Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - The Lifestyle & Science of Keeping Your Cells Forever Young with Dr. Nick Bitz

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

Dr. Mindy welcomes Dr. Nick Bitts, a naturopathic physician and expert in Ayurvedic medicine. Dr. Nick delves into groundbreaking insights on longevity and anti-aging that you've never heard before. Together they explore the intersection of lifestyle, botanicals, and hacking strategies, while always emphasizing the importance of working in harmony with your body's natural processes. This eye-opening interview with Dr. Nick Bitz takes the quest for the fountain of youth to a new level, offering valuable insights into slowing down the aging process and eliminating those troublesome zombie cells. To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://www.drmindypelz.com/ep202. Go to neurohacker.com/drpelz and use code 'DRPELZ' to get 15% off Dr. Nick Bitz is a Naturopathic Physician who specializes in Ayurvedic medicine. He is a leading voice in the natural products industry and currently serves as Senior VP of Product Development at Neurohacker Collective. His areas of expertise include nootropics, anti-aging medicine, biohacking, herbology, nutrition and dietary supplements. Neurohacker Collective was founded in 2015 with the mission of creating best-in-class well-being products by employing a unique methodology for research and development based on complex systems science. This scientific approach focuses on supporting the body's ability to self-regulate, rather than overriding regulatory systems with chemicals designed to move a biomarker in a particular direction. The company began with a focus on cognitive products with the launch of its Qualia nootropic line and will continue to provide comprehensive products for overall peak performance.  Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. Please note our medical disclaimer.

On this episode of the Resetter podcast, I bring you Dr. Nick Bits. So a little bit about Dr. Nick and what you're going to hear in this conversation because I guarantee you I have never brought you a conversation around anti-aging like the one you're about to hear. So Dr. Nick is a naturopathic physician. He specializes in Arvetic medicine. Stay all the way through. Listen to his self-care because that was he really brought something.

new to his daily self-care that we also haven't talked about. He also is a leading voice in natural products in the industry of autophagy and senescent cells, which you're going to hear a lot about. And he has this brilliant mind of really looking at the intersection between lifestyle, botanicals, biohacking strategies, and how to use that all in conjunction with the body. And the body, natural flow, which hopefully you all know, I am such a fan of us working with our bodies, not trying to force our bodies to create these dramatic changes. And when it comes to anti-aging, one of my biggest concerns about the world in which we're living in right now is that so many people want to slow down the hands of time. And they're either doing it with toxins or they're

stepping into the natural space and they're overdoing their anti-aging strategies. And so what you're going to hear in this conversation is two major concepts of anti-aging that you need to know about. One is called autophagy. We have talked about autophagy when it comes to fasting. Those of you who have read Fast like a Girl have heard me speak about autophagy. we're going to dive into what the research is saying about how autophagy can slow down the production of aging cells. But then there's another part of autophagy that we haven't discussed, and it's called synolytic or sinolescence. And this, hopefully you've been hearing quite a bit about the production of zombie cells. Dr. Mark Hyman put out a book on this, a lot of the biohombs.

hacking world is talking about these zombie cells. How do we stop these zombie cells? Zombie cells are aging cells and they need to get out of your body. And if you don't find strategies on how to move them out of your body, they speed up the aging process. So what Dr. Nick is going to go through, what we talk about here is how do you move these zombie cells out of your body as quickly as possible so that you can slow down the aging process. And at the front half of the conversation, you're going to hear us talk about, well, how do we prevent the aging cells to begin with using the principles of autophagy? This was an incredible interview for me. It took my understanding of autophagy to a whole new level. And those of you that are looking

for the fountain of youth, this conversation is a must. So I'm so excited to have brought you such a thoughtful conversation around how we slow down the aging process and stop the zombie cells. Enjoy. Hey, Dr. Mindy here. And welcome to season four of the Resetter podcast. Please know that this podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking.

to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Enjoy. For starters, Dr. Nick, thank you for joining me. And welcome to the Resetter podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. It's so good to be here. Thanks. So we're going to go down a path just to fill my audience in that we haven't done before, but actually is one of the most popular concepts on all my YouTube videos, which is this idea of autophagy, senescent cells, what we now know are zombie, we call zombie cells, cells that are aging quickly. And what do we know about being able to stop the aging of these cells? So if we could start the conversation there, like what is a zombie cell? What is a senescent cell? And can we stop aging cells from multiplying? Yeah, I love this topic.

This is such an interesting area of anti-aging medicine. I think it certainly is the most interesting and potentially the most promising fields right now in the field of anti-aging medicine. So there's a lot of buzz right now online. And rightfully so, you know, you would look at all the biotech companies, the farm companies, dietary supplement companies, the health influencers, everybody's trying to get into the space right now. It's a very neat space and it's just really starting to emerge right now. It's just bubbling up. So it's early days. And so I'll caution this whole conversation by saying that. We know a lot, but there still is a lot more to learn. Yeah. So cellular senescence is one of the 12 hallmarks of aging. The word senescence comes from the Latin word cynics. That means,

