The Liz Moody Podcast - Secrets To Optimal Health: An MD’s Exact Plan For Inflammation, Supplements, Exercise, & Knowing What ACTUALLY Works

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Dr. Darshan Shah, founder of Next Health, breaks down exactly how to optimize your health plus which wellness trends are worth it & which you should skip. the one principle that will change how you approach your health the tests EVERYONE should be asking their doctor for for optimal health the health treatments rich people and celebrities are using to live longer and better (and how you can get the same benefits without their resources and access) the impact of cold plunging, saunas, intermittent fasting, and more on women’s hormones  how to know if you have systemic inflammation + exactly what to do about it  an exact weekly workout plan for optimal health the science behind trends like lymphatic massages, coffee enemas, red light therapy, and more a doctor’s secrets for having way more energy how to know what supplements are worth taking how he got rid of his long COVID how worried we should be about EMFs and so much more! For more from Dr. Shah, you can find him on Instagram at @darshanshahmd or www.drshah.com. You can find Next Health on Instagram at @next_health or www.next-health.com. To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order my new book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  This episode is sponsored by: YNAB: go to www.YNAB.com/LizMoody to get one month free. Seed: go to seed.com/lizmoody and use code LIZMOODY for 25% off your first month. LMNT: go to DrinkLMNT.com/LizMoody a to get a free LMNT sample pack with any order. AG1: visit drinkag1.com/lizmoody and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today.  ZocDoc: go to ZocDoc.com/LizMoody and download the Zocdoc app for FREE and book a top-rated doctor today. Pique: go to piquelife.com/LIZMOODY for 15% off plus a special gift. Previous episodes referred to in this episode: This Episode Will Transform How You Feel About Your Body with Lindsay Kite, Phd Genius Hacks To Fall (& Stay!) Asleep, Eliminate Morning Grogginess, Get Deep Sleep & More with Vanessa Hill Science-Backed Secrets For Making Friends: Become Super Likable, Find Your Best Friend, & Deepen Relationships with Dr. Marisa G. Franco The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast.  This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello friends and welcome back to the Liz Moody podcast. I'm your host Liz Moody and I'm a best-selling author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're completely changing our relationships with our bodies, learning genius hacks to fall and stay asleep or getting science-back secrets for making friends. And yes, those are all real episodes and they are linked in the show notes if you want to listen. I wanted to do an episode today that cut through, all of the noise on social media and helped us feel much more empowered about our own health. Dr. Darshan Shah is just the man for the job. He is a renowned surgeon. He's a graduate of the Mayo Clinic in Harvard Business School. He's performed tens of thousands of surgeries. He is a published author, a tech entrepreneur. And now as the founder and CEO of Next Health, he's helping thousands of people use functional medicine to live longer and feel better. This episode, is going to do a deep dive into the health things that truly matter, fighting inflammation, how we should actually be moving our bodies to feel our best. And we're going to unearth the

things that do not really matter that people on social media are just using to hijack your attention and get views. We get into the one principle that will change how you approach your health, the tests that everyone should be asking their doctor for for optimal health, the health treatments that rich people and celebrities are using to live longer and feel better, and how you can get these same benefits without their resources and access. The impact of cold plunging, saunas, intermittent fasting, and more on women's hormones. How to know if you have systemic inflammation and exactly what to do about it. An exact weekly workout plan for optimal health. The science behind trends like lymphatic massages, coffee enema's red light therapy, and more, a doctor's

secrets to having way more energy, plus the sneaky things that are draining you of your precious energy. How to know what supplements are worth taking. How Dr. Shaw got rid of his long COVID and what you can do if that is something that you are dealing with. How worried we should be about EMFs and so much more. As always, we would both love to hear your thoughts as you're listening. So definitely screenshot and tag us on Instagram. I am at Liz Moody and Dr. Shaw is at Darshan Shaw MD. If you're listening and you're like, wow, my friend needs to hear this or my mom needs to hear this, please, please send them a link to the episode. You all sharing the podcast is 100% the reason for its success for us being able to get these amazing guests and share this

incredible information. And it is so, so appreciated. All right, without further ado, let's get right into it with Dr. Shaw. Dr. Shaw, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Liz. I'm so excited. We're going to get into so many different things today. We're going to talk about all the different wellness trends, all the stuff that we see online, that we're like, is this good for me? Should I be doing this?

I don't know the science behind this. But I want to start off by laying a little bit of a baseline. Sure. So let's start with what do you think that we are paying too much attention to when it comes to our health? and what do you think we're not paying enough attention to? Yeah, so I love this question because I see patients every single day. And they come in with a million saved Instagram stories, like, what do you think about this? What do you think about this?

And it's almost like paralysis by overanalysis I call it with a lot of my patients. So there's a lot of focus on the minutia of like, how many blueberries should I eat? Can I get urolithine from promagranas? And I'm like, let's like take a few steps back and let's talk about the 20% of the information that's going to make 80% of the difference. That's what the Pareto principle is. So in life, in business, in health, with anything, there really is 20% of the information that makes 80% of the change, and then everything else is a deeper dive. So if you focus 80% of your energy on that 20% of the info, you're going to make massive strides. And that's where people get things wrong.

So for every category of health, I have one thing that people should focus on that is the most important the thing that's going to move the needle the most. So like for nutrition, the biggest thing is it's not about how much protein you eat. It's not about the amount of vegetables you eat. I don't care what you eat, but if there's one thing that you do that will move the needle the most, it's eliminating ultra-processed food from your diet completely. First, you have to recognize ultra-processed food, and then you have to make strides in eliminating it. So it's not just the center of the supermarket with the package labels that you can't even read or spell the words on it. It's not just that. It's also, you know, when you go to a restaurant, when you go to a fast food restaurant,

even most restaurants are using the cheapest food they can find to make the food that they serve you. And all of that is ultra-processed, is using seed oils, dangerous vegetable oils. It's using a lot of sugar, a lot of added fats, et cetera. That's kind of what I try to focus on. So removing ultra-process food is what we're not spending enough attention on. I think people also spend a lot of attention on how many supplements they should take and what supplements they should take. And what they don't spend enough attention on is knowing their biomarkers, their blood tests. I call those the KPIs of your health. I encourage a lot of my patients to take control of their health, become the CEO of their health,

as I say. No CEO runs their business by looking at their KPIs once a year. And those are key performance indexes. Exactly. Key performance indexes. So if you run a business, you want to make sure you know the numbers that your business is doing almost on a daily basis, right? not once a year. And so checking your blood tests once a year and having your doctor tell you what they mean and not really understanding what they mean is like having a business but not knowing how to read your checking account. So looking at your biomarkers before you take any supplements, I think is really important. So those are two examples. I have probably a hundred more I can give you. We'll start there. Okay, well, I was going to talk to you about seed oils later in the episode, but since you brought them up, do you think seed oils are as bad as the internet makes them seem? Or,

There's also people on the internet who say you shouldn't stress out about seed oils. You're not going to consume them in big enough amounts. It'll make a difference. What's your take on seed oils? Yeah, I definitely think that there's way too much attention put on seed oils. There's no big studies that show seed oils are bad for humans, but those studies are very hard to do. When you look at the research, it's really hard to take humans and have them only eat seed oils for a long period of time and control all other variables and see what happens at the end of this. So there are oils that we know. are healthy for you, stick to those, right? So we know olive oil as a dressing is really good for you. Now look, if you go out to a restaurant and they happen to use a seed oil, as long as you're not eating at restaurants, you know, 16 meals a week, you're probably going to live to speak another day about it. But definitely my patients, I encourage them not to have seed oils at home in their pantry, stick to the oils that we know are super healthy for you. I love that. And the absence of information err on the side of what we know is good when you can. Right. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.

