 diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. His TED Talk, “Can We Eat to Starve Cancer?” has 11M+ views, and he’s been featured on CNN, GMA, Time, and The Atlantic. Dr. Li is also the President of the Angiogenesis Foundation, leading global efforts on the use of food as medicine. In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Li dive into: Gut microbiome in those who live long lives (1:25) Top foods that nourish the four key bacteria linked to longevity (13:39) How exercise triggers the release of the “Hope Molecule” (20:06) Final Thoughts (23:28) Also mentioned: Full episode with Dr William Li This episode is brought to you by Branch Basics and AquaTru. Right now, Branch Basics is offering 15% off the Premium Starter Kit; just go to branchbasics.com and use coupon code DHRU. Make 2025 your cleanest, healthiest year yet with Branch Basics! Right now, AquaTru is offering my community $50 off their new shower filter. Ready to upgrade your shower? Visit dhrupurohit.com/shower to experience the AquaTru Shower difference.  Sign up for Dhru’s Try This Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi everyone, Drew Prode here. More than 2,000 years ago, Hippocrates said, all disease begins and ends in the gut. And you're likely aware that gut health has become one of the hottest topics in wellness over the past several years. We know that the state of our gut health and our gut microbiome influences everything from our metabolism and immunity to brain health and so much more, including perhaps how long we live,

which is why I'm excited to share with you today. segment from a powerful conversation I had with my dear friend, Dr. William Lee. And in this moment that we highlight on today's podcast, Dr. Lee explores one of the most fascinating health discoveries of our time, the common gut health patterns shared by people who live to be 100 years old and beyond. Now, a little bit about Dr. William Lee. You've probably heard about him on this podcast before. He's an internationally recognized physician, scientist, and best-selling author. His groundbreaking research has led to the development of more than 40 new medical treatments that impact the care of more than 70 different diseases, including diabetes, blindness, heart disease,

and obesity. He is the president and medical director of the Angiogenesis Foundation, and he's leading global initiatives on food as medicine. Now, let's jump right into my conversation with Dr. William Lee. You know, there are people that live longer and healthier than the average population here in North America. So what are some of those things that you found that make the biggest difference with that? So what's really interesting for me is as somebody who's a scientist and can tinker in the lab as I have, but also as a food as medicine research where I believe the other end of the equation as a doctor and as an observer is equally important is to study what's happening in people who actually have lived a long time, all right?

What can we learn from them? Is there some clue? We talked a little about the advice my uncle gave when I probed him for it. But objectively, as a researcher, as a scientist, what can we find that is a standout in people who live a long time? Not subjective, but objective, all right? And this is an area of interest that I think is so fascinating. 15 years ago, if you were to talk about gut health, a few people,

might have recognized it, but we didn't really have even the tools that were affordable to be able to study gut microbiome or gut health at scale, healthy gut bacteria. The 39 trillion bacteria that we live inside our gut that actually help control inflammation, help control our metabolism, help signal to our brain, the whole gut brain axis that I know you've talked about on the show, but now we have it. And because we have it, we're able to apply the measurement of the gut microbiome, not just to people in their 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s, but we can apply this. same research tool, diagnostic tool, exploration tool to people who live a long time to ask the very simple question.

This is just an example of the research that I've been fascinated by. People who live a long time, what's different about their gut microbiome? We know it's so important. It's a tip of the iceberg, but is there something we can just jump ahead and look at people who are 100 or even older to find out what's different about their gut? All right. This is looking for hypothesis, looking for observation. and we've discovered something.

And this is amazing. All right. So there's a group in Italy in Bologna who gathered people into a study that ranged across adult life from 20s to 40s to 60s to 70s to 90s to 100s to 114. Superachers. All right. Super centenarians is like as I call it. Okay.

So we all think about somebody who's lived to 100. Like I brought my uncle up like, oh man, that's really cool. you know, probably pretty rare to get there. I don't know too many people who are, who live to 100, but do you know how many centenarians there are on the planet today? I don't know. Take a guess. Okay, so the population globally is 8.something billion, right, around there.