to grow old. And so cell senescence then is this idea of a cell growing old. And so we've known since the 60s that cells have this ability to replicate on average about 50 times before they stop replicating. So cells are not infinite. They don't just keep reproducing. Like humans, they get to a point where they just stop reproducing. And these cells then move into the senescent phase. And that, you know, it basically is the end of the life cycle. And typically it's a normal, healthy thing. The immune system comes in, plucks these cells from the body, and you get rid of them. However, when some of the cells linger inside the body, that's what we term a zombie cell. And that's a senescent cell. And so this idea of kind of a lingering senescent cells, that is where

it really gets interesting because it has huge implications for health and it's driving the aging process. So, okay, so this is really interesting because the way I had already always looked at cellular death and growth is, let's say, a 10 cell is like the healthiest cell you could make. When that cell goes to replicate, it will replicate a 10 cell. But if it starts to become six, so it becomes like a five cell or a three cell, it can only replicate as strong as that cell is. It can only replicate that type of cell. So with these zombie cells, if a cell has got this aging process to it and a weakness, let's just call it a weak link, and our bodies can't get rid of it, does that mean that these zombie cells will keep replicating and that will speed up the aging process?

Yeah, so there's a couple ways to look at it. So there's something called replicative senescence, which is that idea that a cell will replicate 50 times, stop. replicating them moved into senescence. Okay. And then there's this idea of it's called induced senescence, which means that a cell has acquired some amount of damage. So it doesn't need to replicate 50 times and stop. It can actually replicate once. And if the body deems that cell as being damaged or problematic, it will automatically move it into senescence and to prevent further replication. So that is a beneficial property. I mean, it's important that we encourage cells to move into senescence. But the idea about how we get rid of those cells, that's the field of

seniletics. That is so interesting. Okay. So I'm always like so blown away by the intelligence of the body. And what I just heard and what you just said is that the body will like tag a cell and go, you're a senescent cell. We need or move it into the senescent state. And once it moves it into the senescent state, then the idea is the body needs to get rid of it. But the zombie cells, the body can't get rid of it. Am I understanding that right? I think you nailed it. Yeah. So we have 37 trillion cells in the body. Right. So we lose, you know, roughly 50 to 100 billion cells on a daily basis. So we're constantly turning over. Cells are turning over. And every cell, every tissue has a different rate of turnover. And so we know that for a

example, brain cells, neurons, they don't turn over. You have one set of neurons for your entire life. That idea is starting to evolve a little bit, and we're understanding this idea of neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. And, you know, we're getting into that field. And so it's possible that we can regenerate neurons. But you have one set of neurons. When you look at cells within the GI track, for example, they tend to turn over every seven days. You know, red blood cells, turn over every 120 days. And so every cell in the body has its own internal clock. And so these cells are constantly turning over, which is amazing. And so when those cells turn over, they basically move into senescence and then they go through this, it's called apoptosis. Right. So the immune

system plucks them from the body or they go through apoptosis, which is this idea of self-destruction. Right. It's kind of like cell suicide. Yeah. And so that's, that's, that's, these senescent cells have these proteins that can actually evade apoptosis. They create almost like a shield so then the body doesn't go through apoptosis and then they linger. And so that's the mechanism of action that we've identified. And because we've identified that, we know how to undercut those cells and how to eliminate them to the body. Okay. So the first logical question that I have would be, is there a way to avoid a cell from going in? into a senescent state, or is that naturally going to happen as we age?

Yeah, I mean, there are things that you can do. And I know you've talked about autophagy a lot on your show. Yeah. Atophagy is really the way that we prevent senescence. It's antisenessence. Autophagy is the repair mechanism of the body of cells. So anytime there's damage, a cell can generally repair itself so that it moves from, you know, maybe a five cell back up to maybe an eight or a nine cell. And so that's that idea of atophagy. And autophagy is critical to cell health. However, we know that in certain instances, you can have disabled autophagy. So your autophagy just isn't as strong. Yeah. Yeah. So, but there's ways to undercut that there's a way to promote

autophagy. As you know, fasting is one way, whether you're doing a complete fast, a water fast, whether you're doing a low calorie fast. Those tend to promote the atophagy. mechanisms of the body. And so that is the best way to undercut it. We know that exercise, as an example, is in part, promotes autophagy, but it's in part it's senilitic as well. And so it helps the body just prime itself to get rid of these senescent cells in a very efficient manner. So there's two parts to this getting at the zombie cells. One is stop creating zombie cells, which is what autophagy can do. And then the other part is make sure that that once it turns into a senescent cell, that the body goes into this apoptosis and gets rid of it.

Is that correct? Correct. Yes, that is correct. So when we look at autophagy, something you said that's really interesting, and I want to highlight this because I don't think most people realize that the autophagy inside a cell can be turned off. And like COVID virus, what I had learned was it actually was shutting off autophagy. Do all viruses do that, or was that just unique to COVID? My understanding is that it's fairly unique to COVID. I think there's a subset of viruses that have that tendency overall,

but I wouldn't say that's a property of all viruses per se. And this idea of disabled autophagy, it's new to the hallmarks of aging. And so the hallmarks of aging, very interesting topic, I think. It's this model of these separate ideas, separate but related ideas that drive the aging process. And we started with nine hallmarks. And just recently in January of 2023, we added three more. Wow. So autophagy was one.

