The Dr. Hyman Show - How To Get Your Health Back On Track

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

View the Show Notes For This Episode And Links To Full Length Episodes Featured In This Compilation Get Free Weekly Health Tips from Dr. Hyman Sign Up for Dr. Hyman’s Weekly Longevity Journal Get Ad-free Episodes & Dr. Hyman+ Audio Exclusives We all get off track sometimes. Life gets busy, we indulge a little too much during the holidays, or we ignore the messages our body is sending us to sleep more and eat better. This can leave us feeling super sluggish, run-down, or unable to think clearly. This is what I call FLC syndrome? It’s when you feel like crap!  In today’s episode, we feature four segments from The Doctor’s Farmacy Health Bites series about hitting the reset button on our diet and lifestyle choices and establishing new behaviors for our overall wellbeing. This episode is brought to you by Rupa University, LMNT, Thrive Market, and AG1. Rupa University is hosting FREE classes and bootcamps for healthcare providers who want to learn more about Functional Medicine testing. Sign up at RupaUniversity.com. LMNT is giving listeners a FREE eight-count sample pack of their vital electrolyte drink mix with any purchase. Just visit DrinkLMNT.com/Hyman today. Head over to ThriveMarket.com/Hyman today to receive 30% off your first order and a free gift up to $60. Get your daily serving of vitamins, minerals, adaptogens, and more with AG1. Head to DrinkAG1.com/Hyman and get 10 FREE travel packs + a FREE Welcome Kit with your first order. Connect with Dr. Mark Hyman on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

Coming up on this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. It's such an essential part of longevity and of health in general and just of enjoying life. It's not about doing it now for some result later. It makes you feel better now. We live in such an exciting time. We're actively entering a healthcare revolution where consumers want to learn about their body. There are tens of millions of wellness enthusiasts who want to learn about their hormones or gut health, advanced lipids, and more. But as a healthcare practitioner, how do you make sure that when a patient walks into your office and says, hey, I really want a Dutch Complete or a GI map, that you have the right answers and the tools? Well, Rupa University is the number one educational institute where over 20,000 practitioners a year

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Your body will be glad you did. And right now, Element is offering my listeners a free sample pack with any purchase. That's eight single serving packets free with any Element order. This is a great way to try all eight flavors and share Element with a friend. Get yours at drinklmnt.com forward slash hyman today. And now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hi, this is Lauren Fee and one of the episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hi, this is Lauren Feehan, one of the producers of The Doctor's Pharmacy podcast. For most of us, it can be hard to consistently maintain our daily health practices. We all fall off track from time to time, but the truth is most of us are only a few days

away from feeling well and regaining control over our bodies. In today's episode, we feature four segments from The Doctor's Pharmacy Health Bite series about hitting the reset button on our diet and lifestyle choices and establishing new behaviors for our overall well-being. Dr. Hyman talks about how to activate your body's healing and reparative systems with this 10-day detox diet. He walks us through the many different ways to say sugar, which types are okay from time to time, and what sugars we should absolutely stay away from.

He discusses how exercise influences longevity and how you can incorporate more movement into your life without having to drag yourself to the gym. And finally, Dr. Hyman shares the number one key to our longevity. Let's jump in. I do this personally regularly. I do it at least two or three times a year, four times a year to really reset my system to kind of get my body back on track to get rid of all the bad stuff putting all the good stuff i want to walk you through how to do this i'm going to teach you how to hit the reset button reboot your system and to optimize your biology to help your gut help your detox system to help your immune system help reset your nervous system and help reset your nervous system. And it's powerful. So if you want to really see how your body can feel and get rid of what we call FLC syndrome,

I would do this. Most people are like the frog that's in cold water where you turn the heat up slowly and it starts to boil to death. We just kind of get used to it and think it's normal. These symptoms are not normal. So what are the principles, what are the foundational pillars of the 10-Day B-Hash program? And what can you do? Now, basically anybody can do this. People go, I want to do this with a junior high school once. And the teachers are like, well, we might have to get permission from the parents to see if it's safe. You know, maybe they don't want their children doing this. I'm like, what, is it safe to eat fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and protein and cut out sugar and

starch and processed food? I mean, they should get a note that it's permission to eat the junk food that they have in school. It's the opposite. So anyway, yes, it's very safe. Anybody can do this. And some people, by the way, you know, need more of certain things or other things. But basically, this is a very universal approach to resetting your system. So what are the first principle, the first pillar? It's eat real food, real whole food. Understand that food is medicine. It's not just energy or calories.

It's truly medicine. It's information. It's instructions, it's code that literally programs your biology with every bite. It regulates your gene expression, your hormones, your brain chemistry, your immune system, your microbiome. Pretty much everything is controlled by food. And if you're eating the wrong food, you're sending all the wrong messages.

If you eat the right food, you're sending all the right messages. So, this is a 10-day detox. You're basically taking out the bad stuff and putting in the good stuff. You're taking all the foods that cause inflammation, that are toxic to your system, that are inflammatory, that mess with your gut, and you're putting in foods that actually help reset your system. And it's pretty much a very simple approach.