My guess is that there's probably, I would say that there's probably 0.5% of the population, 0.3%, maybe 0.2%. So I'm not going to do public math here, but let me just estimate from a gut feeling. I don't know. Are there like 200,000? There are, as of now, this year, an estimated 720,000 centenarians on Earth. Almost three quarters of a million people

are 100 years or older. So this is not a long shot. This is something that is happening on a planetary level more commonly than we thought. And the reason that I bring that up is because a lot of people will be surprised to hear how many people actually live to 100 every single year, which is good news, right? I mean, it says something that, you know, with all the crap that we're afraid of, the climate, the pollution, the toxins, all these things that, you know, are very appropriately,

you know, should be front and center of what we're thinking about when it comes to policy and elections and, you know, the decisions that we make for our families and ourselves, totally appropriate. But it just goes to show you, in spite of that, humans are actually starting to live longer. And there's a lot of us, a lot of people who are doing that. Okay. So let me type of this research study because they gathered a bunch of people who are actually 100 and older as part of this big cohort.

And they studied their gut microbiome using standard tools that we have available today that are affordable. So again, 15 years ago, maybe a few people could know it, but too super expensive and we didn't have that knowledge base. Now they've applied it. And the question that this study asked was, what are the standout bacteria across people who are living at different age groups? And then when you go to the centenarians and older,

are there any bacteria that pop out that go, oh my gosh, these bacteria are so high in these people, there must be something going on for these bacteria. And the answer is there's four bacteria. in the superagers. Wow. 100 and above. All right.

So I consider this kind of like breakthrough discovery. Like my whole career as a research researcher has not been to follow other people, but to really look on the horizon for, you know, you know, like if you're in the old days, you think about those big sailing ships. Yeah. Right? So if you're in the crow's nest with the periscope and the parrot on your shoulder, all right? What do you do?

You go like land ho. right like that's the discovery i think i see something so this research i think has seen land ho in the gut microbiome of superagers and there's four bacteria that's happened you want to know what they are your home should feel like a safe haven a place where your kids can crawl on the floor your pets can nap in the sun and you can take a deep breath without worrying about what's in the air or on the surfaces but here's the problem many of the conventional cleaners that we all grew up with that we trust to keep things clean are actually introducing harmful chemicals into our home. And the kicker, companies aren't even required to list all their ingredients on the label.

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One of them is called odoribacter. Okay, O-D-O-D-R-I bactor, odoribacter. All right. A second one is called oscillobacter, like oscillation. third one is called chrystenela kristinella kristinella another bacteria

now have you haven't heard about this and I know you're you're actually pretty you're pretty seasoned when it's talking to my microbiome right now even for me I hadn't really heard about these and I spent some time like a decade looking at microbiome I didn't even heard these okay fourth one

acrymancia isn't it amazing yeah four bad including one like our old friend Akramansia that I know I've talked to you on the show before. Yeah. They are the standout bacteria in people who get to be 100 and much older, the super ages. Okay. So what do they do?

All right. Let's pounce on those for bacteria. What did they do? Well, we don't know everything they do, but we do know that some of them, like the odorobacter, improves your immune system against e coli, against other bacteria that might take you out as you get older. Okay? it boosts your immune system. It defends you against bacterian viruses and probably cancer as well.

But we don't know that. Like, again, this is all discovery. We're putting together a picture. Cool. We got a bacteria that boost your immune system. Another one, the osceolobacter, helps improve your lipid, your blood lipid profile. It's like Mother Nature's statin actually lowers your LDL, your bad cholesterol, helps improve your HDL cholesterol, lowers overall cholesterol.

Pretty cool. All right. That starts to make sense. also helps your metabolism, your blood sugars become more even out. How insulin sensitivity makes your body more insulin sensitive, all right? Doesn't mean that it's going to help you if you're pounding sugar and sodas into your body all the time. But let's talk about people that are making it and living a reasonable, only healthy life. That bacteria could make a big difference, right?

Other bacteria, improve cardiovascular health. Of course, acrimancy, we know there's a whole host of things. for lowering inflammation, improving metabolic health, helping you to fight off cancer, even showing like it actually plays a role, probably in brain health and cognition, protecting cognition as well as some of the latest research on it. Okay. So that's pretty cool. You got four players that have been newly discovered that all do things to your body's systems

that help us live healthy. Live long, live healthy? Live long and prosper, right? That old spot thing. Hey, if our gut microbiome is important for our, health when we're adults. What about when we're elderly? We're beginning to ask that question.