Disbiosis, which is that imbalance of microbes in the body. And then inflammation is another one. And so now we have this really kind of clear picture of these 12 mechanisms that are driving the aging process. And so disabled autophagy is one of those. Yeah. And so we know that if you have disabled autophagy, if you're not able to repair, a cell then can move into various states of dysfunction, and cellular senescence is one of those states.

And what are the other nine, just out of curiosity, hallmarks? Do you know? Yeah, absolutely. So the main ones, the primary drivers are genetic instability, so damage to the DNA. Pellomere attrition, which is kind of the caps that protect DNA, that shorten every time a cell replicates. You have loss of proteostasis, which is the really like the quality of protein. inside cells that decrease as we age. You have the disabled autophagy, which I mentioned. Cells also lose their ability to sense nutrients, so whether or not they need more or less. So deregulated nutrient sensing. Mitochondrial dysfunction is another one. Stem cell exhaustion, another one. There's a change in intercellular communication is another one. And then I've mentioned cellular senescence,

chronic information and gut dysbiosis. And what I hear when you list those 12 out is building a fasting lifestyle is going to help you with all 12 of those. It's a really interesting, the way you said it, I think this is why people are so attracted to fasting because it really has an impact to make a difference in all 12 of those. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it really undercuts the primary drivers, namely the disabled autophagy that we talked about, the telemaritrition. It gets in there. And if there's no damage to the cell, then you actually

don't have this expression of aging over time, which is cool. Yeah. So when we look at how we can trigger autophagy, we know fasting. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but in the research that I've seen, fasting is one of the best ways to stimulate autophagy that we know. Would you agree with that? 100%. Yes. And then the second thing is exercise. So in my research, it has to, to be like high intensity exercise. This isn't just going for a walk. There needs to be an aerobic stress to it. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I think it's more of the Goldilock principle. Oh, tell me what you obviously don't want too much, but you don't want too little. And so there's a right amount of exercise. And so it's critical to find that balance for you. We know that, you know,

these ultra athletes that are running marathons, you know, several times per year, they have lowered immune function. Yeah. And so it's critically important. We know that the immune system is susceptible to senescence itself. And so these immune cells can become less functional over time because they move from an active state into that senescent state, especially in folks that do way too much exercise. Yeah. So with that said, it is important to have some cardio, some movement. I think that that's critical. But again, not too little, not too much. Got it. Okay. And then sleep. Sleep is a form of autophagy, correct? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's when your body really kicks in the autophagy processes to repair itself. Yeah. So the way my brain thinks about this is that if you want to slow down

the accumulation of these zombie cells, you want to fast, you want to have a good balance of stressful and recovery exercise and you want to sleep and prioritize sleep. Anything else I'm missing, and what do you think of things like supplements you can take that will affect autophagy? Yeah, in terms of preventing the body from getting there, another area of research right now is this idea of telomere support. And so there's a way to really make sure that your telomeres stay healthy and strong for as long as you live, rather than letting them shorten over time and then move into semescence. And so there are things, too, that you can do there. sleeping exercise, of course, critically important for maintaining telomeres. We know that selenium in KU10, they do a good job of preserving telomere length over time. There is an ingredient that's

widely used by physicians as well as just in the dietary supplement space. It's called TA-65, and that's an astragalus extract that has some good research for its telomeres activity, which is, I think, really interesting. We know that the Blue Zone, regions of the world tend to have longer telomeres overall. And so some of those diets, in particular the Mediterranean diet, seems to be very beneficial for maintaining telomeres as well. Yeah, we were just watching, are you watching the Blue Zone series on Netflix? Of course. I've seen the first three episodes. So good. Everybody needs to watch it. And it's so interesting that, and this is why I point this

out is that I think in the anti-aging movement right now, there's this desire to get the next best thing. But when you actually look at putting all the things together, there's a lifestyle that comes together that creates longevity. And if we look at longevity as a one-off or needing to be incredibly expensive, then we've lost our path and with what the human body wants. There is a lifestyle that needs to come together. Would you agree? Yeah. I, you know, I promote a return to nature. And I know everybody's really excited about technology, but I am a naturalist, you know, like really focusing on the fundamentals. You know, I was for a short time very involved in the biohacking community and measuring everything and using all of this technology. And it was working for sure.

but I think I was getting more benefit by doing less, you know, by focusing on sleep, focusing on a clean diet, stress management, you know, sun exposure, as Huberman talks about, first thing in the morning, you know, really the basic things. And so today, that's what I do. I focus on the basics first. And so return to nature, I think, is more important than embracing technology and looking for what's next. Yeah. Before we move into how do we get rid of these senescent cells once they've been created. I don't want to leave, before we leave atopathy, I'm curious what you think of things like spermodyn. Like spermidine has had some really interesting research on it. And I just heard a woman lecture on it in Europe. And she was saying that like

she's noticing her gray hairs are changing by taking spermidine. So I'm curious your thoughts there. Yeah, I don't see any downside to doing spermidine. We're starting to see it pop up in a lot of anti-aging supplements right now. I mean, it works at a very low dose, just a couple milligrams per day. But it is a stress molecule, a very old molecule that the body knows how to use and is used for hundreds of not thousands of years. And so I think that is a really important molecule that we're just scratching the surface of right now. You know, one of the things that I love is that it just trains immunity. So the more that you take it, it kind of gradually just builds your immune system over time. Yeah. But I could see it working at

