Founder's Story - You’re Aging Wrong: The Real Reason We’re Dying Early (and How to Reverse It) | Ep 284 with Dr. Mark Sherwood Co-founder of Functional Medical Institute

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

In this Founder’s Story episode, Daniel sits down with Dr. Mark Sherwood of The Functional Medical Institute, one of the nation’s most respected longevity and wellness doctors. Dr. Sherwood takes us through a remarkable life journey — from being an adopted kid no one believed in, to becoming a professional baseball player, to risking his life daily on SWAT operations, to now leading a global movement helping people live to 120 with strength, clarity, and purpose. Key Discussion Points: This episode begins with Mark unpacking why longevity has become a cultural obsession — and how the trauma of recent years has forced society to confront death in a way we never have before. Drawing from years of studying human biology, ancient records, and current data, he explains why humans should be able to live to 120, and why our healthspan is collapsing far earlier than it should. Mark breaks down the three pillars of true longevity straight from the transcript:• Eat intentionally — real food, nutrient-dense, information-rich, not calorie-rich• Move purposely — daily movement as medicine, “the only day you shouldn’t move is the day you’re dead”• Live at peace — eliminating chronic stress, disconnection, negativity, and reclaiming hope He shares deeply personal stories from his time on SWAT — including witnessing death in front of him — and how those moments reshaped his beliefs about fragility, purpose, and the urgency of healing. One of the most powerful moments is Mark recalling his mother’s suicide and how it taught him that most battles are internal, not physical. This experience shaped his mission to help people rewire their mindset before they attempt to fix their bodies. The conversation dives into the science of longevity — mitochondria, NAD, peptides, cold exposure, heat shock proteins, resilience-building, and the biological measurements he uses to reverse aging by decades. He reveals real patient results, including individuals in their 60s and 70s who now biologically test in their 20s and 30s. Mark also explains how he turned pain into purpose, growing the Functional Medical Institute with his wife Michele — producing books, films, and signature experiences that transform thousands of lives. Takeaways: Listeners will learn that longevity is not a luxury — it is the byproduct of daily leadership over your physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental health. Mark shows how aging is not inevitable decline but a choice that begins with your actions, your beliefs, your resilience, and your willingness to confront internal battles. The episode reinforces that your mindset builds — or destroys — your biology, and that radical health is within reach if you take full ownership. Closing Thoughts: Mark’s story proves that your past does not dictate your lifespan or your health future. With intention, discipline, and a shift in identity, you can rebuild your body and mind at any age. His framework offers a hopeful, science-backed path toward living younger, longer, and stronger — not by chance, but by choice. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So Dr. Mark Sherwood, something that I'm seeing a lot about now is longevity. It seems like it's not just the billionaires who want to live longer. It's everybody is obsessed with wanting to live longer, but not just live longer, live healthier as we age. And I think it's great that we're seeing people like 50s and 60s that they're still capable of doing everything because I feel like before it felt like if you get to your 50s or 60s, it's like life is over. why do you think right now in almost 2026 we are so obsessed with with longevity i think there's two

reasons number one i think is the negative side of it we've been touched by so much death over the last four to five years it's been a conversation piece that has reached epic proportions across the world so no question um we've had death touch our lives close to us with uh various epidemics and things like that. The other side is that there's a lot of technology right now. We're seeing some incredible breakthroughs miracles, I would say, in the idea of how can we live healthier longer. So with AI, with the ability to mine data to do studies in a very quick manner, we're really learning how to quote unquote hack the system better to give the possibility of living longer. And there's a lot of people that believe that it's possible to live up into the mid-150s or so, something like that.

Now, I'm not sure I'm in that camp or not, but I do know, as we were saying before we went live, you know, that we are going to die. I believe that. But I do not believe that we have to die as early as we're dying. And I don't believe we have to have this decrease in health span the way it's happening. I think we can have an actual increase in health span. and along with that, conjunctively, we can have a longer lifespan as well.

So based on the data, based on everything that you're seeing, the people that you're helping, how long do you think we can live? And how healthy do you think we can be as we get into those later years? I believe the organ systems probably, from everything I've seen and read,

whether it be biblical texts or actual science data, records keeping all the years, probably about 120 is the organ span of our bodies. having said that, I see no reason while we have to have brain decay or brain decrepidation when we're losing our mind. Therefore, I think we can be very sharp. Physically speaking, we have to preserve capital, as my wife likes to say. You can't, don't do dumb things, you know, as you get into your 60s, 70s and age.