This is the new conversation that's actually happening in longevity research. Okay. And then with the coolest part, and this is what I'm working on, what are the foods you can eat that can actually support that? I'm not going to go like bacteria by bacteria, but I'll just tell you collectively. Sure. So I give you an idea. If you're interested in these, in grooming, cultivating, raising these bacteria in your body,

this is what I'm finding out so far. So remember, odorobacter, acylabacter, Kristenacella, and Akramancia. All right. Acrimanasi, we know, right? We've talked about this before. Pomegranates, dried cranberries, Concord grape, the juice or the whole thing.

There's some more players. Chili peppers can actually do it as well. Black raspberries can do it. If you've ever been to dim sum, you know, where they steam their soup dumplings, you know, it's like a treat. It's like these steam wrappers and a little bit of filling and like a big bite of soup that comes out. Absolutely delicious.

Guess what? The vinegar that they serve in those restaurants along with those soup dumplings is Chinese black vinegar. Tsichung vinegar. That vinegar grows acrimancia in the body. Pretty cool, right? Wow. So I've talked about salsa, spicy dim sum, all right? pomegranate, you know, like, I mean, think about all the Middle Eastern cultures that actually have used

pomegranate and they're cooking, cranberries, you know, turkey day cranberry, all right? There's healthy ways of actually doing that too. So again, you know, like these are achievable ways to actually cultivate this one bacteria, which, by the way, if you have it and you have cancer and you're getting immunotherapy, this one bacteria, acrimancy of synephilis, has been shown in human studies to be critical for helping you respond to the cancer treatment. So this is not like a maybe I wonder if I should. This could wind up becoming a life and death decision.

And this is like the kind of research I do as a medical doctor. You know, I'm not just sort of like a kale wheat leaf waiver saying, oh, like on a good day eat some more veggies. Like this is the stuff that I do as a cancer researcher as well. Like what could we advise patients to do when they are asking their oncologist or oncology nurse, what should I eat? And the answer that's always given, often given is. Like, I don't know, or it doesn't really matter what you eat.

It does matter what you eat. By the way, when it comes to cancer, if you want to live long, I mean, there's all kinds of things that you can actually do. But one of the things I think that we should be focusing on that is going to be very, very effective as the science for extending life is going to be, is work being worked out, is to curtail or avoid the things that will take you out early. Cancer being one of them. Diabetes, one of them.

Obesity being another one. acrimancia. Other foods, by the way, that actually answer, resistant starches. For acrimancia or all these bacteria. For these other bacterias. Yeah. Okay. Resistance starches. Day old rice. Cook rice, steam rice, put it in the fridge, have it the next day. You've turned, you've turned steam rice, fresh rice, which is a starch, into a resistant starch. All right. Potato, got to roast a potato. All right. If you're roasted healthily, if don't eat it all, stick your leftovers in the fridge. Guess what? That temperature change changes the chemistry of the starch.

The next day when you have it, even if you heat it up again, resistant starch, that grows some of these healthy, these four players, you know, these are like the four horsemen of longevity that we think we may be onto. Again, this is not a conclusion. This is an observation. Sure. But an exciting one.

Very sad. Resistance. Resistance starches. All right. Oatmeal also, you know, has some ability to grow some of these bacteria as well. So again, you know, you sort of, we're starting to reverse engineer. What can we learn from people who are super old that are in good health? What's in their body that's a standout?

Got microbiome? It's the undiscovered country. Now we're beginning to just like just to carve into it a little bit to figure out what's there. Now let's back it up. If those are important, are there foods that we can actually eat? Because as you pointed out, these are the early patterns. Like you can't be, you know, sick when you're 70 and say, oh, man, now I'm going to go back and start to grow these things all of a sudden. You should start living a healthier life.

But these are patterns that actually probably support your overall health from the time when you're not thinking about your health. You know, follow up question on this, which is obviously super fascinating. One of the things that we learned from you is Acrimancia, which you've talked about before on the podcast numerous of times, is not just a small. strain, but it's a pillar strain. In a healthy gut, it should make up, I think you said last time, about 5% of the total sort of bacteria. A little bit less. Okay, so around there. So three, four percent, somewhere around there. But anyways, it's more than like a percentage point. And there's probably not that many bacteria that make up that volume, right? Because if you have 100 percent and acrimancy is somewhere between two and five percent, there's only so many bacteria

that are like that. Do you know for these other bacteria that you mentioned, Were they able to find how plentiful they were? Were they also a large percentage in the gut? Don't know that. Don't know that. Don't know that. And that's, you know, like, you're asking the questions that the researchers are asking as well, including myself. All right, let's dig a little bit further.