Exactly. What test should we be asking for that we are probably not asking for? Do you mean like blood tests? Yeah. Okay, so there's a few tests that we should be asking for that no one gets done, and it's almost like a calamity in my mind. People need to start asking for more these tests. The problem is insurance isn't paid for some of these things, unfortunately,

and sometimes we have to shell out a little money on our own to get a lot of information that is incredibly useful. So one test that is out there is called a Dexas scan. A Daxa scan is a very low, low radiation x-ray of your body. And all it's looking for in this scan is how much fat mass you have, where it's located in your body, what is your bone density, and how much muscle mass you have. So just stepping on a scale, we all know. That's not enough.

It doesn't give you any really useful information. You need to know those numbers. If you have low-scale muscle mass, you have to increase your protein intake, increased amount of weight you lift. If you have a lot of visceral fat, which is a dangerous fat in your gut area, which isn't even visible all the time. It's not visible, right? A lot of people have it. They have no idea. And by the time it's visible, it's really hard to manage. And so to know earlier rather than later is really important. And then for men and women, but especially women after menopause, knowing your bone density is critical. And managing that earlier rather than later before you let it go for 20 or 30 years is critical to prevent. you from becoming frail, from having fractures, from having osteoporosis, of course. So that's one scan that I really like. Blood tests, I think, that people don't get. There's a few.

They have kind of complicated names. One's called hemoglobin A1C. It's an average of your three-month sugar intake. I really like that one. That creeps up on you. There's another one called APO-B. It's a culmination of all of the bad cholesterol. So it's not just LDL, V-L-D-L-L-P-L-L-A.

it's APOB is the one number that is kind of puts all the bad cholesterol into one bucket. And HSCRP, that's a measurement of how much inflammation is going on in your body. Those three biomarkers are so helpful for you to know. So my patients now, if you see them in the street and you ask what's your hemoglobin A1C? They'll be able to tell you because they know how much importance I place on those. And the reason is these change 20 to 30 years before you get diagnosed with a disease. So if you know the optimal level and you see it creeping in the wrong direction, you can stop it. And then you can almost make diabetes, metabolic disease, heart disease, and non-issue, just knowing these numbers ahead of time.

And if we get these numbers and let's say we don't have access to a you to a next health, how are we interpreting them and knowing what to do with our results? That's a great question. Okay. So first of all, you need to ask your doctor for these and these are covered by insurance. So they should not refuse to do these. I always tell people, everything I tell you on this podcast, you have to ask your doctor if it's right for you, but this is one of those things. Like, maybe you need to go looking for another doctor if they're not going to do these tests on you. There's a lot of great sources of information now on the internet about what are the optimal levels of these of these numbers. Just search optimal hemoglobin A1C, optimal H.SCRP, and you can see where they are. Now, you don't want to search abnormal. You want to search optimal. And a lot of people have written great articles about these and where you need them to be. Okay, cool. And we'll talk about some of the things you can do if, say, you find out you have systemic inflammation. We'll talk about that in a second. But first, I want to know, because you practice in L.A., you work with a lot of celebrities and that whole world, what are rich people doing for their health that the rest of us don't know about yet? Yeah, great question. I think there's a misconception that somehow because you have a lot of money that you're going to be healthier because you're a celebrity or your athlete. Some of the sickest people I see internally when we look under the hood of their health and we look at their biomarkers are celebrities, are people with a lot of money, are people that have access to everything. Like athletes, for example, they have tons of systemic inflammation going on, tons of metabolic disease actually going on inside of their bloodstream. What they have access to is,

the ability to pay for things like these biomarkers when their doctor won't get them for them, you know. And so that's really important is have these blood tests. I think it's becoming more and more ubiquitous. There's a lot of companies now online that are offering blood tests, director, consumer. Anyone now can get these for a lower and lower cost. What's incredible that's happening now is because as these things become more and more available, the cost is going down lower and lower as well. So that's one thing is the testing aspect of it.

The Uber wealthy are doing things like full-body MRIs, and that's become very popular now. I do think it's very valuable. I think it's good to see what's going on internally. If you can do the test as in your 40s and your 50s once or twice every three to four years, you'll get a lot of information. I had a cancer doctor on the podcast, and he said that he was nervous about people doing things like those tests because they would find cancer sometimes before cancer even really becomes cancer and then maybe go down a treatment course. that's expensive or isn't even necessary because you're treating something that would never become cancer because your body would deal with it. So I think that what you're talking about there is called finding, we call it incidentaloma.

It's an incidental finding. And yes, you do go down a diagnostic pathway to try to figure out what that is. And he's right. Sometimes it turns out to be nothing. I could tell you we probably do about 100 of these a year and probably about 20 to 30% of them we find something. And it's a pretty easy diagnostic pathway we go down to figure out if it's something bad or not. Very rarely do we find anything that is not easy to kind of work up. So in Western medicine, there's this problem that we practice medicine based on statistics.

And those statistics are based on an entire population. Okay. So if you look at 20,000 people and you do the full body MRI on 20,000 people, yes, you're going to find. find five to ten of those people that have something that is of no consequence. However, if you're that one person, right, I can't tell you the number of people that we found something very significant in their full body MRI that we were able to stop a disease process very early. And I think we practice population-based medicine because we have limited resources. There's not enough MRI scanners in the country to MRI everybody over and over again on a yearly basis. But as these things become more ubiquitous and cheaper,

I do think that these tests will become the standard of practice as we move forward. So it's just waiting for that inflection moment when things become more available and much cheaper. DNA test is a perfect example. The sequencing of DNA cost $10,000 just a couple of decades ago. Now, you know, you can go to... Like $79. Yeah, 23 means, $79. Everyone can get it done now, right?

And so I think as things become more available, the technology gives us. better. We apply artificial intelligence to it. More and more people can have it done, and more and more people will get diagnosed way before it's too late. Cancer's biggest enemy is being diagnosed as stage one, right? It's curable as stage one. When you diagnose it as stage three and stage four, when you feel symptoms, now you're talking five-year survival rates, right? So if it was me, I'd rather know sooner later, and if it was me finding something incidental, at least I know it's there and there's nothing to worry about. Interesting. Yeah. DNA tests, do you think

those are something that's worth doing? Absolutely, yeah. So let me just preface it by saying there was way too much emphasis put on genetics in the last 30, 40 years, because we thought when we first discovered our gene, that that was the holy grill. Every disease

is in our genes, and we're going to know everything about you because of your genes. And turns out that's not true. Genetics is only 10 to 15% of your story. 85% is the epigenetics. What genes are turned on and what genes are turned off, okay? And so epigenetics is fully controllable by your habits and your environments. So what you do on a day-to-day basis and where you live and the people you surround yourself with, all of that can turn genes on and turn genes off. So that's great. Now we know we have control of our genes. However, genetics

are still very important in that we can assess for how much of a risk you have for certain diseases, heart disease, cancer risk, and also Alzheimer's risk, for example. Those are some genes that we can find. Once we know those things, we can be proactive in both diagnosis and treatment. So people that have the Alzheimer's gene, for example, we have a lot of patients that have the APO-E gene. And what we do with these people is we put it on a program to keep their inflammation very, very low, keep them on a super healthy diet, make sure their sleep is perfectly optimized. They don't have sleep apnea, all these things that most of us should be doing anyway, it just becomes a lot more important to do it sooner and more aggressively in people that have the genes for a disease

like Alzheimer's. It's so interesting because on one hand, I'm like, great, you know you can take these actions. But on the other hand, I'm like, would I be thinking about the fact that I have to get a perfect night's sleep? I have to eat perfectly for the rest of my life because I was living in fear of this genetic test I got. Yeah, there's definitely a bell-shaped curve of people. There are something people that absolutely should not know. And those are the people that are going to freak themselves out. Most people are in the middle where they do want to know, but they're still a little bit fearful of it. And then you have the people that want to know everything no matter what. And I think there's a lot of counseling and talking that goes into doing these tests before we do them, because we need to be able

to handle the results, not just financially, but also like physically, mentally, mentally, emotionally. we need to be able to deal with it. And so I think that's where really having a good coach, doctor, who have, you know, what have you to kind of help hold your hand through the process is really important. Is there one rich people thing that you think if we have a little bit of extra money lying around, we want to feel a little bit more optimized in our health that we should be incorporating as normal people? Yeah. I'm a huge fan of doing things like sauna and coal plunge.