But I do believe that people could be active, vibrant, living independently, very health-related as well, well into their early 100s. There's no question about that. I know data tells us the oldest person's ever lived was 122 living in France. The oldest person alive as of today, the time of this recording was 118 living in Japan. So having said that, I believe that history does tell us the story. History sort of unravels a mystery for us. But we have an exciting future there.

I think our expectations probably should change towards that. So what are two or three things that you do right now in your life? that you feel will allow you to live to that 120. Maybe you'll break the record. Maybe you'll hit 130. Well, I believe there's three things that we really ought to do. And this is perhaps over simplification, but I do believe, Dan, that there's probably over complication of things.

It's not that hard. I think number one is this. You have to eat real food until you eat intentionally. And what I mean by that is if you have a real food that's created, if it grows from the ground or in the ground, on the ground. on a tree, swimming through the water, flying through the sky, or walking through the forest, it's probably food. So eat that.

But there was no donut trees in the Garden of Eden. I'm just using that as a little bit of a humorous ploy there. But if we eat real food, we're actually getting real nutrients to the cells. Nutrients are information. Our body runs on micronutrients, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids, as opposed to calories. So high nutrient foods is key. So number one is eat.

intentionally. Number two, I think, is probably move purposely, which is activity. The only day that you should not move is the day you're dead. And the only day you don't exercise, therefore, is the day you're dead. Movement is life. Lack of movement is rigor mortis. So we need to move more, set less. I'm not talking about going to the gym. You can, but we do need to be active. Activity is something that sort of metabolizes adrenaline, which helps us minimize stress. And stress is the thing that actually is an overt killer today, right? So we have to move purposely every day. Number three is kind of tagging on to what I just said.

It's live at peace. We live in a world where media can be so negative and so hopeless, you know, so just absolutely just miserable, fear-based. And it gets a lot of clicks. I'll admit that. it might sell some tickets, but it doesn't generate life. And I find that troubling. I mean, God, Lord live peacefully with people.

So, you know, I'm with these wristbands that I give away. And I don't know if you can see it, but it says hope dealer. And I believe that giving hope to someone else is what we should be about. So, you know, I've said many times I believe hope should be the thing that becomes the new infectious disease around the country and the world. And I think that would be a good thing. But living peacefully with people, man, having conversations opened down. I'm not saying agree, but how about learning to love people again? And that gives us a chance to have some peace in our lives.

I like peace in my life. So I'm with you. Crazy enough, it sounds like that is the, that could be the hardest thing for people just because, like you said, we're on our phones all the time. We're addicted to what's in our phones. But I'm hearing that younger generations are actually starting to use social media and starting to, they want to be more in person. Like they want to be around each other more.

so maybe they'll be the savior to our society. So going back to your life, you went from SWAT operations and near-death moments to becoming the country's, one of the country's most respected longevity doctors. So what is something that you learned from SWAT operations that you've been able to carry over? Well, I learned that anybody is capable of anything

and learned that death life is a fragile subject. To see death occur in front of you to watch people, commit suicide to see murders, to see death, and see people take their last breath. I remember one particular occasion, we were on a swat operation, and one of the snipers had to, you know, use force to stop an hostage situation. And I was the first person to reach that individual, and it was a cold night. And Dan, I'll never forget this as long as I live. It was, you can see the breath.

and I remember I saw his breath come out of his lungs that last time. And it changed and shocked me, you know, because you see it, you hear it, but when you're right there in the middle of it, it does something to you internally. And I realized that in a moment's time, you can go from death or from life to death. So how can we make life better? I realized that we're, again, like I said, we're capable of anything, both good and bad. I am one moment away, one breath away, one word away from being an idiot or a blessing. I'm going to choose to be a blessing.

And so that shifted the way I looked at things. It shifted the way I looked at people. And since then, I mean, people think it's a unique, perhaps transition from SWAT team to an anthropopathic longevity-oriented doctor, but it's really not. I just expanded my area of protection and service, you know, to protect people from the cells and perhaps serve them better. So is there something that you learned about leadership? Because I imagine, like you said,

I mean, these are life and death situations. So is there something that you learned about leadership in that moment that you think could carry over into business, not just your business, but just something that people could apply to their business as well? Yeah, you have to own it. And I'm talking about owning physical, emotional, spiritual health. You have to own it.

It's not anybody's responsibility to, make you do anything. And I think with leadership, no one will go higher than you go. No one will go farther than you go. No one will be higher level than you are. So you set the bar, you set the tone for your business. The leader is the person everybody looks at.