What is their prevalence? How common are they? What else do they do? Where do they grow? You know, like maybe they're not all in the usual place that gut microbiome. We need to figure out other places they grow. Are they environmentally influenced? you know, maybe smoking actually affects it.

And if you don't smoke, you know, maybe food, certain foods, fermented foods might affect it. So there's so many questions that get asked. This is the bread and butter of scientists, you know, and I, I'm an honest scientist. And you can tell when you talk to a real scientist when the scientist says, I don't know. I don't know the answer to your question, but they're really, really good questions. And are they affected by stress management? Are they affected by sleep? Are they affected by exercise?

These are all things. The other thing that I think I'm really excited by is new discoveries that I think can lend to this idea that we can live well as we live long. So we know that exercise is pretty central, pretty fundamental to being able to extend your life as long as you possibly go with unhealthy. Extend your health span. you want to exercise on a regular basis. Right.

But have you heard of a, have you heard of the hope molecule? No, I haven't. All right. So the hope molecule is a relatively new discovery that when you exercise your muscle, it comes from the muscle.

When your muscles contract, it releases hope molecules, H-O-P-E, hope. What are the hope molecules? Well, there are things that when you exercise, your muscle contracts, it goes in your bloodstream, goes to your brain,

and it makes you feel hopeful and optimistic. You ever feel like after you exercise, you work out, just feel pretty good. All the time, right? All the time. Hope molecules contribute to that. Not the only thing, but contribute to that. All right. What is a hope molecule?

All right. It's called a myokine. Mayo as a muscle kind like cytokine. It's a natural chemical that's released by muscle during exercise, kind of like the cytokine of the muscle, but it has a brain signaling property that we didn't realize. And you see, the reason that is that so important is not only does it actually connect the gut brain, muscle brain, right?

And that's actually really important because we tell people to exercise. Some people go, ah, you know, I never exercise. I can't do that. Hey, you know what? We're making these discoveries to show that you can actually be influence your mindset by exercise. Did you know that like, again, you're hardwired, your body's hardwired to create these hope molecules.

Who wouldn't want that? Right. So again, these are the new discoveries that I think add layers. of richness to what's already been discovered and will continue to be discovered in a lab on the building blocks of aging and how to actually counter aging, let's also add to that what can do for a lifestyle that can affect our gut, that can affect our mind, that can affect our muscle, let's make some sense out of some of these recommendations that are there, you know, so that when my great uncle told me like he walks up, hugs up to the tea temple

to be with his buddy to drink tea, now I'm thinking, all right, he's getting, he's getting, his muscles working and they're releasing hope molecules that actually influences brain. And now he's socializing in a more positive way with his friends. And we know social interaction is something that Dan Butner from the Blue Zones has talked about so important for these countries where people live long. They're with other people, you know. And by the way, I think that is something that we need to really contend with as a society. And I don't know if it's a policy issue, but it's certainly a public health issue is loneliness.

no good if you're living to whatever age you want to live to, but you're doing it alone, isolated. And so how do we address that? How do we, what can we do we do with that? You know, I don't have the answer to that, by the way. I'm just bringing it up as something that in this wide-ranging conversation we're having about longevity and like, you know, we're sort of covering this gray space that a lot of the pioneers haven't yet covered.

But this is the area that I'm working in. I think it's really an amazing area to be able to find. flesh out for people, the things that anchor them to their humanity as they get more years. 80% of how we age is based on the habits and fundamentals we engage in daily. And it's so empowering to know that we truly have so much influence over our own aging process. Whether it be by incorporating gut-supporting foods that Dr. Lee mentioned in today's diet, or by making an intentional effort to strengthen your relationship and sense of belonging, it's never too late to take control of your future and your gut microbiome.

So if you've enjoyed today's episode, I really encourage you to check out my full-length conversation with Dr. William Lee, where he shares many more practical ways to support not just living longer, but living healthier as you age, which is the key that we're all looking for. You can find the link to that episode in the show notes below. And as always, please consider sharing this episode with a friend or family number or someone in your life that might benefit from the information that Dr. Lee presented today. Until next time, thanks for tuning in.