So if you can get a membership somewhere to do these type of technologies, I think they can be game changers in your day-to-day habits. If you can buy one, that's even better to do it at home, but you don't have to. There's places all over the country now that have these in every city. I mean, they just charge membership. I think that's something that's worth spending, you know, 50 bucks a month on and doing it as much as possible. Okay, we were going to dive into that one later. But let's dive in now. Sona, why is it good for you?

So there's a lot of studies mostly out of Finland where people that do sauna on a consistent basis reduce their risk of heart attack, reduce their risk of cognitive impairment, and also increase their lifespan significantly. They do keep very good medical records in Finland, and so they have huge number of patients that show real benefit to doing sauna. And I don't think the mechanism has truly worked out yet. I think there's a lot of things around heat shock proteins, There's a lot of things about sweating out toxins, et cetera. But even just, like I could tell you from personal experience in my patients, I know going into sauna makes people sleep a lot better at night.

Just getting more deep sleep is just monumentally impactful to the health of every organ in your body. And so the sauna is definitely helpful in that regard, too. And do you have any thoughts on the difference between an infrared sauna or a traditional finish sauna? Yeah. What the manufacturers of the infrared sauna say, say is that you need less heat to achieve the same results. I don't think there's really conclusive evidence of that. However, what I will say is we do know that infrared light, you ever shine a flashlight through your like nail bed or something? You see the red come out?

Since I was like 12, but you just brought back a memory for me. Yeah, I know. So I ended up a long time too, and I'm like, why does this infrared light work so well? And someone showed me that if you do that, the red light is what passes through your skin. That light has the ability to modulate multiple cellular processes, including processes around your DNA and your mitochondria. And so the infrared light, even though it might not get as hot infrared sonnas, the light definitely has some effect as well. Do you think there's any potential for risk with an infrared sauna, since we haven't studied it as much, that something might be causing us harm in some way we haven't identified?

I don't think so. Infrared light has been around forever. We've been using it for decades and decades in medical treatments. I really doubt there's anything that anyone can harm themselves with. Now, of course, you know, with anything, the dose can always be a poison. Like if you're sitting in front of infrared life for hours and hours and hours a day, something might happen, you know? And so always follow the recommended dosage of these kind of things. If you were going to buy a sauna, or maybe you have bought a sauna, would you buy a barrel sauna, traditional finish sauna, or would you buy an infrared sauna? I would buy any of those three, but the one I have at home is, It's a sunlight and infrared sauna.

It's a combo. It has a heat element in it so it can get hot to like 180 degrees. And it has the infrared element too. Now, if you already have like a barrel sauna or you have like a sauna without infrared, you can buy LED light panels that you can put inside the sauna as well. And so my prior sauna was like that, just a heat sauna. And I had an LED light panel I put inside too. And the cold plunging is interesting because I feel like there was a while where everybody was really on board.

everybody is like, this is great for you. And now online, the conversation has shifted a little bit. And some people are saying, this is great for men, but we don't think it's great for women because of the impact on cortisol, the impact on women's hormones. So I'm curious your thoughts on that. And then I'd also like your take on the greater conversation around we're not testing a lot of things on women. And so a lot of the scientific information that we're basing decisions on wasn't tested with women's hormones, women's unique bodies in mind. Yeah, that's a very valid point, actually. A lot of these studies were done mostly on men. And I think the studies that are done in women don't have a wide enough range of women's ages to really understand the effects at a young age, perimenopause and menopause. And there's very different effects, different therapies can have at different ages because just a hormonal milieu in your body is completely different during those ages, right? And so the cortisol thing that you mentioned earlier, it's very important actually during that perimenopause.

pause state. I'm always very careful when we treat women in the perimenema state because we always say, try it and see how you feel afterwards. I think the mind is an incredible indicator you know just intuitively if you're making things worse or better. I would say pretty much universally, any women that I've had them try cold plunge or even cold shower that's going through paramedicose, they have a better regulation of their cortisol levels throughout the day, believe it or not. And so I actually like it and recommend it for that. group of people. But you're absolutely right. I have a lot of thoughts around women's health and why it's probably two decades behind just general overall health research that we have. And one of them

is the lack of research in women. I think secondly, you know, there's this whole woman's health initiative study that was done a few decades ago that really presented results incorrectly about women's hormones. And there's a lot of misinformation in the media from that. And that cause hormone therapy and women to basically be totally shunned and demonized for many, many years. And we're just now getting the good research out that if you do it correctly, it can be incredibly beneficial. And I think now more doctors are espousing that hormone therapy for women is a good thing. When it comes to wellness, you're going to get the best results by focusing on the big needle movers. A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to optimize that last 1%, which creates a ton of stress,

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For a limited time, get 15% off with code Liz at oneskin.co slash Liz. Again, that's 15% off at oneskin.co with code Liz. It's so interesting. I do feel like scientists, I mean, there's so much misogyny in science going back for years and years and years. But I also feel like there's this component, among other things, of like, women's hormones are too complicated. I can't test something during every phase of their cycle or every phase of their life where their hormones are shifting. So I'm just not even going to include them because it would conflate results too much. Yeah, probably because it does complicate the research a little bit because there are phases of hormones. That's just the fact of the matter. But men also have phases of hormone.

It's just that people just don't really keep that in mind. Don't you guys just have a 20. four-hour cycle, though, or is that a fallacy? Yeah, there's a 24-hour cycle, and there's also a weekly cycle. Oh. Yes, there is. Interesting. Yes. And so we need to control for those variables.

It's not that hard to control for those variables. We have the math. We have the science to do it. And the studies just need to be done. And I think they are being done. I think there's a massive amount of literature coming out now in women's health. And I'm really kind of excited to see things just kind of equalizing in the whole field as far as that's concerned. In absence of that, while science is.

catching up. Do you think that women should follow the science as it has pertained to men historically and then just tune in to how they feel in their body as they're doing it? I think that every woman should still be mindful about doing research and talking to their physician or their health coach or someone that they trust. But I do think there's a massive element about being mindful to their body as well. Another perfect example is around intermittent fasting. There's a lot of research about intermittent fasting being helpful. And then recently we've seen more and more discussion and research around women that are intermittent fasting actually having negative effects from it as well. I think, you know, there's always this thought in the back of my mind.