The leader sometimes stands alone. But the times the leader stands alone, that's the time the leader stands out, doing the right thing. doing the best thing all the time, setting the bar high with excellence, never accepting that it's okay. Striving for perfection, but realizing you're going to hit excellence on the way,

is probably where you want to be. But never accepting a C-level grade. We should always strive for A-plus every time. And the leader is the one that sets that tone for the entire organization. And it's not just about health. It's about financial stability as well. And we have to really master it, physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial. I know you've said health isn't luck. It's leadership.

So I appreciate you sharing that. You've also talked about when your entire life changed the moment, you realize that what people face isn't physical, that it's internal. And I have to say, that is my battle. Like, my mind is definitely my, I battle with that every day. And it's something I want to get better. but when did you realize that it was an internal, it was your mind that's actually bad against you? And how do you then rewire yourself to change? I think my biggest turning point in life, Dan, was when I discovered and was told that my mother committed suicide.

No kidding. It was a shock to my system. But I realized at the time that her mind went in a different direction, then was the best direction. and I realized that she believed a lie, that she wasn't valuable. And when I experienced those things, it changes you. And you have to begin to make the decision to whether you're valuable or not. Yes, we all have this battlefield of the mind, I suppose. But the mind is made up, not by the way you feel. And this is very important.

The feelings have to follow the actions. it doesn't matter how you feel. Your actions have to lead. The feelings match up, which creates predictable results and creates consistency. And that leads to a trustworthiness that you have with yourself.

Therefore, you don't become a perpetual liar to self, but you become a perpetual truth teller to self, meaning you can now trust your own word. Therefore, giving you a solid, stable mindset that is foundational going forward. And when you do that, there's really nothing you can achieve. And I think health is not just about that physical thing around us,

you know, and not about just what you eat. It's what you believe. It's the framework. I mean, do you think about sickness or do you think about wellness? Do you think about leadership or do you think about following everybody else? Do you think about being an example or do you get war down from not, you know, being able to stay out front?

So it is about mindset and that's some of the patterns that I've learned over time. So when you look at this whole biohacking space, do you see anything that you're like, wow, you know what that actually, what people are saying is great thing. Like should I be going into the sauna and should I be going into the cold plunge? I mean, it seems like there's a there's a whole lot of things, right, that we're just seeing from this. I'm using, quote unquote, biohacking. Is there something out there where you're like, wow, you know what? I would do that or and or is there something where you're like, I would never do that.

Yeah, everything should be focused on the mitochondria, in my opinion. And second behind that is resiliency. So let's start with the second one first. Resiliency would be something akin to using the cold plunge and the sauna. When you go to the extreme with cold or hot, you activate what's called heat shock proteins. And those things are the proteins that prevent cellular damage. and so when you have this ability to tolerate the cold plunge, the 40 to 50 degree water for, you know, three or four or five or six minutes, and you have the ability to tolerate the 140 degree, you know, sauna for, you know, 25, 30 minutes, you actually train your heat shot proteins that these extremities are something you could tolerate building resilience. And that resilience goes in all parts of life, of course.

The first one, though, is mitochondrial health. Realizing the mitochondria is the centerpiece of the energy production of our cells. With mitochondrial production, the cells will operate efficiently. Without monocondrial function, the cells die efficiently. So it's all about pushing the envelope with those, and there's a few things you can do with that. Obviously, I like NAD, nicotinideide, adenidin dinucleotide. I like using molecular hydrogen, whether I consume it or I breathe it. I think those are outstanding for that.

And frankly, I like using peptides. I think these are great. Those modalities right there as far as what we can do to help our bodies create resilience, create life, become more functionally healthy in a time are very, very important. And I, you know, again, go back to the three things I mentioned earlier. You got to eat right, move right, and think right. So when it comes to NAD, I've been looking at this NAD or NAD plus. I don't know if there's any difference there.

Is it more of a like a supplementation, like a pill supplementation or does it have to be injection? I'm just seeing so much of it now. I don't know like what's legit, what's not. There's a lot of push out there right now in the biohacking space in the longevity world. Here I get a lot of people selling stuff. Personally, I use it in a subcutaneous manner to get it inside of my system. So I inject it. You can also do an air muscular injection.

You can also do a slow push IV as well. I haven't had good success with oral forms yet. There's some people out there now today that are developing, you know, forms that are, you know, liposomal delivery forms. And I haven't tried those yet because I've been doing the real thing, you know, for so long. So I suppose there's other ways out there. But it's very good. If people don't know the effects of that, basically it's required. to recycle your body's chief antioxidant called glutathione.