It's lots of veggies, so mostly veggies of good fats lots of fiber lots of good clean protein and what does that look like it's tons of non-starchy veggies like broccoli any kind of veggie you think of it's not basically a potato um no sometimes sweet potatoes are okay for people uh avocados good fats avoc oil, nuts and seeds, lots of good protein, grass-fed, organic, regenerative meats, fish, chicken. Sometimes, you know, for vegetarians or vegans, we can use plant-based proteins like tempeh or non-GMO organic soy, tofu. Those are the most dense sources of protein, but you do need protein as you detoxify. So for the 10 days you're gonna be getting rid

of all the other junk, right? Processed food, other carbs, sugar, dairy, coffee, gluten, alcohol, pretty much actually all grains and beans. And the reason we get rid of grains and beans, it's not that they're necessarily all bad, is a lot of people have issues. A lot of people're necessarily all bad, is a lot of people have issues. A lot of people have issues with their gut, a lot of people have issues with inflammation,

a lot of people have issues with gluten, a lot of people have issues with insulin resistance and prediabetes and obesity and they can be problematic for these people. So basically get off all the bad stuff. Now it's not calorie counting, you can eat as much as you want. We're not like crazy, how much macronutrients and percent of this and percent of that no it's just pick the right foods and we focus on what to eat you don't have to focus on how much to eat right so um when you look at your plate it should basically look like this three quarters of it should be non-starchy veggies and i usually often will put two or three veggies in my dinner i I'll make mushrooms. I'll have a, you know, broccoli.

I'll make some, maybe a salad. So I'll have lots of veggies. And I'll have a portion of protein that's essentially the size of my palm. Four to six ounces, usually 30 to 40 grams of protein. Now, that's a good amount of protein, but you don't need that much if you're having animal protein. It should be very gently raised. It should be pasture-raised chicken, wild- raised chicken wild caught fish should be low mercury obviously all that and we'll put all the show notes lots of good fats with dinner like avocados nuts and seeds

olive oil in your veggies you can even use for example ghee which is a kind of a butter but it actually has the inflammatory proteins remove casein and whey. So basically, it has just the fat. It's called clarified butter. Very common. You can get my book, 10 Day Detox Diet. You can get the 10 Day Detox Diet Cookbook, whatever you want. I'll put all the show notes and links together. A second pillar, aside from what you're eating, the food is really important. And by the needy approaching the morning, you need to make sure you get rid of sugar and starch in the morning, super important.

And then people start their diet, their day with carbs, which is the worst thing you can do. Sugar sweetened coffees, teas, cereals, muffins, bagels, breads, dinos. Second pillar are your daily habits. Essentially, it involves a pattern of eating and living that puts your body back in rhythm and helps you reset your nervous system. And there's two really important habits as part

of the 10-day detox. One is when you eat and also when you sleep. So let's talk about when you eat. Now, when you eat might be as important as what you eat. So many of us don't eat in the right pattern. We tend to, you know, eat all day long. We tend to snack. We tend to eat before bed. We snack late at night. It's kind of bad. So basically when you eat is very important. Research shows that doing that can really be bad for your health if you eat at night. So the first is make sure you give yourself at least 12 to 14 hours between dinner and breakfast. So dinner at 6, breakfast at 8, that's a 14-hour fast, okay? If you eat at 6 and then you keep snacking all night, that doesn't count, right? And the most simple form of what we call time-restricted eating,

and it's basically giving our body a rest and getting the body to reset. And I wrote a lot about this in my book, The Young Forever. But basically, there's a whole process at night that happens called autophagy and cleanup and repair. You want to give your body the ability to do that. The next is food. Now, you can do a breakfast if you're eating, you know, for example, dinner at six and breakfast at eight or so.

That's a 14-hour fast. Really important to have protein in the morning are not carbs and sugar also not eating three hours before bed is really important so most people eat and snack after dinner don't do that have at least three hours the time you eat and you go to sleep that way you will lose weight your body can repair and heal instead of trying to digest and store the food here's the full food list um you can you know we we're gonna have it in the show notes. You can take it with you to the store. It's in the book, the 10 Day Detox.

It's in the 10 Day Detox Cookbook. But essentially, here's what you should eat and what you should actually get rid of. What you should eat is protein. You need the right protein, right? So grass-fed or regeneratively raised meats is great. You can have pasture-raised lamb, beef, bison, venison, elk, grass-fed beef, pasture-raised chicken,

turkey, duck, all that's fine. What you should avoid is conventionally-raised chicken and poultry and eggs and so forth. And by the way, you can also have eggs if they're pasture-raised eggs. Meat, get rid of all processed meats, deli meats, all conventionally-raised feedlot meats, get rid of all that meats deli meats all conventionally raised feedlot meats get rid of all that stuff um but about fish and seafood lots of small fish are good big fish are bad right

big fish like swordfish tuna chilean sea bass halibut most farm-based fish are pretty bad for you what you should be consuming are things like the i call the smash fish a small wild salmon sardines anchovies herring a mackerel you can have black cod shrimp scallops trout all those are fine eggs as i said uh pastries eggs are fine non-organic regular eggs are not fine what about nuts and seeds very important uh almonds brazil nuts cashew nuts hazelnuts macadamia, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios, walnuts, all that's great. You can even have cacao nibs, chocolate, not actually chocolate, but that's where chocolate comes from. Seeds are great, chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, all great. Nut butters, also great.

So unsweetened nut butters, so almond, cashew, pecan, macadamia. I love macadamia. Walnut, oh, that's great. You can also eat beans if you're a vegan and you want to do this. You can use GMO-free or non-GMO tofu or tempeh as your protein. What you should avoid are nuts that are with sugar, that are cooked in oils, that are with basically candied stuff. A lot of nut butters have sugar, hydrogenated fats.