Like, okay, we have this. Let me see the studies. How many men, how many women, how many different age groups. I think now more and more people are more attuned to this. And there is a lot of research now that's being in more varied individuals as well. What's your take on intermittent fasting? So intermittent fasting is definitely not for everybody. It's a great way to reduce your caloric intake throughout today for some people. Okay. So some people, they really have a really good reaction as far as weight goes by reducing their caloric intake basically by a third as a method of reducing calories in. I do think, however, that some of the research around how it helps with things like

autophagy, mitophagy, around, you know, clearing of senesin cells, I think some of that was a little bit overblown, especially for like the shorter term fast, like the 16-8 fast that most people do. So I really have to tune it into what patient I'm giving it to. The other thing about it, too, is that if I see someone that, you know, that, you know, that, you that eats a good, healthy breakfast, like they're eating protein for breakfast, and they're getting their fiber in the morning. That's so much better than fasting through that. And then now you're set yourself up for eating maybe junk food or being too hungry at lunch, you know. But then there's

some people that eat like a standard American breakfast, a pancakes, orange juice, and a Pop-Tart. And those people, intermittent fasting is awesome for it because you eliminate all of that. So I really have to tailor it patient to patient. Do you think that perimenopausal women or any group of women should be universally avoiding intermittent fasting because of the hormonal impact? I don't think it's universally avoiding. I've seen perimenopausal women be very successful with intermittent fasting, but once again, that's a group you have to be really careful because things can affect women differently. And so some people who intermittent fast in the morning, their cortisol levels can remain high throughout their morning time for a longer period of time, and we don't want that either.

Okay, let's dive into inflammation for a second. What are some signs that we might be experiencing the systemic inflammation? Yeah, that's a great question. So I think a lot of people just feel cruddy and they don't know why, and then really tuning into, why am I feeling this way? So some of the signs of systemic inflammation that are not very well recognized are brain fog, for example, bloating of your gut. Even having diarrhea constipation is another sign that you might have inflammation. Feeling tired throughout the day is a sign of inflammation. Headaches can be a sign of inflammation. Inability, to lose weight is also a sign of inflammation, believe it or not, too. So there's lots of just systemic symptoms of just being unwell and unease are all signs of systemic inflammation. And what's causing systemic inflammation? There's a myriad of different things that can cause systemic inflammation, but most of our immune system is in our gut for a reason. That's because if you were to take your entire gut and lay it out flat, it would be the size of almost two football fields. So there is a massive amount of surface area in our gut. That surface area is only

one cell layer thick of our gut cells, etirocytes. And right behind that is 90% of the immune system. So think about that. Your gut is trying to protect you from the outside environment, from all the toxins that we ingest in our food and our drinks. And when your gut is not healthy, those toxins can come through, it's called a leaky gut, and then your immune system becomes super overactive, trying to fight these toxins off, trying to destroy these toxins. So most of the inflammation comes from our gut. Our gut actually starts

at our mouth, believe it or not. So there's a significant amount of inflammation that starts from poor just oral hygiene in our mouth. And then going down to your stomach, your intestines, your colon, that's where most inflammation is coming from not having a healthy gut. So would you say if you're having gut issues or you're having inflammation, like lossing regularly would be a good start? You want to look at your oral health. For oral health, the cardinal rules are brush your teeth twice a day, floss twice a day, and especially in nighttime. Try not to miss any of those brushing and flossing events and see your dentist at least twice a year to get a cleaning. And do it not just for your teeth. Exactly. Do you know people of poor oral hygiene have a 20% increased risk of Alzheimer's disease as well? I only know that because I had a dentist on the podcast, but it freak me out. I don't think enough people talk about. I don't think enough people talk about it. about that. Yeah, yeah, it's super important. The dentists are actually entire body doctors by what they're doing to help our oral hygiene. So, yes, that's step one is make sure you have good oral hygiene. Step two is to treat your gut well. So there's three barriers at our gut. One of them is those

inner sites I was telling you about, that one layer thick of cells that are some of the smartest cells in our body is in our gut. The second barrier of our gut is our microbiome, the trillions of bacteria and fungi that live synergistically with us in our gut. And the third layer is a mucus layer, actually. And all three layers have to be functional to prevent toxins from entering through our gut. And so treating your microbiome well is extremely important, and that's all done through diet. So eliminating ultra-processed foods, once again, watching your sugar intake, watching your fructose intake, making sure you have a lot of fiber in your diet from whole organic natural sources of food.

That's what your gut loves to eat. Feed on your gut bacteria, and that'll keep your gut healthy too. Is there anything we should be doing to take care of our mucus layer? Same thing. You want to be eating a lot of fiber. You want to be feeding your gut cells,

your gut bacteria, keeping them healthy. We'll keep your mucus layer healthy as well. Interesting. I've never even heard about or thought about my mucus layer. Yep, is the third layer of protection. You have three layers

and the mucus is a third. Okay, this is like a little bit nuanced, but if we feel like we're experiencing inflammation, we have some of those symptoms that you said, should we be testing and trying to get a diagnosis or are all of the things we would be doing if we had inflammation, things that we probably should be doing anyway,

so we don't really need to chase the diagnosis because these are all things we should be incorporating into our lives. It's a little bit of both. So if you're the average person that's super busy, you see you're a standard primary care doctor that's only going to really tell you if you have a disease on a blood dust, something that you could take a pharmaceutical for, you definitely have to start off with the basics, right? You have to start off with good nutrition,

good sleep, good dietary habits, and exercising, of course. But I think that if you're feeling cruddy, one of the best things that you can do, if you have made some inroads into those aspects of health, is to see a functional medicine doctor. So functional medicine is looking at disease from a root cause level. And gut health is one of the best. those root causes of disease. And so functional medicine doctors will do the right kind of testing to really find out where is this problem coming from. And you mentioned a test that we should be asking for earlier that you said correlated with information, one of your three, which one was that? HSCRP, highly sensitive C-reactive protein. Okay. So if we can't see a functional doctor, let's say it's

cost prohibitive, should we get that test? Yes, absolutely. You want that number as close to zero as possible, definitely less than one. If it's over one, we need to start looking for what's causing inflammation in your body. Okay. Interesting. Let's talk about exercise for a second, since you brought it up. I heard you say on a podcast that you think a lot of people are exercising too much and it's actually causing more harm than good. Can you speak to that? Yeah, absolutely. So as we age, our bodies need to have a variety of exercise. And what happens is, like if you grew up in my generation, you were taught, Cardio, cardio, cardio. Cardio is everything. You're going to lose weight. You're going to keep your heart healthy. You can keep your brain healthy. And I think we overdid it with the cardio. So spending an hour,

two hours of the gym, you know, running on the treadmill, basically running a marathon a week, you're going to cause joint damage and you actually will cause more inflammation, especially after the age of 40s. And so you really want to vary your exercise routine between a normal amount of cardio and strength training and also some flexibility mobility training. And so I spend a lot of time, like basically. So I'm also like I also have my personal trainer certification. I did that when I went through my own personal health struggles and really saw how exercise was being sold to the general public on commercials and at the gym and what in reality you really needed. And so varying your exercise routine, especially after the age of 40,

is extremely important, very important to do that. If our goal is to feel as good as possible now and to live as long as possible, can you give me your ideal exercise prescription over the course of a week? The number one rule, the Pareto rule about exercise, is nothing to do with exercise at all. It is don't be sedentary, okay? So there is, for every 10% extra time sedentary, you spend over four hours, you increase your chance of death from all causes by 10%. So the first rule of exercise is get an egg timer, put it on your desk, and turn it to 45, every 45 minutes get up and just walk around.

Do something that is not in a seated position. So that's rule number one. Rule number two is add strength training to your routine two to three times a week. Even if it's like 20 to 30 minutes, got to do two to three times a week of some sort of strength training exercise. Does it need to be lifting weights? It can even be like using your own body weight. there's a lot of ways to get some of strength exercise in. Okay, wait, let's dial in on that for a second. Does Pilates count as strength training?