If you can't recycle glutathione, oxidative stress runs amok in your system, which creates damage and inflammation inside the mitochondria. Wow, what about peptides? I'm fascinated with the amount of peptides there are. I've seen ones where you mix a bunch of different peptides and one does this or one does that. And I know a lot of friends who are doing it.

I mean, they look phenomenal. Like you're saying, I have a friend. She's in her 60s. And she looks better than when I met her when she was in her 50s. So is there something when it comes to the peptides that you're using or that you think has been really beneficial? Yeah, I use a lot of peptides. I'll just a few of them that I have and do use Tessamoralin,

which is more of a build muscle burn of fat, protect the brain, the heart. I like SS31, which is a mitochondrial membrane stabilizer. I like MOTS C, which is a mitochondrial biogenesis creator, helps us create more gasoline for our bodies. I like BPC 157 that prepares tissue, cells, joints. Some of the thymocin's, thymocin alpha-1, thymacin beta-4 can activate the immune system to make us younger in our recovery and our ability to defend themselves.

And I should say peptides are nothing more or less than amino acids that are structured together. So they're not unnatural. The safety profile is absolutely tremendous. And frankly, we should be using them more. Now, I know there's a lot of regulatory pushback on those things, but that'll probably continue as most things do. You know, some things that work well,

they are kind of attacked from time to time. But they are helpful. And we're very experienced in those things. And I'm a full believer in those. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Because I went to a place recently, had so many things and they're like, what do you want? I'm like, I have no idea what I want. Like, like, tell me what I should, what I should take. But I'm really, really interesting.

Because I was super into taking supplements and things since I was probably around 15, 16 years old, up and through my 30s. And then I kind of fell off a little bit. So I want to get back in because I just see, I just see incredible results happening for people. And I'm in my 40s now. So I'm like really starting to think these things through, you know, Dr. Mark, like when I get into my 50s, 60s, like I really want to remain healthy and, you know, like you know, it's, it's almost scary thinking like, wow, my life could be halfway done. But it's like, well, but if I'm in my 70s and 80s and I can't do anything, then I feel like my life is kind of over. So I'm glad that, you know, I'm glad that there's hope here for us. And thank you for sharing that. So when it comes to some of the

testimonials that you're seeing with reversing the aging process. Can you share those? Yeah, I've got some really cool ones, Dan. I think, you know, being in my 60s, I can relate to what you just said. So it's like, wow, man, you know, but ultimately, we're able to test the biological immune system of people. We're able to test biological organ systems of people now. And it's, it's really fascinating about what we can quantify and analyze right now through epigenetic testing and some other testing such as glycan testing. But I have seen people routinely have a 30-year younger immune system functionality. So if you're 60, I've seen people have an immune system functionality of 30.

And that's very, very routine with our therapies. And what does that mean? That means you're going to have more resiliency within the ability to defend oneself to, you know, viruses, bacteria, injuries, etc., just recover faster. And again, I had one guy who is in his 70s. He has a biological age immune system-wise of 29. So it's shocking what you can achieve. Now, again, is it going to advance? Of course it is.

But nonetheless, it does give people a lot of hope. Well, you look like you're 30. So I don't know. Oh, man, that's very nice of you. Thank you. I'm giving you that biological age. So I know you have an e-book. I know you have a lot of information that people want to read.

I'm sure there's so much to digest from this. I want to say it's probably maybe it's my social media feed, but it's like all that I'm seeing is all about longevity, biohacking, things that we can do, which I think is great. You know, I think it's great that we as a society seem to be moving towards something as positive as this. and I hope that we all have, you know, connection with one another, the peace that you mentioned, that we're all at peace. But I learned a lot today.

So if you want to get, if you want to find out more information, they want to get the ebook, how can they do so? Go to Dr. Mark Sherwood.com. You can scroll down the page. And there's a nice, cool ebook that my wife, Dr. Michelle and I wrote. It's called Hope Health and Freedom. And it's, we'd love you to have it. It's about 20-some-odd pages.

It's got everything I talked about and some more stuff in there that you'll, you'll, you'll, you want to have put that in practice put in your life and your life will be better man i could tell you're just so positive and i think that's like a breath of fresh air nowadays but uh i hope everyone gets the ebook it's free like why would you not get this you know but dr mark sherwood thank you so much for joining us today and sharing all your wisdom and the impact that you're going to have on people's lives is you know this is why i think we all show up every day is we want to make sure that not only we're having a great life but that others around us are so thank you for joining us on Founders Story.

Dan, thanks for having me. It's been an honor to be with you.