Peanut butter, peanuts can be okay, but I would say mostly avoid peanuts because they have aflatoxin in them. They often are rancid, and so you want to be careful with that. What about oils and fats? Well, the ones you want to be careful with that what about oils and fats well the ones you want to use are organic avocado oil you can use organic coconut oil for cooking grass fed ghee if you want to use tallow lard duck fat chicken fat that's okay as long as they're they're um pasteurized or regenerative raised salads. And you can use different kinds of oils like almond oil, flax oil,

hemp oil, macadamia oil, extra virgin olive oil. Um, and you can cook with olive oil, but only like tomato sauces and things like that. Things that are not high heat, sesame oil,

tahini is great as well. Great fat, uh, sesame seed kind of paste while an oil, other flavorful oils are not named. Well, but you want to avoid the traditional oils, all the seed oils,

like canola oil, partially hydrogenated oils, margarine, peanut oil, soybean oil, other flavorful oils are not named oils, but you want to avoid the traditional oils, all the seed oils like canola oil, partially hydrogenated oils, margarine, peanut oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, trans fats, vegetable oil, vegetable shortening, all that stuff's bad. What about veggies? What should you eat? Well, you want to stick with lots of non-starchy veggies, or artichokes, organic if you can.

I use the Dirty Dozen Guide from the Environmental Working Group, EWG.org, tell you which are the clean 15, meaning you can eat them when they're not organic, or the Dirty Dozen, which you should definitely not eat if they're not organic. But I love asparagus, artichokes, avocado, bean sprouts, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, eggplant,

garlic, ginger, hearts of palm, kohlrabi, leafy greens, mushrooms of all kinds, onions, peppers, radicchio, radish, rutabagas, all that kind of stuff. Seaweed is great. Lots of minerals, shallots, summer squash, tomatoes, turnips, zucchini. The list goes on. We have it all in there. You can have some things like sweet potatoes. I like the Japanese purple sweet potatoes, winter squash, carrots, pumpkin.

All that's fine. I mean, carrots are fine because unless you're doing carrot juice, that's a problem. But basically try to limit it to like one serving, which is like half a cup a day. What you should be avoiding is corn and white potatoes, mostly. A little, you know, some of the little ingling potatoes or the Peruvian potatoes, purple potatoes can be fine. What about dairy? You can eat pasture-raised butter or ghee but i encourage you to get up all dairy including sheep and goat which are mostly fine for people but i encourage you to get all other dairy and if you're having um i encourage you to have make sure it's grass grass fed or originally raised and what about beans well uh you can have green beans you can have green beans, you can have green peas, you can have non-GMO or organic soy, just tofu or tempeh.

You can have snap beans, you can have snow peas, but otherwise, definitely no beans. What about grains? No grains at all. So even healthy grains, quinoa, buckwheat, things like that, I'm pretty good at off all of that. Why? Because it just shuts down the insulin response, helps people lose weight, reduce inflammation. Not that these are necessarily all bad, but eventually you can add them back. But basically get rid of all the other, all grains.

Wheat, barley, rye, rice, amaranth, millet, oats, everything. Get rid of it. Fruit. Fruit can be okay, but small amounts of non-high glycemic fruits. So organic blackberries, blueberries, cranberries, kiwi, lemons, limes, raspberries, all that's fine. Not too much, right? You know what I mean? Like, you know, two pounds of blueberries, but you can have a cup, half a cup a day.

You want to get rid of all the other fruit, all the high glycemic fruit like bananas, pineapple, melons, cherries, grapes is the worst. Even foods that you think, you know, maybe good for you are actually good for you, right? Whether it's, you know, peaches, pears, nectarines, cherries, for example, but you don't want to eat them while you're on the 10-day detox. You want to really shut down the blood sugar insulin response what about sugar sweeteners sorry you can sometimes have a little monk fruit or stevia you having the shake we have but generally tend to avoid all that stuff also just get of all the other artificial sweeteners on the sugar all that stuff if you have to ask the the answer's no, basically. Then what should you be drinking? Well, lots of water, herbal tea, green tea,

all this kind of caffeine, that's okay. A little green tea is fine. You can help you get off coffee. Sparkling water, mineral water, all that's fine. What you should avoid? Alcohol, coffee, bottled water, a piece of plastic, soda, obviously sugary beverages. Basically, that's the program. So if you eat basically that's the program so if you eat that

way for 10 days if you use those simple habits your body is going to totally transform and you're going to see just how food is impacting your health which is something most people don't have a clue about and that's why i love this so much now after program, it's really important if you do it for 10 days or 21 days or 10 weeks or 10 months, you have to be smart about getting off it or you can get into big trouble. Because when you go off of foods that are inflammatory, foods that are allergic to, and then you reintroduce them, you can get a lot worse symptoms. So let's say you had migraines before and then they're gone. Wow, you're going to get a doo get a lot worse symptoms. So let's say you had migraines before and then they're gone. Wow, you're going to get a doozy of a migraine.

Or let's say you had gut issues before, you're going to get a real problem. Or let's say you had sinus congestion from eating dairy and then you eat it again, you might get a sinus infection. So you really have to be smart. So if you're feeling great and you want to continue and you, let's say, have a lot of weight to lose, let's say you have an autoimmune disease, let's say you just want to, you're feeling great, you want to continue, no problem, you continue it, continue to do it. You can do it for for another 10 days you can do it for another 10 months it's fine it's totally safe to eat and it's pretty much how i eat most of the time with occasion grains and

means um also prioritize sleep and obviously your fasting window not eating before bed and then eventually people can transition slowly to the vegan diet, which incorporates a lot of the principles of the 10-Day Detox diet, but gets you more flexibility in your diet. You can add some gluten-free grains. You can have some grass-fed dairy or sheep or goat. Maybe you want to do it most of the time, but try to occasionally have a glass of wine or dessert occasionally. All that's fine. Remember, when you're adding things back, you want to do it smartly. In the 10-Day Detox book, we'll put it in the show notes, you have to add one thing at a time.