You know, not really from some of the Pilates routines that I've seen, but I go to Pilates as well. I do love Pilates, to be honest with you, but no, you want to get into the point where you're really building some muscle. Okay, and I said optimal, and you said you want to get at least 20 to 30 minutes a week. Is 20 to 30 minutes optimal? Is 45 minutes optimal? What's optimal? Obviously, it's going to be different for everybody, but 20 to 30 minutes for most people is a good starting point. I would say 20, 30 minutes sessions two to three times a week. Okay. That's much shorter, though, than many people think you need to do to experience results. Right, right, it is. You don't need to go to a gym for an hour every time.

Even if you go 30 to 45 minutes a day and vary your routine between cardio done in Zone 2, one time a week doing a high-intensity cardio routine, I call that V-O-2 max exercise, and then doing strength training two to three times a week. That's going to be a little perfect combination. I'm genuinely confused how master class gets literally the absolute top people in every single field to teach every single one of their classes. I use it when I want to learn things directly, like the cooking class from Thomas Keller has all of the wisdom that you would normally have to go to culinary school for.

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Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitopier gummies. That is timeline.com Okay, so we have doing movement throughout our day. I call those micro workouts. You call them exercise snacks, I believe. Exercise snacks, what I call them right. I think is so cute. But moving throughout your day, never being sedentary, and then we have two to three times a week,

20 to 30 minutes of cardio, and two to three times a week, 20 to 30 minutes, up to 45 minutes of strength training. So the cardio is a little bit different. So if you're training in zone two, probably the optimal time there is about 30 to 45 minutes in zone two. and you want to do that at least three times a week. Okay.

Now, I will say everyone's different, it depends on where they came from. So if you're a gym rat and you've been going to the gym five days a week, lifting weights, then what we try to do with that type of person is put more zone two, more VO2 max training, because their VO2 max and their zone two level is probably really not where it needs to be. And the opposite goes for someone that's been doing a lot of cardio. So we really try to like customize it to the person, but to answer your question, yes, Say you work out six days a week, three days of cardio, three days of strength training is really, really optimal. And then talk to me about this VO2 Max day.

So VO2 Max is when you do like a high intensity workout or a VO2 Max routine once a week. And these routines are going all out. Okay. So say you are going all out. You want to do it in intervals of something like four minutes on and then four minutes off. you'll do that like four times. So it's not a long workout, but it's really, you know, going as fast as you can go, going probably zone four, and then coming back to where your heart rate goes down to zone two, and then you do it again, and you use that four times. And what's the reason for that?

So that trains a specific number called VO2 max, the amount of oxygen that your mitochondria can use. And it's been shown in massive studies that having an optimal VO2,000, 2 max can lead to much less disease and a longer health span, longer lifespan. Okay. Interesting. Is there anything else that you think we should know about inflammation? You know, inflammation is something that can lead to autoimmune disease. It can lead to heart disease and it can lead to Alzheimer's. So it really is one of the root causes of all major diseases and also cancer as well. And so it's really important to know about it sooner rather than later. or getting these blood tests that point us in the right direction, like the HSCRP,

even in your 30s, your early 30s is really important. Yeah. There's also a blood test, or what was the test you've talked about before, that can prevent heart attacks if you find it early? Do you know what I'm talking about? LP. Little A? Yeah, maybe. Can you talk to me about that?

Yeah. So there's a protein marker. Some people genetically have that no matter how healthy your exercise, and nutrition is, you're going to have cholesterol deposition inside your blood vessels. It's called LP.L.A. And this is a genetic cholesterol issue. Around 20% of people have it. Believe it or not, it's a huge number. And we don't have a good treatment for it right now. There's no good treatment for it. So the only treatment really is just to drive cholesterol down as low as possible. So most people will LP. Little A. They need to be on some sort of

cholesterol lowering medication, whether it be a statin, a PCSK-9. inhibitor, one of these medications that keeps their cholesterol really low until one of these new medications that are going to come out in the next three to five years. There's three big studies going on on meds that will reduce LP. Little A right now. And I think something's going to come out in the next three to five years to help those people. That's exciting. Yeah. It's massive the number of people that have LP. Little A, and they don't even know it. And we discover, I would say probably one or two new patients a week with LP. Little A. And is that something you test all? your patients for, and you would recommend people get tested for that?

I recommend everyone get tested for LP Little A. Okay. Let's talk about energy. Yeah. What are some common depleters of energy that we might not notice or think of? Common depleters of energy. So on the nutrition front, people don't get enough electrolytes during their day. Just because you drink a lot of water, you might not be getting enough electrolytes.

So there's some great powders out now, like LMNT is one of them. I don't, you know, have a relationship with any of these companies. but that's just the one that I use. I use LMNT too. I think they say element, which shows you don't have an affiliation. I don't have an affiliation. No one told me how to say it right.

But a lot of people are nervous because it has so much sodium in it. What do you think about the sodium content? I think that if you have high blood pressure, then you definitely want to be mindful of high sodium. But I think that we're so electrolyte depleted when we wake up that our body still needs sodium to function properly. So I actually do have high blood pressure. I've had it since I've been 30 years old.

And I still take an LMN tea powder in the morning. And my blood pressure is dope high. Alamine powder. See? Maybe they sponsor me or something else say, right. Okay, great. That's helpful. So maybe some of the old thoughts around sodium aren't updated with modern research.

The recommendations around sodium and high blood pressure, they're almost a century old now, you know? And no one's really updated that thought process. And yes, of course, if you have low sodium, you're going to have lower blood pressure because you have less blood volume. But is that really the way to treat high blood pressure? That's really not the way to treat what's endothelial dysfunction, which is your blood vessels actually contracting too much. Is it almost like putting a band-aid on something that you need to actually heal the wound?

Exactly. That's so interesting. Okay. Other causes of low energy. Okay. So on the sleep front, I think a lot of people have sleep apnea and they have no idea. And so sleep apnea is a condition where in nighttime, your throat muscles and your tissue close in on your airway. And you actually don't get oxygen to your brain, to your organs for two to seven seconds at a time, multiple times a night.

So obviously when you don't get oxygen, you're killing cells. And that is a massive energy depleter as well. If you have signs of sleep apnea, you're waking up tired, you're tired all day, your significant other. tells you that you've been waking up on the middle of night, gasping, you snore loudly or heavily, and that wakes you up, your own snoring wakes you up. Those are some reasons you might be wanting to get checked for sleep apnea. Does that mean that every dad in the world has sleep acne? Maybe. I'm just like, I can hear my dad snoring from three rooms over. Might have sleep apnea. I have a tip in my book that's stop snoring, and it's about how snoring

is a sign of your body crying for help. And we act like it's. It's just funny and cute, but your body's like, oh my gosh, help me. It's absolutely true. Yeah. It's so true. Yeah. Snowing can be an indicator of sleep apnea, strong indicator of sleep apnea, and that needs to get treated.

There's lots of ways of treating. It's not just that CPAP device. Just even putting the head of your bed up can be helpful for a lot of people. I think that's helpful for people to hear too because sometimes we don't want to get diagnoses because we're like, I don't want to sleep with that machine by my bed. Right. So there's like mouth appliances and there's all sorts of different things. I'm looking at getting.

dental stuff done to make room for my big floppy tongue, which I didn't know I had until recently. But apparently I do. Okay, any other energy culprits? So let's talk on the exercise front. So I think being sedentary as well, like if you've got a job that you have to sit four hours in front of a computer all day, believe it or not, that's actually causing your mitochondria to slow down.