really all levels. We know that it is specific for autophagy as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So now, is there a way, now that we've addressed autophagy, you're going to get senescent cells even if you apply everything that we just said, correct? Everybody's accumulating senescent cells since the moment they were born. Right. So it's inevitable. With that said, there seems to be a point where, and they call it kind of the threshold theory, but there's a point in aging, usually after the age of 40, where the rate of accumulation far outpaces the rate of elimination. And so up until about the age of 40, we can pretty readily get rid of these senescent cells. And mostly because we have very strong, robust immune systems. Generally, after the age of 40, we'd lose that robustness

and we lose some of that cellular intelligence. So cells tend to accumulate over time. And so So that's when we start seeing these problems with cellular senescence, usually after the age of 40. So we know that the rate of accumulation is enormous, and it's directly, and it's inversely proportional to the function of our tissues as we age. And so when a cell moves into the senescent state, this is what we're calling a zombie cell, is it's already moved into that state, just because that's a popular term right now. Yes. And just to elaborate on that idea a little bit more. And so when a cell becomes senescent, it essentially

lingers inside a tissue. So it's taking up space that otherwise healthy cells would be taken up, right? So that tissue loses both structure and function over time. But these senescent cells are called zombie cells because they secrete these compounds called sasp factors. And their senescence-associated phenotype compounds that are inflammatory in nature. And so these cells, these SAS factors can really infect or influence all of the cells that surround them within that microenvironment of the tissue. We also are finding out that these SAS factors get lodged systemally. And so they move through the circulatory system and they impact tissues and cells throughout

the entire body. So these senescent cells are creating this low-grade inflammation over time as we age. and they're really driving a lot of the inflammatory processes that we see as we age. And so that is that kind of that zombie idea. So it's infecting otherwise healthy cells and turning them into senescent cells. And so you really only need a couple senescent cells to, quote, unquote, infect other healthy cells around that senescent cell. Well, that sucks.

That's that. They don't just stay to themselves. They actually go and like recruit and destroy. other ones? They're like a, they're like a person who's a negative thinker and then they go out and like get everybody else to start complaining and become a negative thinker. That's right. Okay. Now, is there a way to measure how many senescent cells we have in our body? There's not. So there's not a predictable or reliable biomarker presently. So there's a lot of work being done right now. With that said, there is a way, but it's not very practical. It's not very

usable. It's not very repeatable. We can do biopsies of tissue. And so there are a few studies using some natural ingredients before and after a regimen of doing muscle biopsies, which is so fascinating. I don't know how you recruit anybody to say, yeah, we're going to do a muscle biopsy before this regimen as well as after. Are you in? I don't know. I certainly wouldn't raise my hand and say, yeah, that sounds cool. You couldn't even pay me to do that. But so that is a very direct measure. But again, not super user-friendly. So I don't think that's going to be usable moving forward. We do know that senesence cells do secrete certain compounds. Beta galactosose is one of them. And so we can actually measure that in the body. But we're trying to figure out if that's a reliable biomarker or

not. And as of today, it's considered not the most validated biomarker that we can find. Could you look at something like CRP in your blood work and just say, well, if CRP is high, inflammation's high. So therefore, if inflammation's high, I know I've got more senescent zombie cells. Yeah, it's not a direct measure. It certainly is correlative. And I know we are running studies on one of our senolytic products looking at CRP, looking at inflammatory markers to determine, does it actually shift that marker in the body? We suspect that, yes, Yes, it will, but there's a lot of things that can shift that marker. It's not specific only to senescent cells.

And are there symptoms that people could look at knowing that, hey, you may have a few more of these zombie cells, like if you scratch yourself and it doesn't heal very quickly? Or you get a cold and it just lingers or you have joint pain. Are there things that we would say, hey, you're probably accumulating a lot of zombie cells right now? I mean, there's really no tissue in the body that's untouched by senescent cells. And there's no reliable way to say, Mindy, I know exactly where these senescent cells are going to lodge in your body versus mine. There is a lot of individuality, and we're trying to tease that apart to understand why certain people accumulate senescent cells in joints, where others might accumulate them in skin. But there literally is no tissue in the body that's unaffected by

senescent cells, especially late in life. And so I think when you talk about symptoms or signs that can show up, it's really individual. We know that they can impact the lungs. They can impact the kidneys, the heart, the brain, the skin, the joint, literally every tissue in the body. Everything, yeah. So, yeah, you know, I would say what we find to be the most predictable cells or tissues that do get infected with senescent cells are joints, number one, the immune cells. number two, and then skin cells, just because it's so visible. And we find that when people start doing senolytics, they actually see changes in their skin as well. I was talking to a spermodyne expert a couple of weeks ago, and she was saying how many cultures use gray hair and skin as a marker

of how quickly they are aging. And I will tell you something really fascinating that has happened to me is as I go out into the world and I've been traveling a lot, when I'm out traveling off my normal schedule, eating foods I wouldn't normally eat, I can see all the gray hairs start to come in around my headline and my hair line and my forehead. And then I come home. I start fasting more. I go back to all my good biohacks and routines. And you can see literally that the hair growing in now is dark again. Like my gray hair has become a measurement of how my lifestyle. working for me. And I don't think we give that enough credit, right? We really don't. I love that measure. And it's interesting when you get into hair health, the science isn't very clear. We don't actually

know why. But I think from a clinical perspective, that makes a lot of sense. My background's in Ayurveda. And Ierveda always says that gray hair is the result of too much fire. So that pitta element. And so if you have a healthy balance of pita, especially if you're a pita or a fire body type, you can actually maintain normal color of hair. But if your pita gets out of control too much fire to wrong lifestyle, traveling, food, whatever it might be, that's when you see this uptick in gray hair as it is. And then you have to ask, like, well, what about the person who gets gray hair at 30? Like, does that mean, I mean, there's a lot of vibrant you know, healthy, good-looking people with a full head of gray hair. And I can't imagine that they

have more zombie cells than me. I think you would just probably have to measure you against you. Would you think that would be the case? I would think that's absolutely the case. Yeah, I don't think you can make generalizations about that. But that's one reason I don't color my hair because I actually want to see those gray hair showing up and going away so I can really know if my lifestyle is working for me or not. And we see this even in our fasting group on Facebook. The number of people that show how the root of a hair becomes dark, the more they fast, and they build a fasting lifestyle, and the tip is gray. The first time we saw it, we were blown away, but now, I mean, there's 80,000 people in this Facebook group, and it's crazy how many people

post pictures of the hair changes with fasting. I believe it. I absolutely believe it. It. If that is not an advertisement for the reasons why you should fast, I don't know what is. Exactly, exactly. That's funny. So, okay, now let's go to this idea because what I'm hoping people are gathering is I'm trying to walk us through the process of this cell. So we can lean into fasting and we can lean into sleep and exercise. And we've talked about to make sure the cell stays healthy. But inevitably, it's going to become a senescent cell.

At some point, we will accumulate. But then what I just heard from you earlier on is now we need to make sure the body can get rid of that. senescent cell. And it's when it doesn't get rid of it, that aging starts to speed up. So what is that correct? And what can we do to speed up the exiting of the zombie cells? Yeah. So enter senolytics. And this is really where all the buzz is right now in terms of biotech farm, dietary supplement, this idea of it. What is a senolicic? So a Cynolytic is any substance that destroys a senescent cell in the body. And there's various compounds. There are drugs that do it and there are natural compounds. There are compounds found in our

diet. There are compounds found in botanicals. But we're learning more and more about what is potentially a senelitic substance. And this whole area just blew up in 2015. There was one study that came out by the Scripps Institute and the Mayo Clinic that showed that a simple combination of the satinib and quercidin had very powerful senilitic effects. And this was the first time. The researchers from that study actually coined the term senilitic to really describe this newfound compound. And they found that by giving these compounds to mice, it did two things. It decreased the senescent cell burden within those mice. And it provided really amazing functional benefits, which, again, is the most important thing, right? You need to have some broad,

outcome and positive benefit or else, why are you doing it? Yeah. And they saw that it improved frailty, it improved bone health, it improved cardiac function, it improved the health span of these mice, it improved the lifespan. And so these researchers were super excited. And so this was really, I would say, revolutionary in the field of anti-aging. It was the first time that this idea was really validated. And so from this, I think this really opened the door to, you know, more research into synolytics. And it's just been fascinating ever since.

So a senilitic compound has the ability to destroy the zombie cell. It's a, you're looking at it like a noun, not a verb. I think it's both. Yeah, it could be.

Yeah, I think it's both. So yes, they destroy it, but how they destroy it is important. These substances go in they interfere with certain pro-survivible pathways that these senescent cells have upregulated over time. And it's only these lingering senescent cells that upregulate these certain proteins. Right. And so these senescent cells are very, I'm sorry, these synolytics are very selective about what cells are being impacted by this function. So they don't impact healthy cells.

They don't impact any tissues in the body. So they're incredibly safe because they're targeting senescent cells and they're disrupting this one pathway that is preventing that senescent cell from moving into apoptosis. And so by disrupting those proteins, the cell then is able to move into apoptosis, self-destruct, and basically get its parts get recycled by all of the other neighboring cells, a stem cell, a useful stem cell moves in and you get more useful function of that tissue because it's being replaced by this brand. new stem cell. Are there certain foods we can eat that have this synolytic capability to it? Well, so we know Quercidin, right? Quircidin is sound everywhere in the diet. That one of the best

sources is in yellow onions. It is that yellow flavonoid compound. However, there was a study in 2018 that looked at a panel of flavonoids. So they were testing the senyytic activity of these different flavonoids and trying to figure out which ones were the most powerful. And of course, they looked at quercetin, they looked at curcumin from turmeric. They looked at Lodiolan, they looked at EGCG from green tea. But they also looked at this compound called fysotin. And fysotin is endlessly fascinating. It's worth a Google. Check it out. But this study basically identified fysotin as the most powerful cinolytic substance that we know of. And fysotin, is found in the diet.

We do know that we consume about 0.4 milligrams of fisotin on a daily basis. You know, fisotin is a yellow flavonoid. It comes from strawberries, apples, grapes, cucumbers. A lot of fruits and vegetables have this yellow pigmented flavonoid. But the issue is that you're not getting the right amount. So 0.4 milligrams per day is a very small amount. And the studies now on fysotin are using a much, bigger dose. They found that you need 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight in order to get that

that big senolytic effect. And so that equates to about 1,400 milligrams of pure phycinetin in order to have that effect. So yes, you can get it from the diet for sure. But you, then my brain goes to, well, then we still have the two major obstacles when it comes to getting nutrients from food. One is what soil was it, was it grown in? and two, what kind of gut dysbiosis do you have? And if those two things are off, you could eat all the yellow onions in the world, and you're still not going to get enough of that compound. You're spot on, yes. And we know that our oil, our soil is deficient, a lot of minerals and compounds that really help to drive the nutrient compound of the foods that we're eating.

And most people are dysbiotic. They have some disruption in their micro, microbiome, and flasinoids by and large are hard to absorb. They have low bioavailability. They generally don't get into the bloodstream very readily unless you have the ability to break them down, ferment them in the GI track. And so your microbiome is critically important here. It's part of the equation in terms of how we use these compounds. And if you don't have the right bacteria, you're not using these compounds in the right way. Yeah. And that's where that's where the whole thing starts to unravel because when you look at what destroys the microbiome, you start to go, oh my gosh, all of us have some form of gut dysbiosis if we're living in this modern world, which is why,

again, I'm back at building a fasting lifestyle. And then when you add food back in, you're adding the fermented foods. You're adding the prebiotic, probiotic, a rich food so that you can keep supporting those bacteria because the minute you eat out, you're starting to get some destruction of that bacteria. So it's really sad. Yeah, I agree. And fasting is a great reset because it gives you a moment to rethink all of your habits and definitely your daily input to make sure that you're optimizing the microbiome. And you can shift the microbiome drastically in a very short amount of time. And studies show that it takes generally about three days, have significant shifts in the microbiome. And so fasting alone pushes reset, you know, you increase the migrating motor complex,

which helps the body just flush some of the bacteria and food and kind of, you know, it's a drastic reset, which is great. But then what you put in next is critically important. You need to make sure that you're getting a very diverse, well-rounded diet because you're feeding those bacteria. And if you're not feeding the bacteria what they want, those bacteria don't thrive and then they go extinct. And so we know that hunter and gatherers have, you know, roughly 700, 800 different strains of bacteria in their gut. And living in California, we have about 200 strains. And so we're missing a large part of our microbiome that we've evolved with over time just through living in the modern world. And so it's important to create diversity through a diverse die. Yeah. So going back to this

idea of getting rid of these zombie cells. So, you know, I hope again that everybody's seen this in a formula, because that's the way I'm seeing it, is let's slow down the production of it, and now let's make sure our body can get rid of them and move them into apoptosis. So if we can't get it through food, I mean, we can, but you're going to have to eat a lot of it. You all have come up with a really cool supplement that I've never seen be so simple, and you take so infrequently. So can you talk a little bit about Cynoletics and what you created? Because I really want people to know this as a resource because you made it so easy for people. Yeah, I love this product. You know, I've been taking it now for months, one time per month as a quote unquote cellular detox. Yeah. It's a blend of nine botanical extracts. So it's completely natural. And seven of those are proven in terms of their mechanism. We know exactly how they work. Two of a very them are new, we've introduced them based upon their mechanism of action in the body and how we know

that they can disrupt those scat networks, those upregulated protein profiles that senescent cells express in order to reinstate apoptosis, as it were. And so it's a really interesting blend. When you look at the pills, they clow yellow because they are just rich in these polyphenols, especially fysitin, which I've talked about at that therapeutic dose, which is 1,400 milligrams. And when you get into senolytics and you get into the studies and what's being done at the clinical level, it's very interesting because these substances aren't consumed continuously. They're not designed to be used every single day to make sure that you're just hitting those senescent cells day after day. There's this idea. It's called the hit and run strategy.

And so the great majority of studies that have been successful today, they use intermittent dosing, which is to say that they do this very, short-term protocol, and then they push pause. They give the body a chance to rest, recover. And so that is the most successful regimen that we know of when it comes to Cinalytics. And so you do infrequent, periodic dosing, hit the body hard, and then stop, let it relax, do what it needs to do. And so this product is, it's just two days per month, very easy to do. It's not a big ask. You know, people can do this on top of any other substance. supplements that they're presently doing, and you do six pills on day one, six pills on day two, followed by at least four weeks break. And then generally speaking, I will say you can actually

gap that by more if you want. You can do it every single month, but depending on your age and your need and your health status, you certainly can space that out so that you're focusing on a seasonal regimen, you know, once every three months, or maybe just doing it one time per year, just do this cellular detox every spring one time for two days. So it's fascinating. It's really fascinating. Honestly, the first time I heard about this product, I was like, wait, you only do it two days out of the month. Like, how can that work? And then we've been testing it within our community and it's been really easy to do, like you said, but the changes are profound. There doesn't appear to be a lot of detox symptoms, which is always a concern that I have when we start moving

things that are not good in the body. You want to move them out. And again, we're back at people noticing better energy. We're back at the gray hair. We got some feedback. The gray hair change, skin changes. I don't know what else your community is seeing, but in our reset academy, as we have laid this out and brought it to our community, the results have so far been pretty amazing very quickly within a month or two. Yeah, and we see a few products that are out there in the marketplace that maybe have one ingredient, which is fine. But we wanted to take a very thoughtful approach here. And we know that senescent cells are heterogeneous, meaning like they're not all the same. And so they're wildly diverse. They express different proteins that turn off apoptosis. And so there's no one thing that will touch all the senescent cells in the body. And so it's important to have multiple ingress. ingredients when you're doing that short-term dosing to target the widest network that can in the body. So that's number one.

Cynalyics are also not equally active in all tissues. And we know this. This is a blend of botanicals, right? And we know that botanicals tend to have some specificity for tissues. You know, we know that ginko, as an example, has an affinity for the brain. We know that bilberry has an affinity for the eyes, Hawthorneberry for the heart. milk thistle for the liver, I mean, on and on and on and on. And so that is a fundamental idea of botanical medicine is that they have this affinity for different organs. And so it's important

then that you're giving multiple ingredients so that you're hitting more tissues throughout the body. And so that's why we've combined these nine together to create a unique formulation. And I will say what excites me the most is the fysotin. I mean, we're giving that 1,400 milligram dose When you go on to clinical trials.gov and you look at the studies that are using fysotin, the great majority of them are using that 1,400 milligram dose. And they're doing that intermittent two-day protocol. So we're deeply aligned with what's happening in the clinical space right now. And that break, I just want to say for everything, you know, I think in the health movement,

we'll just call it in the biohacking movement, what's happened is that when we find something that seems to be like this incredible tool for giving us energy, better mental clarity, you know, all the things that we're going for make us happy, we're like, oh, if a little bit's good, a lot's better. But the more we, I study the human body, the more respect I have in how the body wants to always come back to balance. And if we keep throwing more of the good stuff at it, you actually now tip it. out of balance. And so that was probably the most impressive thing when I heard about your synolytic product was like you take it two days and then what you're, I want everybody to understand is you are honoring then that the body knows what it needs to do. And that is the deepest form of respect and love you can give the human body instead of just throwing everything at it hoping that it'll do what you want it to do. Yeah. I mean, the Costco mentality is, is widespread throughout the American mindset, which is funny. I mean, even if you get into,

as an example, the probiotic space. Oh, yeah, probiotics. Great example. Great. Go ahead. It started with like, you know, one billion CFU. And now all the products are like a hundred billion, you know, and it's like this big marketing point. And the studies show that it's actually doing harm at that dose. You're not getting the benefits that you want. And so it's all about balance. It's that Goldilock principle that we talked about, you know, and this idea of hormesis, you know, more is not better, too little is not better. You got to find that sweet spot, which is right in the middle. And you've got to honor the body's innate intelligence, not override that.

And so I love that the whole field of seniletics right now honors that. And that's the idea because it makes a lot of sense. It's amazing. You know, in Fast Like a Girl, it's been really interesting to watch the changes that women are getting. And it's been a lot of comments of like, I finally was able to lose weight. We've had so, women getting their cycle back. We've had women getting pregnant who couldn't get pregnant. And it's the same principle we're talking about. Fasting was this incredible tool, but then the whole world took it to an extreme. And it started to damage women. And I would say the

same thing was as we learn about these zombie cells, let's all keep in mind that the goal isn't, as many as we can, get rid of them as aggressively as we can, but to really honor that the body just needs some assistance sometimes, and then you just back out. And now the, you know, the body can handle it on its own. One question that did come up in our community is, is there matter a time a day you take this analytic product or does it matter if you're doing it in a fasted state or not? Would you get an amplified effect if you do it when you're already in a state of autophagy? You can use Cynoletics at any time of day with or without food. I personally have been using it on a weekend, first thing in the morning, before I consume food.

I haven't seen too much digestive complaints from individuals using the protocol, but anytime you use botanicals, that's always a risk. And so clinically, if I'm given out a botanical and it, it does create some kind of digestive complaints. I would say just take it with food. So the efficacy is not going to change one way or another. It's just find the time that works for you and use the product. Yeah. Yeah, it's almost so simple you could discredit it. I agree.

It sounds far-fetched. Yeah. It really does. It does. But it's mind-bending, you know. And you did ask, you know, what are we seeing as a company from our community? I mean, we're at the center of a large biohacking community. and we have people that are trying things out, including our products, and we get a lot of

input from them. You know, we did run a couple studies to date. We run studies on all of our products before we go to launch, just to look at tolerability, efficacy, just to make sure that it's providing the benefits that we're claiming on the product. And again, to our conversation earlier, there is no biomarker. You know, we can't do a blood test before and after, unfortunately. But there's ways to test outcomes. And we know that joint health is probably the number one outcome that people experience,

especially the older that they are. And so we studied it in 12, I'm sorry, 19 individuals. We did three different cycles. And we gapped it. We kind of shortened the gap between the sessions. So we did every two weeks for three cycles. And we use what's called WOMAC. It's kind of the most validated test for arthritis testing.