So if you're adding back gluten, just do that for three days. Don't have a pizza, which has gluten and dairy, right? Because you won't know what's affecting if you feel bad. You want to know. So give yourself three days and then pick the next food. So start with gluten and dairy, then grains, other grains and whatever. You'll see slowly add foods back and you'll see how you feel. And that's your best barometer. The smartest doctor in the room is your own body. And that's what you want to focus on. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. Now, sometimes when I'm traveling, I need snacks. I don't always snack, but I like to have healthy snacks available. But if I'm traveling, it often means I'm tempted to reach out for whatever's

quick and available rather than what's healthy and good for me. But thankfully, Thrive Market has made it easy for me to order my favorite snacks online to travel with in my emergency food pack. And I literally have a day's worth of rations in my backpack at all times, so I don't get in a food emergency. The convenience of getting my food quickly shipped to my doorstep is a huge time saver and helps keep me eating the right kinds of food that help me meet my health goals. Some of my favorite snacks from Thrive Market include Chomps free-range turkey sticks, Hue mint chocolate snacking gems, Gimme organic olive oil seaweed snacks, and their private label pitted olives, which are green olives. They're yummy. And they even have a price match guarantee, so you know you're getting the best prices on your

favorite brands. You can join Thrive Market with my exclusive offer and get 30% off your first order plus a free $60 gift. Head over to thrivemarket.com forward slash hyman today. Plus orders over $49 are shipped free and delivered with carbon neutral shipping from their zero waste warehouses. That's thrivemarket.com forward slash hyman. No matter your genetics or lifestyle choices, as humans, we all share the same basic needs like adequate nutrition, for example. But with the industrialization of agriculture and toxins in our environment, it's getting harder and harder to get your body the nutrients it needs through food alone. And that's where AG1 comes in. AG1 is a foundational nutritional supplement that supports your body's universal needs like gut optimization, stress

management, and immune support. Since 2010, AG1 has led the future of foundational nutrition, continuously refining their formula to create a smarter, better way to elevate your baseline health. I drink AG1 every morning and I consistently feel more energetic throughout the day. I even recommend it to all my friends and family because of the results I've seen personally. If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1. Try AG1 and get 10 free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase. Go to drinkag1.com forward slash Hyman. That's drinkag1, number one, dot com forward slash Hyman. Check it out. Now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy.

I wrote a book called The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet, which is about sugar addiction, and it takes you through in 10 days how to reset your whole nervous system. And not only will you not crave sugar anymore, but your average person lost about seven or eight pounds in a week. In 10 days, their blood sugar dropped 10, 20 points. Their blood pressure dropped 10, 20 points. They reduced all symptoms from all diseases by about 70%. So if you have migraines, digestive issues, sleep problems, joint pain, whatever it was, everything dropped 70% by getting your system healthy. So that's important to remember. It's quick. You

don't have to wait forever to see the results. So we had a woman in our Cleveland Clinic program called Functioning for Life. Within three days of joining the program, this woman was on insulin for 10 years, was severely overweight. In three days, she was off her insulin by changing her diet. In three months, she reversed her diabetes completely and her heart failure and everything else. Pretty impressive.

Next thing you should know about sugar is there's many ways to say sugar. To quote Shakespeare, you know, a rose is but a rose by any other name. The other thing you should know about sugar is there's many ways to say sugar to quote shakespeare you know a rose is but a rose by any other name uh the other uh thing you should know is that you know we have many names for sugar uh you know in in uh i think in you know the the inuit uh from from the you know the arctic uh say they have a hundred words for snow. And we have so many ways of saying sugar and often we miss it on the label because it's kind of hidden. So you know what food companies will do? They'll literally put four or five different kinds of sugar in some product because

you're forced to list the ingredients in order of the amount on the label. So basically, if they put five different kinds of sugar, they can list like a healthier ingredient first, like flour or something, and not actually put sugar as the main ingredient. So it's really, really sneaky what they do. The other thing you should be aware of is there's a lot of words that you might see, like agave, cane sugar, corn, anything, rice, even brown rice syrup, any kind of evaporated cane juice.

What the heck is that? That's called sugar. Even fruit. You might see fruit concentrate or fruit juice. I mean, that's just basically sugar. Anything with os in the end, like fructose, dextrose, maltose, triolose, sucrose, these are all sugar. Anything with malt in it, like malt syrup, flow malt, maltodextrin, also sugar. Anything with iso, like isoglucose, isomaltose. Basically, there's a million names for sugar. Syrup, right? Maple syrup, sorghum syrup, corn syrup, pancake syrup, which is usually per fructose, molasses,

anything with the word sugar in it, date sugar, coconut sugar, brown sugar, beet sugar, confectioner sugar. It's all sugar. So sugar, sugar, sugar. Now, is high fructose corn syrup a little worse? Yes. But in the end, it's all bad. Next thing you need to know is that artificial sweeteners are also not so great for you. So here's a class example of what happens when you try to outsmart Mother Nature. Rather than accepting that, you know, we really shouldn't be eating a lot of sugar or we shouldn't be having a lot of artificial sweeteners, and rather than accept the fact that we just should try to eat less and, you know, not have so much sugar, we kind of want the hack, right?

We want the magic loophole to avoid doing what's really good for us. We tried this with fat, right? Oh, you know, butter is bad and saturated fat is bad. So let's have margarine. Margarine. I grew up on Fleischmann's margarine. But it turns out that trans fats are not only not good for you, they're very bad for you. And they've killed hundreds of thousands of people.

And they cause heart disease, diabetes. And they're really unsafe. And the government finally, after 50 years and a lawsuit, finally caved and said, oh, gee, it's not safe anymore. They called it a grass, generally recognized as safe. They removed the grass label. The problem is it's still in the marketplace because they're FDAs in cahoots with the food industry. And essentially, they gave them a lot of loopholes

and ways to kind of leave it in there. So I go to the store regularly and I kind of hunt for products. Now, a lot of companies have taken it out, but what they're replacing with may not be any better, right? So I think we have to be very careful, like palm shortening, which can be from, you know, palm trees, but they're often, you know, kind of harvested in ways that destroy rainforests and destroy habitats of orangutans. I mean, it's really bad. So also, there are also five things that have received FDA approval. There are sweeteners, saccharin, sweet and low, asulfatame, which is sun and or sweet one, and aspartame, nutrasweet, equal, and others, sucralose, which is Splenda and neotame.