So sedentary behavior, I think also just, you know, this environment that we live in where we're comfortable all day long. Darren Olin refers to it as a comfort crisis. There's a massive amount of comfort where our mitochondria are never stimulated enough to produce more energy because they just don't have to. And so stimulating your mitochondria with things like cold, heat, high intensity, training, all that stuff can really help your energy levels. The sedentary thing is so interesting to me because I feel like sometimes I'll have those

days where I just want to lay on the couch and so I'll lay on the couch and then I'll be uninspired to go move my body because laying on the couch begets laying on the couch. And then I'll have other days. And I've started to do this more and more where I frame my workout is something that's giving me energy. And then I also am trying to not just have that 20 minutes, but I may be going for a walk after lunch. I'm trying to incorporate as much movement into my life as possible. And I've noticed the difference in my energy is huge. It's remarkable. I feel like I've tapped into some sort of secret drug. It's wild. It's incredible. It really is. Because just like you said, being sedentary begets being sedentary, movement begets more movement sometimes too. And you just feel so much better. Well, and to your point of not being sedentary, 20 minutes of moving sedentary. I just had somebody on my podcast and they talked about how they work out every day for, a certain amount of time and they get all this movement in.

And she's like, people think it's crazy sometimes that I'm doing these workouts or I'm really focusing on movement or I'll do a walk or hike in the evening even if I've done my workout in the morning. And she's like, our bodies are meant to move so much more, even if we're very, very active, people scratching the surface of the amount that our bodies are meant to move. Yes, it's so true. And I think also a lot of people have the misconception that, yeah, I can be sedentary and take an hour to get to work like in L.A.

It takes us so long to get anywhere. and then you get out of the car, you go into your office, you sit at the desk all day, and then when you're done with work, you can go have a workout at the gym, and you're going to be fine. And that one and a half hours of exercise is doing at the gym does not at all combat the negative effects of sedentary behavior. You need both. You need to move around throughout the day. And connect it with the energy you feel. I really encourage people to tune into how they feel because I have felt such a remarkable difference in energy that it motivates me to take that walk, to get up and dance around my living room, to do a walking

meeting or something like that, the difference I feel in my energy is the thing that keeps me interested in spending my time that way. Yeah. You know my biggest hack that I use at home? No. So I spend a lot of time for the computer as well, but I have a walking desk. Do you have a walking desk? I do.

Yeah, it's the best. Even when we live nomadically, we traveled with our walking pad. That's how much we love it in our lives. Yeah. If we feel low energy at any given moment of a day and we watch just an instant burst of energy, what would you recommend that we do? It depends on what time of day it is. What time of day? Let's say one time in the morning and one time in the afternoon evening. Okay. So in the morning, if you're one of those people that can tolerate like a little bit of caffeine, there's this little hack that Dr. Michael Bruce taught me. He's a sleep doctor. and he says, drink a little bit of coffee and then take a nap right after you drink a little bit of coffee

because that caffeine will kick in in 20 minutes right after and wake you up from that nap and then you feel incredible. And so that's kind of like a little hack that he told me and it really works well for me. So I like that little quick nap with some caffeine before. And then in the evening time, go outside and go for a walk outside is really helpful, especially after eating. Do you think that caffeine is something we should be watching out for for our health? It's all about the dose, and everyone has different genetics among how much they can handle. I personally believe in everything I've read over the years about caffeine, that caffeine is beneficial for our brains and for our health in general.

But obviously, no caffeine afternoon, and also maybe just one or two cups of coffee in the morning is probably the most that I do. But everyone's genetics are different, and everyone can handle a different level of caffeine. You also had long COVID. I hear from a lot of listeners who are struggling with that, and I'm curious if you had a protocol that helped you feel better. Oh, gosh. Yeah, that long COVID time was tough because I was already doing everything, you know.

And so I felt like I was doing everything. And what actually ended up helping me was this therapy called Therapeutic Plasma Exchange. So this therapeutic Plasma Exchange is complicated, something that's been done in the hospital for many years. It's been done for decades in the hospital to treat people with acute diseases. But what it basically does is we remove the blood from one IV and we separate the components into the blood cells and the plasma. All the antibodies, the antigens, the cytokines, it all lives in the plasma. So that plasma is totally separated from the blood cells. Blood cells are given back in another IV and the plasma is discarded. And why would that help with von COVID? Because all of the

immune complexes, the cytokines that lead to the long COVID symptomatology is inside the plasma. And even if you're not exchanging all of your blood, just because I assume you're not swapping out all the blood in your body. But even if you're just exchanging a little bit, that's enough to make a real difference. Yeah, yeah. But there's actually some studies out now that show that. That's so interesting. Okay. If somebody was listening and they weren't doing all the things and maybe they weren't ready to take quite that step, they wanted to try a few at home things first and they had long COVID, what would you recommend they start with?

Yeah, definitely vitamin D is something I would start off with right off the bat, some omega vitamins as well, some good fish oil supplements as well. And then doing things like, you know, heat, cold therapy as well, really stimulating a mitochondria could be helpful as well. Long COVID stuff, there's different degrees of it, different levels of, you know, how bad it could be for people. My main symptom was my heart was always racing even in nighttime, you know, and so I just took my aura ring off for a few months. I didn't want to know anymore. You know, but it's a tough one. Yeah, it's a tough one.

How do we know what supplements we should be taking? Yeah, that's such a great question. Once again, you have this bell-shaped curve to people. I always talk about the bell-shaped curve. You know what that is where there's a curve on a graph that looks like a bell? And in the middle is where most people are. And then you have the outliers, the 5% of people. So there's 5% of people that are like, I don't want to take anything, so don't even recommend supplements to me.

And then there's the other side of that, the 5% of people that are like, I've looked up with every biohacker takes, and I consolidated a list, so I want to take all of it. And I think, you know, neither one of those two groups is necessarily right. I think it's somewhere in the middle. What most people need to think about is there's a certain foundational supplements that I think most people will benefit from no matter what. And that's because all of us now live in this modern-day society where we're exposed to a lot of toxins every single day. No matter how hard we try, we don't get enough movement in, and sometimes our diet is not going to be on point. Now, if your diet is on point and you're getting enough movement, you might not need all of this. But there's a few foundational

supplements that I recommend to almost all my patients. And then there's some that if you are a person that wants to take it up to another level, I do have some recommendations there as well. Okay, so what's the base level? Okay, so the foundational supplements I like for most people's vitamin D. We always check a vitamin D level. I like for that to be somewhere between 1580. And so we go based on the level and it's always vitamin D3K2 is a form you want to take. We talked about a fish oil supplement. If you can't take fish oil, there's also vegan sources out there. Crill oil is a really good form of fish oil as well. The supplement I like for almost everybody is creatine. Creatine has a massive amount of research around it. Once you turn about 30 or something,

about five grams of creatine is good. And as you get older, about eight grams of creatine. It's a supplement I really like. And then most people don't get enough protein in their diet. some sort of protein powder, if you can take that. I also keep packets of just a greens powder around in case I didn't get enough vegetables a day before. Do you have a favorite? I just kind of switch between different ones. You know, I took AG1 for a long time. There's a lot of good greens powders out there. And those are the core foundational supplements. And like, I don't take everything every day, right? I do take a vitamin D and a fatty acid supplement every day, but like a green powder I'll take if I didn't get my salad in the day before. A protein powder I'll take if I know I'm not going to get enough protein

to that one particular time of day. It's important to spread out your protein throughout the day, by the way. So, you know, just taking a ton of protein powder in the morning and not taking any for the rest of the day is not going to work. Your body needs to take it in dosages throughout the day. And is that for satiety or is that actually because your body can only assimilate so much protein at once? Because it's for number two. Okay. Interesting. If you have headaches, allergies, brain fog, skin irritation, or you've been dealing with hormone issues, you are especially going to want to listen to this ad. Every single thing that I just listed has been linked to chemicals and household cleaners. One study found that regular use of cleaning sprays was associated

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Talk to me about the creatine. I haven't heard anybody recommend that as a foundational supplement before. What is it? What impact is it having on our body? Why are we wanting to include it? Creatine is one of the most research supplements of all time, believe it or not. There's so many papers published about it is basically a supplement that promotes muscle health, so muscle strength and muscle function, and also prevents cognitive decline as well.