And we found that we saw a 50% reduction in joint stiffness and joint comfort. Wow. And so it was pretty profound in terms of the benefit it had on joints in particular. The second study that we ran was looking at, it's called the SF-36, which is basically this quality of life questionnaire. And it was amazing what we saw. We did see benefit from the physical symptoms that people were noting. But the greatest improvements were around emotional health.

and psychological wellness, vitality, things that you wouldn't really associate with a very physical protocol, like a scenalytic. And so I would say the range is big. I know I personally notice a shift in brain fog. There just seems to be a clearing, which has been very pleasant and very nice, because, again, the cells that are around the neurons in the brain, they can become senescent over time and lead to a lot of different cognitive imbalances. It's well. I'm so grateful you created this product and I'm so grateful you created it in the cadence that of two days a month because you know after a while when you're dedicated to your health there's only so many supplements you can take and I'm such a fan of lifestyle start with lifestyle supplement in and out and this just

works perfectly with that before I launch into my last question how do people find this product and we'll leave links at the bottom but if you want to try it out again you know the proof is is in the product. So I would encourage you all to try it. So where can people get this product? And I think you guys have a discount code for us. Yeah, that's right. Neurohacker.com slash Dr. Pels is the best place to find product. And we are offering 15% off all Qualia products presently. Beautiful. Appreciate that. We sell all qualia products there. It's called Qualia Cinalytic. There's a ton of information on the website. we are an education-first company. So we write up monographs for all of the ingredients that we use.

We create blogs that really line up, like our thought process, about how we formulate products. And so for Cenolytic, no different. There's a lot of information there about the science, as well as the thinking that went into the formulation. And then beyond our website, we do have a podcast called Collective Insights where we have some really interesting conversations there, and we're found in all the social media platforms as well.

Awesome. And we'll leave links in the show notes here. So with that, we're going to take a totally different turn in this conversation because this year, I've been really focusing on people's self-love habits. And I've been really wanting people to amplify their superpowers. So tell me, do you have a daily self-love practice? And what do you think your superpower is that you bring to the world? Wow, those are great questions. I would say my morning routine in general is my act of self-love. I do oil therapies every morning, and this has been something I've been doing for years. I know my 10-year-old daughter makes fun of me because she gets ready in about two minutes flat, and I take about 30 minutes. You know, I take my time every morning, and I like to, you know, walk into my mornings very slowly, very mindfully. And I

And I like having a regimen doing the same things that I know are promoting health. And so the oil therapies that I do are really twofold. The first one is an Ayurvedic oil massage called Abiyonga. And Abiyonga is a Sanskrit term. It just means self-massage. It's traditional to Ayurveda. They recommend doing it every single day. It's typically done before you get into a shower.

You start at the head and you move all the way down to the, feet and then you pay special attention to the feet because they are the gateway to the energy channels that are known as Notties. That really facilitate the energy flow throughout the body. And of course, we know that there's specific pressure points on the feet, too, that have relationship to various organs and systems in the body as well. And so, Abiyama... Yeah, what type of oil do you use? Yeah. So you should always use body type appropriate oil. So Iervaida is always personalized. The first step in any Ayurvedic regimen is figuring out your dosha or your body type. And so for me, I use sesame oil, which is great. It's really oily. It's very heating. It's very nourishing. So it's fantastic for my Vata.

There are two other oils that are recommended. If you're a pita, kind of the fire element, coconut oil is recommended. And then if you're a kaffa, which is like the heavier set, big bone individual, they recommend a mustard seed oil. And so, beautiful, generally speaking, sesame oil is good for most people. So when people ask me what to use, I generally will recommend starting there. And you can read about it online. There's a lot of videos about how to do that. And additionally, I've started doing oil pulling. Oh, yeah, I love oil pulling. In the mouth, yeah. And so for that too, I use sesame oil, the same oil that I use for the body. I swish it around in my mouth for 15 minutes and it's just amazing.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I love that. That was really good. Okay. And then what's your superpower? My superpower, wow, I would say equanimity. I have been a longtime meditator in the Vapasana Buddhist tradition. And it's all geared around building equanimity in the mind. That kind of even killed mindfulness, where you aren't reacting to everything. And it's not always there. I feel like I'm strengthening that element, almost like a muscle on a daily basis, and I'm getting better. But I'm able to sink into that even killed state and not react so violently over time. And so I think that's probably my superhero power at this stage. Well, we need more humans that are not reactive on this planet. So, you know, I think we should all follow your lead because compassion can happen when we

take a moment to pause and not react. So that was so beautiful. Dr. Nick, I've loved this conversation. I really geek out on autophagy and you just helped me sort of expand it into a whole other level. So thank you for everything you guys are doing. And any last words that you would encourage people that are looking to turn back the hands of time? Yeah, I mean, I would recommend aligning yourself with products that are tried and true. Don't use everything under the sun. Yes. I would say that not all products are designed equally.

Not all brands are designed equally. But do tried products. I do think that dietary supplementation can be incredibly beneficial for your mind and body. Start using them on a daily basis. Use your body as a laboratory. figure out what works best for you. Align yourself with an adaptogen. Find one that works for you that's right for your body type,

whether that's Ashwaganda or Rodiola or Ginzing or Chattavari, which is a fantastic botanical for women. Use these on a daily basis to really just buffer the effects of aging over time. Yeah, I love it. Well, thank you. Appreciate you. And I can't wait to talk to you again. So we'll figure out when we can do this again.

This was wonderful. I appreciate you. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. Uh-huh. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.