So these are all things you should avoid. They're really bad for you. Don't have them. People who drink diet drinks every day in a study about heart disease had a greater risk of diabetes and metabolic syndrome. They are carcinogenic in animal studies. They destroy your gut microbiome. I mean, they're really bad for the good bugs in your gut, and they cause more glucose intolerance, diabetes. Certain compounds are excitotoxins, like damaged neurons, like the aspartame in the brain have neurologic issues. So not so good. And you go, well, what about sugar alcohols? Are those not bad?

Because you don't absorb them. Well, sugar alcohols sound great, but they're kind of these weird, strange names. They're derived from plants, fruit and vegetables sometimes. And they're in everything from candy to bubble gum to cough drops to chewable vitamins to smoothies to even, quote, health foods often have these. Now, they're kind of less sweet than traditional artificial sweeteners. They do have calories, but we don't absorb them because they're too big. So anything with the word all on it, like mannitol, maltitol, sorbitol, xylitol, erythritol, these are things you don't want to eat. When you do, they tend to cause a lot of gut issues. They cause the bugs in your gut. They love these. They just munch them down and they'll create bloating. I mean, I remember once when

these first came out like 25 years ago or something, this patient of mine gave me this chocolate bar. Look, Dr. Hyman, here's a chocolate bar, and there's no sugar, and it's amazing, and it tastes good. And I'm like, great. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to eat it. So I was tired that day, I think, and I just scarfed the whole thing down in the afternoon. I was hungry. I was seeing patients. And my stomach blew up like a balloon. Like I literally, my gut bacteria did not like it. So I would not really consume these at all.

They can cause diarrhea, bloating, gas, all kinds of digestive issues. They mess with your gut flora. So there's some that are a little bit better, like erythritol. But still, be very, very careful with these. Don't think you have a free pass. And it can ferment, it can cause all kinds of issues. So don't take it, especially if you have gut issues. Now, some natural sweeteners are a little bit better than others. So I'm not, I mean, listen, we all like sweet stuff, but kind of my view is if you're going to have something sweet, just have it. You have like a large,

sort of sugary kind of coffee drink in the morning. That can have more sugar than a soda. That can have like eight or nine teaspoons of sugar or more in that. Now, you wouldn't put eight or nine teaspoons of sugar in your coffee. If you take like a teaspoon of sugar and you put in your coffee, that's probably a lot better than trying to do all these other things and being really aware. So I would say, you know, not more than five teaspoons a day, but that can be even too much for some of us. Most adults consume 22 teaspoons a day, kids about 34 teaspoons. Artificial sweeteners, as we said, not good. Sugar alcohols, not good. So, Dr. Hyman, like you're killing me. What am I going to do? I mean, well, first of all, if you stay healthy, right, if you're metabolically tuned up, right, if you're

metabolic engine and your muscles and your mitochondria and your weight and you don't have a lot of organ and belly fat and you want to have a little sugar and you exercise regularly, okay, it's not going to kill you, right? But if you are not metabolically tuned up, which by the way is 93.2% of Americans are not in good metabolic health, which is frightening to me. And how you tell is check your insulin. If your insulin is less than five, you're probably okay. If it's less than two, you're good.

But if your insulin is high, you know, you're kind of in trouble and you're not going to have a lot of tolerance and what I call metabolic degrees of freedom. We get more metabolic degrees of freedom by being healthier. We have more resilience, metabolic resilience. But most of us are metabolically just a train wreck. So be careful. But let's say you want to have a little something. I mean, I'm not against having a little maple syrup, a little honey, a little, you know, actual sugar sometimes.

But I would not use this kind of hacks like agave or corn syrup or brown rice syrup. They're just not healthy for you and they're going to be mostly fructose and not a good thing. Dates sugar can be okay. They might have antioxidants. Molasses actually has iron and things. That could be okay a little bit. You can use dates just as a sweetener, a little maple syrup, a little raw honey. Okay, fine. But it's not the sugar that you add to your food that's the problem. It's the sugar that's added by corporations that's the problem. If you have 120 ounce soda, that's 16 teaspoons of sugar. You wouldn't put that in your coffee, all right? For non-caloric sweeteners, Stevia can be okay. But I would say the whole

plant Stevia, not Rebicide A, which is made by, uh, Cargill and Pepsi and Coca-Cola. So that should tell you something about it. Also, um, there's other kinds of, uh, uh, sweeteners that you can use, which is like a monk fruit sweetener, which is, I think my favorite. Uh, it's, it's, it's generally, um, well tolerated. It's, it's tasty. I don't particularly like stevia because I think it causes problems,

but any sweetener could be this brain stimulant. So be careful. Look for a product with the Rainforest Alliance certified seal to make sure your stevia is grown in ways that are sustainable. If you want honey, you can check out the Ethical Consumer Guide. We'll provide the link in the show notes. And sweeteners, what are things we can include? Well, juice, pureed fruit juice, molasses, organic palm sugar, date sugar, coconut sugar. It's got a little lower glycemic index. Monk fruit sweetener, which is a non-caloric sweetener. Organic maple syrup, honey, as I mentioned. Stevia and monk fruit are typically the ones I would recommend, but sparingly. And erythritol, some people can tolerate it, but don't have that much. And what should we avoid? Well, we shouldn't be eating mounds of sugar of any kind, but artificial sweeteners, like big no-no,

liquid sugar calories. If you want to do one thing for your health besides the high fructose corn syrup, it's getting rid of sugary beverages. Liquid sugar calories are the worst because of how they affect your metabolism. High fructose corn syrup, don't eat that. Anything with the word syrup in the name, except maple syrup. Any things that are all natural, you know, agave is natural, sugar cane is natural, evaporated cane juice is natural, brown rice soup is natural. That means it's good for you. So arsenic, that's natural.