I like it because most of us are not getting enough creatine in our diet. And when people take creatine, it's been shown in large research studies to preserve muscle function and preserve muscle mass and also lead to decreasing rates of Alzheimer's disease and cognitive impairment. And what's it found in naturally? Mostly like in meat. Okay. Interesting. Is it an amino acid?

Yeah. It's an amino acid. So if you take an amino acid supplement, would that have creatine in it? Or do you recommend specifically a creatine? I recommend specifically creatine. Okay. Why? Just because I don't think in an amino acid supplement you necessarily get enough creatine

because there's all the other amino acids in it, you buy creatine in like tubs and it comes in a powder form and there has a little scoop in it. There's five grams. And it's basically tasteless. So you can put it in your morning coffee. You can put in your morning smoothie. And you want to take one and a half. scoops full for the cognitive benefits. Okay. There were a few other supplements that came up that

are just very popular online. Colostrum. What are your thoughts on that? I don't have a lot of personal experience with colostrum. I've heard a lot of good things about colostrums. Obviously, a lot of people are taking it. But I still have yet to try it on myself and try it for my patients. Have you gone into the research around it at all? No, I really haven't, unfortunately. Yeah. So I wish I could talk about it. I know it's good for gut health. I wish I could talk about it more, but I have not really done a deep dive enough to feel confident to recommend it one way or the other. It's okay. It's one of my favorite things is when somebody says, I don't know, because it makes me trust them so much more on everything else they're talking about. I love Colossum.

I feel like it's made a huge difference in my allergies, particularly. And also, it's so hard to say. But I've been traveling a ton. I did this book tour, and I haven't gotten sick. And I take it almost religiously now in like, please don't get sick because I have such a busy schedule. and I take it every single day with my element too. Is it like a pill or is it a... No, it's a powder and I mix it into my element and I call it my morning macktail. It's my first thing that I drink every single day.

And I do feel like I'm like drinking it with a little prayer. Like, please don't get sick. Please, body. It's like a nice ritual for you. Yeah, it's a nice ritual. Oh, does anybody need a parasite cleanse? Yeah, people that have parasites do, but you have to be tested for it first

and make sure you have it by doing a stool test. How do we know that we should get tested for parasites and how common is it? Because the internet would lead you to believe that all of us have parasites. No, I mean, in my experience, it's very uncommon. Like, we rarely see it. But, you know, if you're having gut health issues, this is where functional medicine is really helpful because dual testing is part of a functional medicine workup. Okay. So if you suspect you have parasites, go see a gastroenterologist?

Gastroenterologist or a functional medicine doctor, yep. Okay. Don't just buy a cleanse on. online for it? No, no, no, no. Do you worry about the EMFs in things like AirPods, in wearable electronics, like an aura ring, and Wi-Fi routers? Where does that stand in terms of impacting our health? I do. I think there's reasons there's warnings on phones and things now that say, you know, watch out for the EMFs because I don't think we really know the answer. We're surrounding ourselves with EMF so much now. It's a constant barrage, right? And so we need to do some things to mitigate the amount

of EMF exposure in our life. Once again, it's a Pareto principle, right? Like when you're sleeping, you don't need your Wi-Fi on. You don't need your phone next to your head. Try to put your phone in the closet. Those are like simple things that you can do to really mitigate the amount of EMF exposure that you have. Try to talk on your phone and speak your phone held far away from you versus using AirPods if you don't have to, you know, those kind of things. Do you use AirPods or wireless headphones still? I actually do use AirPods, but only when I have to. do. Okay. I try not to. Most of the time I have it on just a speaker phone mode. Okay. But I do notice you're wearing an Apple watch. I am wearing an Apple watch. Yes. I love my Apple watch.

So that's Peretto principle. That's just like if you love it, don't cut it out. But if it doesn't matter either way to you, cut it out. Exactly. What I really worry about is like those EMS being close to my brain, you know, and that's why I really worry about things like brain tumors, etc. So holding the phone up to your ear or wireless headphones would probably be. be a big one for you. Those are the big ones for me. Okay. Red light therapy, is it effective and for what? Yes. I really like red light therapy. So one of the main effects red light has on our body is if you have it really close to your skin, it increases the amount of nitric oxide that the blood vessels produce. And that can relax your blood vessels and cause all sorts of beneficial effects, lower blood pressure, increase blood flow.

So that's one of the main mechanisms of red light therapy. There's also, an effect on the mitochondria, which are the powerhouses of your cell, where your mitochondria are stimulated to make more energy as well. So I love red light therapy for those reasons. I don't know if you know the answer to this, but I get really nervous with the red light masks about the red light getting directly into my eyeballs because I have one of those panels and it comes with little glasses you're supposed to wear when you're in front of the panel. And so I'm like, is getting it in my eyes bad? But then I've also read people saying that it's good for your eyes. What's the deal with that eye health component?

You know, we at Next Health, have an infrared bed, and so we have people in that all the time, and we always use the eye shields. I think, you know, having light really close to your eye, you have to be kind of careful, especially if it's like constant exposure. That's something that we try to mitigate against. You know, I need to talk to an ophthalmologists about that. That's a really good question. Okay. Do the oxalates and vegetables make them bad for our health? No.

I don't think so. I think a lot, some of these concerns are a little bit overblown. Like if you're trying to avoid vegetables because of oxalates and you're eating a burger from the fast food restaurant, you're focusing on the wrong things. But what if you're eating all grass-fed meat, wild caught fish, but you're avoiding vegetables because of the oxalates? Like you're actually trying to get to the bottom of this, eat your healthiest diet. Is it a problem or is it not? Well, I think avoiding vegetables completely could be a problem for most people. Our bodies are made to have vegetables, phytonutrients, fiber, et cetera.

But there are a certain number of people that oxalates can cause in some level of inflammation. And so it's nuanced and it's different for different people. And that's why we do some food sensitivity testing, trying to figure some of this stuff out. But I'm not a person that subscribes to being on just one type of food all the time. I think our bodies need the variety and need the different nutrients that different foods can provide. Do you feel similarly about lectins? Yes, exactly the same about the lectins as well. Just like, don't stress about it. Don't stress about it. Eat whole foods, you'll be okay. Exactly. Okay. There's a lot of conversation about protein online. Yeah. How much is enough? Should we be getting a lot more than the recommendations say that we should? What's your take on protein? I do think that the RDA of protein is very low. It's a minimal amount you need to survive. And that's why we see tons of people with sarcopenia, which is muscle loss in our clinics. And what I would say is yes, there is under consumption of protein that's been going on.

But I do think now is the pendulum swinging in too much of the wrong direction, you know. And so I don't think we need to force feed ourselves protein either. I try to aim for one gram per pound of body weight for people. But then if you can't get to that effectively in your diet, I love to just measure people's skeletal muscle mass and just make sure it's trending in the right direction. So we use Dexascan a lot. That scan we talked about. I also encourage people to get a scale that uses bioimpedance, which is a scale you can step on

and it sends that electrical current through your body and gives you like a skeletal muscle mass reading. Have you ever used one of those? No, you're looking surprised. No, I'm like, I had no idea that existed. Yes, there's some great scales out there that you could step on and they have like these little metal pad on your feet. And I guess show you my app later, but it tracks your skeletal muscle mass. And it's not necessarily like 100% accurate. You have to use it the same time of day.