Packaged foods that have added sugar, just stay away from that stuff. In order to make food taste good that's industrial food, they have to add sugar or salt or fat. And it's surprising. There's more sugar in a serving of prego tomato sauce than there are in two Oreo cookies, right? So salad dressings, granola, cereals, ketchup, soups, candy, yogurt. I mean, I was surprised. I'm Jewish, and we had Passover, and I didn't even look at the label. I just bought a jar of gefilte fish that my mother used to buy.

And I'm like, this is kind of sweet. And I kind of looked at the label. It was like full of sugar. And I'm like, why do they put sugar in fish? So it's pretty much everything. And obviously, refined sugars of all kinds, brown sugar, aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, sulfatame, just pass on those things. And there are a lot of ways to enjoy sweetness. Also a little hack, use a continuous glucose

monitor from levels. That'll help you find out what things are affecting you and what are not. You can also eat protein and fat before you eat something sweet or carby. For example, if you drink a glass of wine or alcohol on an empty stomach, you get a quick buzz, right? But if you basically have it after a meal or in the middle of the meal, you don't get that instant buzz. Why? Because of the quick absorption. Same thing with sugar. We may not get, you know, a buzz, but our bodies don't get the buzz if we eat protein and fat before. Combined with diet, exercise is really the most powerful tool for staying healthy and extending your life. My mom used to say whenever she had the urge to exercise,

she would lie down until it went away, which I think she got from any young man or some comedian. But she followed that advice, unfortunately, and she didn't exercise, despite my hounding her. Of course, parents never listen to their kids. I mean, kids, whatever, something like that. Parents never listen to their kids. And she ended up being pretty frail and disabled the last decade of her life and not too functioning. So when you start thinking about how to take this approach of incorporating movement and exercise in your life, you can get really amazing benefits.

I'm just going to kind of go through them because they're just so profound. It actually unlocks the body's longevity switches, the regenerative and reparative systems that are built into our biology. It activates all the longevity switches that I talk about in the book, particularly the four that have to do with nutrient sensing pathways that are sort of meta to everything else. Insulin signaling, mTOR, which is really important in terms of autophagy and cleaning up your cells, sirtuins, which are important in DNA repair, and also MPK, which helps regulate blood sugar, insulin sensitivity, inflammation, and many other

things. So it's pretty, pretty darn exciting. It also activates the body's antioxidant systems. It improves your cognitive function and your mood. It supports, I mean, they found that just walking helps prevent dementia, which is pretty cool. It supports your microbiome. It reduces inflammation. It helps you produce more mitochondria and help them work better and be more efficient and have better function because mitochondria is where you make energy. And as you get older, you lose energy. So you want to boost that. It also keeps you strong and functional. You know, I just came back from skiing out in Switzerland and I had a really great time. It was a privilege to be able to go there. And I was amazed, like I was just skiing along like I was when I was 30 or 40. And I was probably going a little too fast.

But, you know, I like to do that. And, you know, I felt strong and able to do it. And it was keeping up with people half my age. So I think the body has the capacity at an age to do this. It also makes you happier and improves your mood and even improves your sex life, believe it or not. So what does the research say? Let's talk about some of the nitty gritty about how it works. If you really, you know, maybe you want to know about the science, maybe that'll motivate you.

It probably doesn't motivate most people, but it kind of gets me all excited. I kind of like that. I'm a little weird. But it really, the research is just, it's just unbelievable about exercise. When I started to dig into, you know, obviously you can look at exercise in anything and search on PubMed and learn about it. But I started to look at exercise and longevity and what it does. So we covered a little bit of this, but I want to sort of expand on it. It improves your telomeres, which are little caps at the end of your chromosomes that start to shorten as you get older and shorten your life. It actually lengthens your telomeres by exercising.

It protects your telomeres. It optimizes all these longevity switches like AMPK, which regulates blood sugar. People say, oh, I'm going to take metformin for longevity. Well, exercise is way better than metformin for regulating AMPK. It also activates sirtuins, which help DNA repair, reduce inflammation, and improve your blood sugar control, which are really important. It also improves your cardiovascular and heart health. We all know it reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes and improves your brain function and cognitive function. It also helps certain types of cancer. As I said, you know, we, we see the, the regulation

of our, our biology through exercise being meted through all these mechanisms have to do with immunity and cancer prevention. So it's super great. And of course, it extends your healthspan and your lifespan. I remember being in Sardinia, and I mentioned this guy, I think before, but his name is Pietro. He was 95 years old. And he was like a shepherd. And he was just running up and down the mountains all day, five miles a day in this really rugged terrain. And he was bolt upright, booming voice, clear eyes, strong and mentally sharp. And I was like, wow, this guy's 95 years old you know most people 95 in america barely can kind of walk across the street or get from their bedroom to the bathroom and here he is you know running up the mountain so we have the ability

to do that and he exercised every day as a shepherd not quote exercise but he just that was his life uh it also it's incredible for diabetes for blood sugar control i mean just walking after dinner is a great way to keep your blood sugar down, helps you become more insulin sensitive. And very importantly, it helps you build muscle mass and function. Because as you get older, you lose muscle. It's called sarcopenia. And that leads to all these hormonal and metabolic changes that accelerate aging and lower testosterone,

high cortisol, the stress hormone, higher blood sugar, worsening cholesterol. I mean, just lower growth hormone and increased cortisol. Like I said, it's really bad news. So building muscle is really important and that's clearly only done by exercise. So hopefully listening to all this, you realize you can't afford not to move. My basically philosophy is if you don't move, you won't. Literally, you'll be dead. So how can you actually incorporate more movement? What can you do without having to drag yourself to the gym? Now, I go to the gym sometimes, but I rather play. And I think there's a lot of options. And you can just do simple things. Like start with simple things, even five minutes a day. And if you don't have five minutes a day to do something, there's something wrong with your life.

So you better look at that. So, you know, for example, I figured out I couldn't do 10 push-ups when I was 50. So I started, I'm going to do push-ups. So I take a shower most days. So I basically would wait for the shower to heat up because I live in a barn and it's really tall and it takes a while for the hot water to get upstairs. And I would do push-ups. And I went from being able to not be able to do 10 to be able to do almost 100 push-ups without stopping. So we can train our bodies and it's really simple. Or maybe while your coffee's

brewing, maybe do some stretching and yoga. Walk or bike instead of driving. In many, many countries, they do this. I just met this guy who was a CEO of a big company, and he lived in Switzerland. And he, I mean, he runs a $6 billion company. And he rides his bike straight up the hill, or the mountains, to work 2,000 feet elevation every day. And he's in incredible shape.

He's 53 years old and his VO2 max, which is a measure of fitness, is that of a elite athlete and someone who's like half his age. So it's very impressive. You don't have to sort of do something like that, but just parking further away in the parking lot, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, the escalator, just simple things to start moving. Also, try a standing desk or a stability ball. If you're at a desk, you sit on a ball. It kind of helps you move and move your body and increase your core strength. I have a friend, Mike Roizen, who was at Cleveland Clinic with me,

and he used to have a treadmill desk. He was on calls and working and working on his computer and walking all day long, which is impressive. Make your leisure time active time. So if you're watching TV or movie, maybe put a stationary bike in your house. I remember I worked at Idaho as a family doc, and there was this patient that came in, and she lost like 100 pounds. I'm like, what happened to you? And she's like, well, I decided instead of sitting in front of the TV and eating all day,

I would get a stationary bike and just ride the bike all day instead of eating. She did, and she lost 100 pounds. So pretty impressive. Maybe also you can listen to podcasts and an audio book or do something like that when you're exercising or taking a walk. It just makes it more fun and motivating. And also, do it with somebody else. As my friend Rick Warren said, everybody needs a buddy. So it's important that if you maybe are having some trouble getting out there and doing stuff,

find somebody else to do it with. It's much more fun for me to play tennis with somebody else or play basketball or go on a bike with somebody else than do it by myself. So I try to do it with friends, and it's way more fun. Maybe pickleball is the latest craze. Join a pickleball league and go outside and just do fun stuff. So these are just a few examples of how to incorporate movement and exercise in your life and simple natural ways to do it. And it doesn't matter what you do. It just matters that you do it. So according to the science, and particularly the science of longevity that I talk about in my book, Young Forever,

go get a copy, please. It's really amazing. I like it a lot. It's one of my favorite books I've ever written. Maybe the favorite because I think I'm obviously more interested in this because I'm getting older. It's such an essential part of longevity and of health in general and just of enjoying life. It's not about doing it now for some result later. It makes you feel better now. And we really can't afford not to exercise. So start where you are, build up slowly. Even 10 minutes a day of walking can help. Start strength training, weight resistance training, whatever you want, body weights, bands. I use bands mostly because I travel with them. Do more movement throughout the day. Get up, walk around, do stuff.

And I write a lot about what kinds of exercise, how much exercise, how to optimize it in the least amount of time. I cover all that in my book, Young Forever. So I want to share a little bit about a study that kind of reflects the power of this. And it was an 80-year study called the Harvard Study of Adult Development. And it had been producing data on so many different things on who lives longer, happier, healthier lives. And they wanted to understand not what makes people sick, but what makes people thrive, what makes them well. So what were the lessons from this study? It was an 84-year study, right? A long study. They were tracking the same people and over generations asking thousands of questions,

hundreds of measurements to find out what really makes people healthy and happy. And these people were giving regular updates on their life, their health, their income, their employment, their marital status. They filled out questionnaires and were part of interviews where they revealed their fears and their hopes or disappointments or accomplishments or regrets, life satisfaction, and lots more. And this had a really incredible impact by providing lots of data. The researchers used this data to assess how people's lives or experiences, their attitudes affect their wellbeing. And one of the things that was so powerful from this study was sort of surprising. It wasn't career achievement, it wasn't exercise, it wasn't a healthy diet that determined the quality and happiness of your life.

It was good relationships. Good relationships keeps us healthier and happier. That was powerful. And the study's leaders that are, I mean, obviously the people that started the study are dead. The current leader of the study, Robert Waldinger from Harvard and Mark Schultz have a new book. It's called The Good Life, Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. And it's a great book. I actually had Robert Waldinger on the podcast at The Doctor's Pharmacy, and you can learn more about the book and things there. What are the things that we can do? What are the lessons learned from the study about how do we improve the quality of our

relationships? First, we have to look at ourselves, right? Who are we? What is our life like? What are the choices we're making? How are we not prioritizing relationships? So we can get really busy. We can do all sorts of stuff that we think is helping us get ahead. We can spend too much time on social media, but we often don't really

think about building and investing in the quality and the number of our relationships. And for me, I know personally that my relationships, my friendships, my community is the most important thing for me. It really is what keeps me grounded, keeps me healthy, keeps me happy. And then more and more as I get older, I focus more on this, as opposed to like when you have kids and a career and you try to just kind of get by. And it's like sometimes friends can fall by the wayside, but it's really important to find, and it even can be just one or two good friends. It makes a huge difference. Now, when these people in the study actually were interviewed,

they really actually benefited from these interviews because it helped them realize where they neglected their relationships, and then they considered sort of looking and finding, well, how can we improve that? So maybe look at your own life. What's your social life like? Who are the people in your life that you care most about, that you want to have a relationship with? Think about how they support you and how often you spend time together and maybe do a little bit of effort to actually focus on what matters to you most and help you make decisions that actually can enhance the quality and number of your relationships. So maybe spend more time with people who make you laugh and who elevate you and less time with people who drain you and are energy saps. So I think it's important to find friends and community members that help bring you up and not take you down.

Sometimes you meet with people and all you want to do is complain and go on and on about everything. And I think there are other people who when you're around them, you laugh, you have fun, you play, and it's just, that's what you want. Prioritize your relationships. We schedule in exercise. We make ourselves maybe time to make a healthy diet.

We focus on our career and work, but we don't focus on prioritizing those relationships that matter and being showing up and being present for us. Rather than zoning out on social media, rather than doing a million things at once, focus on your relationships. During COVID, I think we all felt a little isolated. I reached out to about six of my close male friends. And we all have known each other for 40, often plus years, maybe 35. The smallest, the fewest, I think was 25 years. And so we've known each other.

And we formed this group. And every Tuesday at 6 o'clock, we meet for an hour and a half and spend time together and share about our lives. And it's been one of the most impactful things I've done. And it's something that you can do. It doesn't take any organization. You just need a Zoom link or it's really pretty easy. And you can have these deep connections and relationships that allow you to be seen and known and can really help activate so many healing pathways in your body. Make time to talk to people, right? And it came in sometimes with small relationships that matter,

but a study in the University of Kansas found that the simple act of just reaching out to somebody, a friend for conversation once a day, dramatically increases happiness and lowers their stress hormones. So hanging out with friends lowers your stress hormones, pretty good. And also, it's not all about you, right? So take time to ask questions. Find out what's exciting for them. Find out what they're struggling with.

Find out what makes them happy. Have them share their life with you and value their opinions. Be present, focused, and don't just kind of be superficial with them, but go deep. So maybe try to have one conversation a day and put that in your calendar and see what the effects will be over time. It's super important. Next thing is be kind. You know, my grandmother used to ask my mother when she came home and said, I met this new friend. She says, are they kind? And I think kindness was such an important value in my family. And how do we be kind to each other? you know um you know the you know the the

relationship happiness is determined by how you are in that relationship and there was a research study in michigan state that looked on data um for our 2500 married couples and they found they were you know how good they were in five different dimensions. Were they extroverts? Were they agreeable? Were they conscientious? Were they stable emotionally? Were they open to doing new things and experiences? And the ones who had higher levels of agreeableness and emotional stability also had higher happiness. So the more kind of kind and positive you were, the more likely you were to be happy. So people invest a lot of time in finding someone who's perfectly compatible, but that might not be the whole story. It's more about being kind to the people you care about and fostering those deep connections. Also,

a friend of mine had a word that I really loved, which is called cop-to-itiveness, which is where you cop to it. If you screw up, if you make a mistake, you cop to it. And it's really about learning to apologize, learning to repair relationships, learning how to have nonviolent communication and owning your stuff. Like I said, also a great way to build relationship is to ask questions. Instead of talking about yourself, ask questions about somebody. Show that you care. Show that you're interested in what they care about or thinking about. If someone wants advice, don't just give them your opinion. Ask them questions to guide them to the right answer that they know themselves. Also, don't be shy about expressing your love. There are lots of ways to love and lots of ways to express it uh maybe it's simple

things you know um i uh i had a a flight that came in the other night late and i usually take the uber home and my partner she showed up unexpected and picked me up at the airport it was like just brought me such joy and delight it was such a simple thing you know 10 15 minutes from the airport here. And it wasn't a big deal for her, but it made a huge difference in terms of my own happiness. And it was really powerful. So help your friends with a project, you know, ask them what they need to do, whether it's clean up the garage or work on a project together. You know, call an old friend. Maybe they haven't heard from you in a while maybe you just want to check in on them ask them how they're doing uh maybe you want to focus on on um helping somebody who's trying to do something that you know may be difficult for them try to support them and

and give them some love also when you have a partner or a close friend do little acts of kindness give them a little little gift. You know, buy them something they like. You know, get them something that makes them smile. It can be super simple. You know, when you often don't do these acts, kind of life just is a little bit flatter. And when you do them, it's super fun. Like I said, my partner picked me up at the airport. It was like, wow, you know, I got that she really cared.

Also, tell people how you feel about them. Don't wait until their eulogy to tell them all the things you like about them. Be specific. Give people feedback about what you love about them, what you like about them, what makes you happy, how you feel in their presence. Who would you be without them? Who would you be now that you're with them? What do they inspire you to do? And thank them for what they do and how they show up for you.

Don't be shy. Like I said, don't wait until someone's dead to write a eulogy about them. It's better to have eulogies when you're alive. And I actually had a friend group where we would get together. And on people's birthdays we would basically go around and for everybody's birthday we would share a little bit about what they're um like and what we what we like about them what we love about them something that inspires us about them and it's like it's like getting a living eulogy it's pretty awesome

so um i i really really really invested in my own friendships, in my own community. And I think it's a critical aspect of our health. And as I get older, it becomes more and more important. So make sure that you take the time to invest in good relationships because good relationships is just important or maybe more than eating healthy and exercising and giving up sleep. Thanks for listening today. If you love this podcast, please share it with your friends and family. Leave a comment on your own best practices on how you upgrade your health and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And follow

me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. And we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements, to gadgets, to tools to enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health. And I'd love you to sign

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