I usually do it first thing in the morning. but it's a good trend line to see which way your skeletal muscle mass is going. And so for people that are increasing protein in their diet, we're always looking at where's your skeletal muscle mass? Is it normal for their age and what direction is it headed in over time? And so if your strength training workout and your protein is dialed in to where it's either staying stable or going up, and if we needed to go up, we need to increase protein intake, then we need to go up. But just watching that, I think, is a really good indicator because once again, everybody's different and everyone needs a different amount of protein.

So since you're actually measuring the results of people consuming protein, a lot of people on land say that plant-based protein is never really going to get you the results you want with protein. What have you seen with your patients? I disagree with that. Yes, plant-based protein is less efficient in getting you the protein that you need. And there's some amino acids that you have to eat more plants to get and you have to supplement. But some of the most muscular people I know are vegans too. And so I think it's very nuanced and is different for different people. And if you are a vegan, you definitely should look at the amount of protein you're taking in. But if you have a good muscle mass for your age and you're happy with it and it's going

up or staying stable, you're probably going to be okay. And do you think that meat is a part of a healthy diet, can be a part of a healthy diet? How do you view meat? I eat meat. I love meat, whether it be from a steak or salmon, you know, from fish. I try to eat mostly poultry or fish, but I do have a good steak every once in a while. I think where your meat comes from is extremely important. As you know, there's definitely meat that has been fed inflamed grains that is mass produced and other garbage. And whatever your cow or your fish or your chicken ate, it's the same stuff that you're eating.

So you have to be really careful where it's coming from. But do you worry about things like cholesterol with people who are consuming meat, even if it's from a really healthy source? Not really. Cholesterol, very little of it has to do with your diet. Very little of it has to do with the amount of meat that you eat as long as it's from a healthy source. I think it's a lot more has to do with things like the ultra-processed food that we're eating, the sedentary behavior, the lack of sleep. I think it has a lot more to do with that. Okay.

Let's do lymphatic massages. Are those important or helpful? I do like lymphatic massage. So before I started my journey in functional medicine, health optimization, I was a surgeon. And one of the things that we always recommended after surgery was lymphatic massage to drain the lymphatic fluids out of people that are really swollen. It helped people just heal so much faster. And your lymphatics, for the people that don't know, is whenever you're inflamed, when your white

blood cells and your immune system attacks inflamed areas, damaged areas, it brings all of that to your lymphatic system. It's like the draining system of your body. So lymphatic drainage massage helps to get rid of that stuff. And so I like lymphatic drainage. Should we be doing anything for our lymph on a regular basis like the dry brushing or the lymph massage at home? The best thing you could do for your lymphatics is to keep moving. That's the best thing you can do. What empties out your lymphatics is your muscles. So muscle contraction empties out your lymphatics. Just walking will make your lymphatics empty. Oh, I love that.

Yeah. More reasons to walk. I feel like every podcast, it comes back to like walk. Like go for a walk. Please take a walk. Well, you know, humans, we throughout evolution until the last like few hundred years, all we did was walk. We walked around all the time.

Isn't that our super trait evolutionarily is that we weren't faster, we weren't stronger, but we could just outlast. We would walk longer than our prey. And our prey would be like, oh my gosh, we've been walking forever. I'm so tired. Like, you can eat me. That's exactly right. And why do you think humans spread out all over Earth so quickly is because of the ability

just walk long distances. That's so interesting. Okay. And then let's end with should we be doing coffee enemas? No, I'm not a big believer in coffee enemas either. I use enemas for when you're constipated, and that's about it. I think your body knows what microbiome it needs to create. And your diet is a much better way to modify the microbiome of your colon than doing an enema.

And you would do that by eating more fiber, eating more diverse plants. Yes, eating more fiber, diverse plants, eating fermented foods. That's kind of my go-to. Can you leave us with just one homework assignment, something that we can do as soon as we turn off this podcast to begin to feel our best today? Ah, that's a really great question. One homework assignment. Okay. Let's talk about sleep again.

Just real quick. Okay. So the one thing tomorrow morning to do is after you wake up, first thing, don't look at your phone, get up and go outside and expose your eyes to the sunlight. If you can, expose your feet to the ground with no socks or shoes, and expose your body to a little bit of the cold air and just go outside. First thing, that's what our caveman ancestors did when they woke up in the cave. I love that. I do what I call cirque walks, and that's a circadian rhythm walk. And sometimes I do Cirque stands or Cirque Hot Tubbs or Circa cuddle my cat while I'm standing in my yard. But I do

some sort of cirque activity every single day, and it has made a huge difference in how I feel. Yeah. When you do that, it sets the rhythm of your body to the rhythm of the universe, basically, right? That's what we're meant to do is to go outside when we first wake up. And then your melatonin starts coming up 14 hours later, and then you feel sleepy at the right time. All of that just works so well. I love doing that. Every day I don't do that, I feel it in the evening, for sure. It was just in Palm Springs, I was telling you with our mutual friend, Rebecca, and she just had a baby. And I took her baby on her first circuarks. And I was like, I'm establishing your circus. Because she flew out from New York. And the baby was like adjusting the time zones. And I was like, I'm setting your circadian rhythms to the baby. And it was really satisfying. I was like, baby's first circuwalk, is Neptune. I love that. This was so lovely, Dr. Shaw. So informative, so helpful. Can you tell people a little bit about where they can find you?

Sure. Yes. So you can find me on my Instagram page at Darshan Shah. MD. I also have a website, Dr. Shaw.com. We have clinics in Los Angeles and New York and Maui called NextHealth. So that's Next-Health.com. And what can you expect to find at a place like NextHealth? So what we do at NextHealth is we call ourselves a health optimization and longevity center. So it's basically the doctor's office for the 90% of us that aren't sick yet that don't want to be part of the sick care system. What we do is we've brought all of the best technology in modern medicine to the health world, where it can help you get healthier. And so we do all the blood testing and the evaluation to make sure that things are not headed in the wrong direction. And we

sit down with you. We go over all the results. And then what we do is we provide the technology on site to optimize your health. That's amazing. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Shah. You are so welcome. This was so fun. Thank you. If you love this episode, make sure that you're following the podcast because we have an episode coming up with a world-famous registered dietitian that gets to the root of the same issues but with food. How do we cut through the noise on social media? How do we know what the best diet for our needs and goals actually is? So stay tuned for that. And if you loved this episode, if you found value in it, share it with a friend, send it on your work slack,

commit to the workout routine that we talked about in here with a buddy. sharing the podcast is 100% the best way to support it. It's how we get incredible guests. It's how we produce this amazing content for you. And it is so, so appreciated. If someone shared a link with you and you are new to the podcast, welcome. I'm so glad that you're here. If you're not following the podcast, all you have to do is go to the main podcast page on whatever platform you like to listen on. That's the one that lists all of the Lizzie podcast episodes. And you will see the word follow under the logo on Spotify. And then there's a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of that same page on Apple Podcasts. There's also a recent Apple update that's changed

things up a bit. So if you follow the podcast there, even if you have been following it for years even, go to that little button in the tap right and click turn on automatic downloads so the pod keep showing up in your feed. This way you will not miss out on any new episodes. They'll appear right in your feed every single Wednesday and every other Monday. And we have some incredible ones coming up that you do not want to miss that will change your life, change how you approach every day, just make you feel so much better, so much more empowered. Oh, I'm so excited for them.

Okay, I love you. And I will see you next week for the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast.