The School of Greatness - 772 How to Live a Long Life with Dr. Steven Gundry

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

DIE YOUNG AT AN OLD AGE. How many fad diets have you tried? There’s a reason that they don’t work. Health and diet are not one-size-fits-all. We all have a special set of genes that tell us what foods we need. But it’s more than your genes. Doctor’s will ask you if you have a history of a disease in your family. That’s because you not only share the same genetic make-up, you probably eat the same way. It’s a combination of the two that will determine your health. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk about the secret to longevity with one of the world’s top health experts: Dr. Steven Grundy.

This is episode number 772 with New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Stephen Gundry. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. The Buddha said, to keep the body in good health is a duty. Otherwise, we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. Welcome to this episode.

We've got Dr. Stephen Gundry back on the podcast. He came on about a year and a half ago, and his interview took over the internet. Over a million views on the video on YouTube, and the audio just continues to thrive. It's been crazy the amount of comments and engagement that this has taken on, so we decided to bring him back. His last book, The Plant Paradox, I think was on the New York Times bestseller list for over 30 weeks. It's taken over the world and it's transformed so many people's lives. We have a new book on, which is all about how to live a longer life. And if you want to live longer, if you want to learn the secrets, the keys, he really breaks down five main principles.

If you could do five key things to help you live longer and healthier, he breaks them all down. And a few of these things, I really had no clue that this was even part of the human makeup to help us extend life. But when he talked about it, it made a lot of sense. So make sure to dive into this. And for those that don't know who Dr. Steven Gundry is, he's a doctor and best-selling author. He's a former cardiac surgeon who did close to 10,000 heart surgeries. And he currently owns his own clinic. He is constantly looking to improve the health and lives of others. We talk about his story a little bit in here, but he's been transforming the lives of so

many people for many years. And in this interview, we talk about how eating the same food as your parents can result in the same health issues and disease, not necessarily your DNA. Also, the importance of oral health to prevent most of the diseases we get. Most people aren't aware of this. The importance of olive oil, vitamin D3, and fish oil to live a longer life and what you really need for your body and how organic vegetables are better for you

even though they may not look as polished as other vegetables. That and so much more. We dive into a lot of things in this interview. Make sure to share this with your friends, all about how to live a longer, healthier life. If you want the fountain of youth, this is it. And make sure to share with your friends, lewishouse.com slash 77. Big thank you to our sponsors. And without further ado,

let's dive into this episode with the one, the only Dr. Gundry. Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got the legendary Dr. Stephen Gundry in the house. My man, good to see you. Pleasure to see you again. Glad you're back on. The last interview we did blew up on the internet. I'm sorry.

Yeah, I know, in a good way. Oh, shoot. In a good way. The Plant Paradox has been a massive New York Times bestselling book. How many times on the list? How many weeks? I think it was 34 weeks. 34?

Yeah, 34 weeks. Wow. How many times on the list? How many weeks? I think it was 34 weeks. 34? Yeah, 34 weeks. And then the subsequent books, cookbook was on 14 weeks, something like that. And the other one joined the list as well. That's incredible. 34 weeks in a row or did it kind of like go off? It actually went off for two weeks and then hopped right back on. It was kind of funny. And then it ran forever.

Amazing. And then Kelly Clarkson, God bless her, cured her Hashimoto's by following my book. Wow. Really, she did? It had a big fit, yeah. And she talked about it publicly? Yeah, she talked about it publicly. Everybody noticed that she had lost like 40 pounds

and said, hey, what's the deal? And she said, I'm reading this crazy plant paradox thing and I used to have Hashimoto's and I was on thyroid and now I'm not on it. It's gone. Wow. It's pretty cool. Pretty cool.

So the book's been out for a year and a half. Is that right? Yeah, almost two years. Almost two years. Almost two years. And it's just been blowing up. Yeah, and it's still just, it's been translated into 34 languages now. Amazing.

Just signed the deal for Slovakian. There you go. You know. Taking over the world now. Big fans in Slovakia. There you go. I love it. Hello Slovakians. I love you. And you, what are some of the things you learned through the process over the last couple of years that people were finding out about themselves and discovering about other things? You've got this new book about living longer, Longevity Paradox. So what were some of the things that you've learned over the last couple of years about health in general with people? So I think one of the things that was probably one of the most controversial statements in the plant paradox was that your bad health is

not your fault. It's your DNA, right? It's your genes? Yeah, it's your genes and DNA. And I go into a lot of this in the longevity paradox that, in fact, your genes have very little to do with what's going to happen to you, both in the immediate period and in long term. And there's a big, huge study looking at millions of people around the world and their outcome looking at their genetics, their DNA. And their DNA has only probably about a 6% influence on you, your health,

what's going to happen to you. So that means- Including like diseases. Yeah, diseases. So why do we always, when we go to the doctor, they say, well, did your father have a stroke or a heart attack? Did your mother have dementia? So when I ask that question, and I do, what that tells me is that if your mother had diabetes or your father had coronary artery disease, that

tells me that if you eat like your parents did, then you will most likely have those diseases. Not because you inherited that from your parents, but you learned to eat from your parents. And it actually goes beyond that. Not only did you learn to eat from your parents, but you shared the microbiome, the bugs in your gut that your parents had. In fact, as we talk about in the book, you can take identical twins and raise them apart, and they will actually have microbiomes more in common with the family that they were raised with than their identical twin. And the outcome, health outcomes, of those identical twins will not parallel genetics. They will parallel the microbiome that they acquired

living with that other family. So you could be separate from your twin for, whatever, 15, 20 years, live with different, I guess, health benefits in one more than the other, see each other, and almost look different. Yeah, that's exactly right. And you can actually you know there have been some studies of twins who have been raised apart and clearly they're identical but depending on how they ate and their microbiome that they acquired they can look quite different

wow this may be a dumb question but if you're an identical twin, do you have the exact same genes? Exactly. Really? Yeah. Identical. Wow. You are literally the same. The same. Genetic person. Okay.

Interesting. Wow. Okay. So you talk about this microbiome, the gut. That's really like the brain, right? Yeah. That's the brain. It is the brain.

So, and there's all these, there's bugs inside of us right now. Yep. Trillions. Trillions. Trillions of like little bugs, insects. Well is the brain. So, and there's always, there's bugs inside of us right now. Yep. Trillions. Trillions of like little bugs, insects. Well, not insects. Not insects. Microbiome. They're bacteria.

So, they're not only bacteria, but they're also viruses. There's also fungi. There's all sorts of molds and mushrooms and things like that growing in you. Mushrooms in my gut. Yeah. Wow. my gut. In fact, fun fact, a recent study shows that women's breast milk has bacteria and funguses in the breast milk that feed the microbiome, that seed the microbiome of the baby. We've known for quite some time that the microbiome, and the

microbiome, again, is all these other inhabitants of us. Like, for example? Okay, so getting back to genetics, 90% of the cells that make up you, me, are non-human. They are bacteria, viruses, fungus, parasites, worms. Wow. So 90% of you and me is not me, is not you. It's all these other guys. Wow.

So you're basically a condominium for what I call bugs. And if we look at the genetic material that constitutes us, the genes, the genetic material, all the DNA of all these other guys is 99% of all the genetic material that's in you and me. So the book is, let's take care, forget about the one percenters, our genes. Let's understand that 99% of the genetic material in us is non-us, but that's the important guys. Why is it so important? Because they control our fate. And the point of the longevity paradox is that knowing what these guys want, and I call them bugs, good bugs and bad bugs, knowing what these guys want to eat and knowing how these guys relate to the wall inside of

our gut, the inner lining of our gut, and that crosstalk across that wall will determine what's going to happen to you. Long term. Long term. Wow. And even short term. Just this past week, just as another great teaser, we now know that the oral microbiome, the bugs that live in our mouth, can predict who's going to develop or who has pancreatic cancer. Really?

Really. At what age? Any age? Choose your age. There is a distinctive set of bugs that has now been found in pancreatic cancer in humans that predicts. cancer in humans that predicts. And so there's an exciting new thing that you could take a swab of your tongue and sequence which bugs are in there, and you can go, oh, crap, you've got a pancreatic cancer microbiome. Now, the good news about that is that you can alter that microbiome. Now, the good news about that is, is that you can alter that microbiome.

But a paper just this morning, they literally stuck needles into the pancreas of people that were looking for pancreatic cancer. And they were looking for pancreatic cancer cells, but they're looking under the microscope and they go, wait a minute, there's a bunch of bacteria sitting here inside this pancreas. What the heck are those doing in there? So then in 105 people, they sequenced those bacteria and they were all exactly the same sorts of bacteria and they actually all came from the mouth. Wow. Doesn't most, I heard this from an oral, I guess, hygienist or dentist or doctor who said

a lot of the disease we capture is through the mouth. Yeah, correct. Dale Bredesen, who wrote The End of Alzheimer's, who's become a good friend of mine, he and I are fascinated with the effect of the oral microbiome on dementia. For instance, in the plant paradox, I wrote about there's kind of a fun study in rats where you can take LPSs, lipopolysaccharides, which are the outside wall of bacteria. They're not living bacteria. They're just the dead bacteria.

And in my book, I don't swear, but I call them little pieces of shit because that's what they are, LPSs. They literally are dead bacteria. And so you can take rats and you can swab one of their noses with LPSs. They're not living bacteria. They're pieces of dead bacteria. And the other side of the nostril, you can just put a cotton swab with nothing on it.

And you do that every day. The rats who get the swab up one side of the nose, their other side of their body gets Parkinson's disease. No way. Gets Parkinson's disease. The other side, the opposite side doesn't. And you go, what the heck is going on? Well, if you think about it, your nose and your mouth are gateways to your brain. I mean, literally, the back of your mouth and the top of your nose is your brain. Your brain's just sitting there. And so this is a direct shot into your brain. And as I talk about, I talked about it in the plant paradox, but I really go into this in the longevity paradox,

talked about in the plant paradox, but I really go into this in the longevity paradox, that to prevent Alzheimer's and to prevent Parkinson's and dementia, one of the things you got to do is the care and feeding of your microbiome. And that includes your oral microbiome, because this is a direct shot and you got to take care of it. So how do you take care of that so there are believe or not certain bacteria one's called p gingivitis that is now been isolated from the brain uh alzheimer's patients and how did it get there well it got there through your mouth through bad dental hygiene through really gingivitis that's how the name. So you can get Alzheimer's through not taking care of your teeth? Exactly.

Really? Yeah. And in fact, years ago, I'm such an incredible nerd, there's a very famous marker of inflammation called the C-reactor protein, CRP. Almost everybody listening has probably had a CRP. There's a more specific one called highly sensitive CRP. Years ago, I noticed that a lot of my patients with heart disease had elevated CRPs. I said, you know, my wife flosses twice a day, literally.

I mean, she's a nut. It's good, right? Yeah, it's great. I hate to floss. I hate it. literally i mean she's a nut it's good right yeah it's great i hate to floss i hate it so i designed an experiment with like 500 people and i asked them to floss every other day okay and we'd measure their crps and then we measured their crps every three months for a year and the people who i could get to floss every other day and that included included myself, their CRPs came down to normal, and they

were elevated. And the people who flossed more than every other day, they had even lower. And so I wrote this paper for the American Heart Association that says that since CRP is very highly associated with developing coronary artery disease, that coronary artery disease, in fact, partially comes from the mouth. And if you want to prevent coronary artery disease, you ought to floss. I got honored by the American Institute of Oral Biology for my research.

You know, everybody can give me a big hand. But these dentists are right. There's a barrier between the bugs that live in your mouth and you, and it's at your gum-tooth interface, and you've got to preserve that barrier. The same thing happens in the barrier in the wall of our intestines. So here's the deal. Your intestines are your skin turned inside out that's all it is that surface area of the intestines is the same surface area as a tennis court

that's big yeah that's big everybody's kind of looking down there there's no tennis how does it fit in there yeah how'd they do that well and we can do this because it's kind of fun. I'm fascinated with plants, as you know, the plant paradox. And plants are actually very intelligent human beings. They actually see. A new book has proven that plants see. Anyhow, so plants have a root system in the soil that they get their nourishment. And those roots are surrounded by a microbiome of the soil. And there's fungi and bacteria. And it's actually that microbiome

that gets the food into the plant, gets all the nutrients into the plant. So we actually have roots. And this surface area, those of you who remember high school biology, we have all these little projections called microvilli. And think of it kind of as a shag carpet. And so we have roots that go into our intestines. And everything we eat is actually the soil. So our intestines are like the roots. Yeah, our intestines and everything we eat is actually the soil. So our intestines are like the roots. Yeah, our intestines, out of our intestines are these roots. Got it.

And the soil is what we eat. But the main component of the soil is the microbiome. So you've got four to five pounds of bugs. In my gut. In your gut. Wow. And they're there. We used to think they were just a bunch of crap,

but we actually need it. We not only need it, they control everything that's going to happen to you. Do I want 10 pounds of bugs or do I just want four or five? Well, actually the more, the more diverse set of bugs you have, the more kind of mixing pot United Nations of bugs, the better off you're going to be. In fact, why is that? It turns out, if you take, you look at what's called microbial diversity. In other words, how many, we now know that there are at least 10,000 different species of bacteria that live in your gut.

In fact, a few weeks ago, another thousand was found that nobody realized. So your gut is basically a tropical rainforest. And you've got all these creatures and things happening. And one creature depends on another. And if you tip the balance off. It's like introducing wolves back into Yellowstone Park, right? Oops, we needed wolves. Who knew? Yeah. Right? So there's this intense kind of communication dependence. And the more diverse your microbiome is,

the longer you live and the longer you live well. Why is that? Turns out that this root system is dependent on the nourishment it gets from all of these bugs. Got it. So it'd be like if you're trying to grow a plant or a tree in a desert, it'd be challenging because there's not enough soil. Yeah.

And it would only thrive for as long as it can or – Yeah, in fact – You put an oak tree in a desert, I guess, or whatever, it needs more nourishment than it's receiving there. Right. And you can actually – there's really cool experiments where you can have two identical plants planted right next to each other. And depending on the microbiome in that soil, one plant will thrive and the other won't. Right.

But we can go down a rabbit hole. Sure. Turns out in a forest, if trees sense that one of their neighbors is not doing too well, they will actually send roots and supports over to that tree. That's pretty interesting. So what I'm hearing you say is that the gut, the microbiome, and these bugs have a lot to do with how you can live well now and also for extending life. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. So you take 105-year-old people around the world, and you look at their, and these are thriving people. Not like about to die, but they can move around.

Yeah, it's like Edith Murray who starts the book. That lady was 105 and a half when this picture was taken. Wow. And so she was in two-inch wedgies. She walks her little Pomeranian, and she's smart as a whip, and she was one of the women who really changed my life. Her name's Edith Murray. She's Michelle in all my books.

So anyhow, so you take these people, and you look at their gut microbiome. They have the gut microbiome, the diversity of a 30-year-old individual. Wow. And if you look normally at people as they age, their gut microbiome becomes less and less diverse. You ultimately have only a few species. So it's this, number one, it's this huge diversity that makes a big difference.

Number two, we now know that there are certain bugs that really make the difference. And the longevity paradox is actually teaching people how to nurture the bugs that are very interested in keeping you alive. Another way of looking at this, you're basically a condominium for these bugs, for bacteria. So how do we attract all these diverse good bugs? I'm so glad you asked. So we know that good bugs like to eat certain foods. Okay. And a lot of this was actually based on,

there's this fascinating creature called the naked mole rat. And naked mole rats, make sure everybody who's listening or watching Googles naked mole rats. And here will be my first controversial statement of the day. Naked mole rats have sometimes been described as a penis with buck teeth. Okay. Okay. So Google it. There you go. You'll see it. So these are probably one of the ugliest creatures in the world. Naked mole rats live in the Sahara desert and they live in colonies

very much like termites or bees. And they live in subterranean tunnels. And naked mole rats appear to have no end mortality. In other words, naked mole rats live at least 10 to 20 times longer than any other rat. Rats live about two years. Naked mole rats have lived 20, 30 years. In fact, no one has actually known that you could actually have an end life of a naked mole rat.

So they've been the darling of longevity researchers for a very long time. In fact, hilariously, when I was a professor at Loma Linda, which is a blue zone, I had behind my desk this giant, iridescent naked mole rat picture from the San Diego Zoo.

And everybody goes, what's the deal? You're a famous heart surgeon. What the deal? You got this naked mole rat behind your desk. I mean, it was bright pink and purple. And I've been fascinated with naked mole rats because they're the longest living creatures. So naked mole rats have the same diverse microbiome as 105-year-old people. Really? Really. And what the heck is going on? Well, it turns out naked mole rats, unlike any other rat, eats roots, eats tubers, and eats fungi that are growing in the subterranean area.

So if you think I would like you to eat some roots and tubers and mushrooms, you're absolutely right. Because the evidence is rather striking that the bugs that like these things are what keeps the naked ball rat living so long, unlike any of its other rat cousins who eat grains. And we can be sure to be talking about that soon. So this is the only rat that eats tubers and mushrooms and roots. And they have the microbiome of 105-year-old people who are thriving.

In fact, a study published last week out of Singapore showed that humans who eat two cups of mushrooms per week do not get Alzheimer's disease. Two cups of any type of mushroom? Any type you want. Just go to the grocery store, get some mushrooms. Turns out button mushrooms are second best of all mushrooms in terms of a compound that we now know is the secret of mushrooms, porcini mushrooms, which of course is the prized mushroom of Italians, is number one for these

compounds. Now, these compounds are polyphenols. They're actually cousins of polyphenols that are in green tea. And what happens with these compounds is that they're actually eaten by bacteria. Bacteria love to eat polyphenols. And the bacteria then, for lack of a better word, poop out these compounds that have been changed a little bit. And it's those compounds that enter our circulation. And a particular compound in mushrooms that's been manipulated by bacteria protects the brain from damage. From Alzheimer's or dementia or anything like that. Wow. So mushrooms. Mushrooms. Eat your mushrooms. Every week. Every week. What if there's a diverse of mushrooms or if you eat the same mushroom all the time, does it matter?

It really doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. And again, the plain old humble button mushroom will do it for you. Just have a couple cups a week. What I do is I take a bunch of different mushroom blends. Mix it up. Yeah, mix it up. United Nations of mushrooms.

Yeah, and I take mushroom capsules and I have a product that's actually lots of different mushrooms. You just squeeze in your coffee or whatever. Hey guys, I want to take a quick moment from this interview with Dr. Gundry to talk about a product that I love drinking. And that is Organifi Gold by

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And now let's get back into the interview. Okay, I have a question now. So for people that want to live longer and be healthy while they live longer, not having to get surgeries all the time. Right. If you had three to five minutes max to talk to someone who said, I just want to live longer. I want to know the secrets to living longer. I got to figure out the keys. And you've got three minutes with them. What would you say in three minutes are the things they must do every day or as often as they can for the rest of their life to extend their life? The first thing they must do is realize that the only purpose of food is to get olive oil into your mouth. The only purpose of food. And preferably it'll be mushrooms that you pour the olive oil on.

That's number one. The evidence that the polyphenols in olive oil, if you really wanted to live well for a very long time, olive oil is the key. Two of the blue zones, actually three if you count the achiolos, use a liter of olive oil per week. Now, that's a lot of olive oil, like 10 to 12 tablespoons a day. So, there's a beautiful study out of Spain that I talk about where you took 65-year-old people, and we'll dumb it down real quick. Two groups, One group had to use a liter of olive oil per week for five years,

and they changed their olive oil once a week at the clinic. The other group had to eat a low-fat Mediterranean diet, both Mediterranean diets of Spain. At the end of five years, the olive oil group had better memory, had improved memory than when they started. The low-fat group lost memory. The women in the olive oil group had a 67% less incidence of breast cancer than the low-fat group.

People in both groups who had coronary artery disease, the group that got the olive oil had a 30% less incidence of new events versus the group that had the low-fat diet. And so if three blue zones, and this study doesn't convince you that you better get olive oil into you, olive oil grows brain cells. And it's not the oil per se, it's actually the polyphenols in olive oil olive oil the polyphenols literally make your blood vessels slippery and i've actually published data on this that your blood vessels you cannot stick cholesterol to blood vessels if you have olive oil in your system yeah so you know drink the dumb stuff you drink it yeah i do wow i take a shot of it craig's always talking about

yeah how he can drink as much as possible. But what I would urge people to do is, you can cook in olive oil. This myth that olive oil oxidizes when you cook it is one of the worst internet myths there is. Really? It turns out that olive oil is the least oxidizable oil. It's even better than avocado oil or coconut oil. It does not oxidize. Oxidize meaning like evaporate.

No, oxidize meaning gets damaged. Damaged, got it. Damaged, okay. It turns out everybody sees olive oil smoking and they figure that's damaged. It's not. So you can burn it as much as you want. You know, cultures have been using olive oil

to cook with for 5,000 years. And, you know, there's not a lot of dead Italians from cooking in olive oil. Okay, so you got to get olive oil. So that's number one. Number one. Number two, you got to take vitamin D3. You got to. Vitamin D3, not D.

Yeah, well, there's D2, there's D1. What's vitamin D3 and why is it important? So D3 is the active form of vitamin D that we use. You will be shocked that people who have the highest levels of vitamin D in their bloodstream live the longest and live well compared to people with the lowest levels of vitamin D3. It turns out that you have to have vitamin D3 to activate stem cells activation. And we can... Vitamin D is also through the sun, is that correct?

But it's nearly impossible to get enough vitamin D through the sun. Really? Nearly impossible. 80% of Southern Californians are vitamin D deficient because we're slathering sunscreen on us and we're wearing long sleeve shirts. We're inside a lot still. We're inside a lot. I live in Palm Springs. It's pretty hot

in the summer. Really hot there. We tend not to go out a lot in the summer. So we don't have enough vitamin D. And so you have to swallow vitamin D. The University of California, San Diego, published a study that the average human being to have an adequate level of vitamin D3 should be taking 9,600 international units a day. So basically 10,000 international units. Wow. They found no one who had vitamin D toxicity at 40,000 international units a day. You can't overdose on vitamin D. I have yet to see vitamin D toxicity,

and I've been measuring vitamin D levels for 20 years in patients every three months. I personally run my vitamin D level greater than 120 nanograms per milliliter for the last 12 years to prove I'm not dead, and so far so good, right? And here's just to tell you how crazy this is. If I feel I'm getting something, if I'm coming down with a scratchy throat or something, I'll take 150,000 international units of vitamin D3. How many capsules a day? Three days. Well, so you can get 5,000, right?

So that's 10 capsules three times a day for three days. So I'm basically taking half a million international units of vitamin D to ward off a virus. Everyone always says you should take vitamin C when you start to feel like a scratch. Yeah, it really doesn't work. Vitamin D is probably one of the best antivirals that's ever been discovered. So vitamin C really doesn't help that much? Really doesn't help that much. We can get into vitamin C, and I think everybody should take a time-release vitamin C twice a day, and it's actually for a different purpose.

What's the purpose? All right. The quick version. All right, quick version. So you and I are one of the few animals that don't manufacture our own vitamin C. Us, monkeys, and guinea pigs. And we have actually all the genes to manufacture vitamin C. There's actually five of them. The last gene is turned off. It's called a ghost gene. Why do we do that? Well, we manufacture

vitamin C from sugar, from glucose. And it's actually very expensive to manufacture vitamin C. So the theory is, and I like the theory, is we grew up in Africa with lots of vitamin C-containing plants in our diet. And so it was unnecessary for us to manufacture vitamin C. And the theory goes we'd have some extra glucose left over that we could store as fat to make it through the winter when times are rough, and we're the only fat-storing ape. So the problem is vitamin C is essential to repair collagen in everybody. Collagen, okay? collagen. The reason smokers get wrinkles is collagen is broken because you actually repair cracks in collagen with vitamin C. Smokers use up all their vitamin C with what's called oxidative stress, so they don't have any vitamin C. In fact, here's another controversial statement. If I've got a smoker with heart disease, I'm willing to trade him, his smoking New Guinea who smoke like fiends. They eat, 60% of their diet is taro root. The

other part of their diet is coconut oil. And they live into their mid-90s with no medical care, but they've been studied extensively. There has never been a case of a heart attack, heart disease, or a stroke in these smokers. What they do do is they eat a lot of vitamin C containing fruits and vegetables as part of their diet. Olive oil as well? They don't have any olive oil. They have coconut oil.

That's their coconut. They don't have any olives down there. So you can do without olive oil and still live a long life. Yeah. But you think olive oil will... Yeah, since olive oil is so readily available, you might as well. Might as well. Anyhow, back to vitamin C.

You have to have vitamin C to repair the cracks in blood vessels. People remember scurvy where people would die, they bleed to death on long ocean voyages. Actually, 50% mortality on those old ocean voyages, just dying from scurvy. And the British Navy, the reason they're called limeys is because the surgeon in the British Navy realized that if he gave them limes to take on the voyage, that they wouldn't die of scurvy. And that's why the British Navy is still called Lymies.

So vitamin C repairs the cracks in collagen, and our blood vessels are flexing all the time. And so these cracks have to be repaired, and if they're not repaired, you basically bleed to death. We have a system of repairing those cracks, and it's called cholesterol, and cholesterol will repairing those cracks and it's called cholesterol and cholesterol will patch those cracks so if you have plenty of vitamin c throughout the day you won't you'll be able to

repair those cracks and there's a wild study i mean head down a rabbit hole you can genetically engineer rats to lack that final gene to make vitamin C. And they will live half as long as a normal rat. If you then put vitamin C in their water, they will live as long as a normal rat who can manufacture their vitamin C, but they're drinking the water throughout the day. So vitamin C, unfortunately- We have to manufacture. We have to manufacture it, and we've got some interesting tricks to do that coming up. Okay.

But in the meantime, the average person should take like 1,000 milligrams of timed release vitamin C twice a day. Okay. To cover their ass. Wow. Okay. So the first thing I heard you say, this three minutes is turning into 20. I'm sorry.

No worries. The first thing I heard you say, this three minutes is turning into 20. I'm sorry. No worries. The first thing I heard is olive oil. Oh, and olive oil is actually one of the tricks to activate the ghost gene. A polyphenol in olive oil. Okay. You will actually make vitamin C. Okay, there you go. So there you go.

Another good reason. So have olive oil. Vitamin D, have lots of vitamin D. Three. D3. D3. And then what's next to live a long life? Next is you got to get some form of long chain omega-3 fat,

better known as fish oil. And vegans have no excuse anymore. There is algae-based DHA and EPA. But here's the deal. Your brain is about 70% fat. So if you want to call me a fat head you know i will take it yeah and i can just see how the internet i'm lighting up me every year is a fat head so half of the fat in your brain is actually an omega-3 fat called dha so half basically half of your brain is fish oil.

Wow. And as I talk about in The Longevity Paradox, you look at people, what are called the omega-3 index, which basically looks at how much DHA you have in you over the past two months. People with the highest omega-3 index have the largest brains and the largest areas of memory, the hippocampus. People with the lowest levels of DHA have the most shrunken brains and the smallest memory areas, hippocampus. So mom was right. When she said fish is brain food, she didn't know why it was, but we now know DHA is really what makes your brain so sushi is good sushi is actually not a good idea oh well

most of the people i see with high mercury levels are sushi eaters or dentists uh, and particularly sashimi grade tuna. God, that's so good though. You just want to, you just kind of want to stay away from it. Ah, sugar fish is amazing though. Yeah. And it's got the grains too. Yeah, it's got the grains, you know, so. So no sushi. Yeah, so.

Once in a while. Yeah, once in a while. Okay. Absolutely. Yeah. But, yeah, so fish oil is incredibly important. Yeah. And what I try to get people to do, and again, I measure this every three months in all my patients,

and we're talking thousands and thousands of patients over the last 20 years. You want to get about 1,000 milligrams of DHA per day. Now, how do you do that? Well, you get fish oil. I mean, you can go to Costco. I don't care. And you look on the back and you find serving size and make sure it says one serving size. They love to fool you. They may say two or three. And then you look down below and you see DHA. And you look to see how much DHA is in a capsule. And you add it up and say, oh, okay,

to see how much DHA is in a capsule. And you add it up and say, oh, okay, there's 250 milligrams of DHA in this capsule, so I need to take four. Wow, four a day. Well, I mean, however. A thousand a day, yeah. A thousand a day of DHA. We've got olive oil.

We've got vitamin D3. We have fish oils. What else do we need to live longer? So you've got to have polyphenols in your diet. So what the heck is a polyphenol? How do you remember polyphenol? Think about polywanaphenol. Phenols are plant compounds.

Polyphenols are plant compounds that plants use primarily to protect themselves against stress and sunlight. Just interesting fact. stress, and sunlight. Just interesting fact. We know that red wine is beneficial for you because of actually two polyphenols. The most famous is resveratrol. The other one is quercetin or quercetin. The higher the grapes are grown,

the higher in altitude the grapes are grown, the more polyphenols they make. Because they need more to protect themselves. Yeah, exactly. Itphenols they make. Because they need more to protect themselves. Exactly. It's basically suntan. They've actually protected themselves against sunburn. Interesting. Also, the more the plant is stressed,

the more polyphenols it makes to protect itself. Right. Okay? So polyphenols are traditionally in dark colored berries. So for instance, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries. Interesting fun fact, the leaves of these trees or vines have more polyphenols than the actual fruit does. So for instance, black raspberry leaves have far more polyphenols than black raspberries. And I take black raspberry capsules, by the way, and it's in the book.

There you go. So, olives, for instance, are loaded with polyphenols. And olives that are stressed produce even better. Olive leaves have more polyphenols than olives. So olive leaf extract is an easy way of getting the huge amount of benefits without drinking a liter of olive oil. So what about leafy greens? Do you want stressed out looking leafy greens or do you want healthy,

thriving looking? Excellent question. It turns out that the reason organic vegetables in general are better for you besides the fact that they haven't been sprayed with pesticides and herbicides and probably roundup and we can get into that is the fact that these creatures these plants actually have to work harder and they have to produce more polyphenols to protect themselves against insect predation. And so that's actually the reason you want to eat organic. So when you're going to the farmer's market and the poor little organic vegetables have got pockles of insects,

and they don't look very good, you go, I want that guy. That guy is struggling. He is going to just be so loaded with polyphenols. Really? And correlation with that is the more bitter, the better. Because polyphenols in general are very bitter. For instance, when we were developing my signature product, Vital Reds, it's pure polyphenols primarily. And they're bitter. So we did lots of taste testing to figure out how the heck we're going to mask these really bitter compounds. So more bitter,

more better. In fact, as I talk about in the book, I had the pleasure of knowing Jack LaLanne, who you would know is really the godfather of fitness and nutrition in the United States. And I knew him in his later years. And Jack used to have a saying is that if it tastes good, spit it out. Now, what he really meant by that is bitter things, nasty tasting things is actually what is going to give the bugs that are actually going to keep you alive what they want to eat. And more bitter, more better. So the more polyphenols, the more bitter greens I can get into you, the better. But you can get that through capsules and other things too.

Yeah, you can. But you can get that through capsules and other things too. Yeah, you can. And in fact, that's one of the reasons I'm a nut about taking a bunch of supplements because if you look at even really good organic eaters, most human beings only eat maybe 20 different plant species. I probably eat like three. Yeah, most people do. Like five, maybe. Yeah. And ketchup is not a vegetable. It's a tomato and we can't do that. So our ancestors, and even looking at

modern hunter-gatherers like the Hunza tribe, they go through, they eat 250 different plant species on a rotating basis. And you think about it, all those plants are grown organically. They're in six feet of loam soil. They got their cool microbiome. So they're just replete with all these nutrients and polyphenols. And so if people think that they can actually do a great job eating healthy without supplementation. I got oceanfront property in Palm Springs. I'm happy to sell them. Right, right. There is no.

Right, exactly. Okay, so I want to get one more thing. I've heard that in order to extend your life, you need to, I can't remember the name, extend something at the end of your. Telomeres. Telomeres. What is that? Or telomeres.

Telomeres. So how do we, is that true? Do you have to extend this? Okay, so that is one theory of longevity. And it is a, it's a good theory. I like the theory. It's controversial. Vitamin D.

Turns out that people with the highest levels of vitamin D have the longest telomeres. There you go. So why wouldn't you do that if you like that theory? There you go. So that's vitamin D. Vitamin D. If anybody takes away, it's vitamin D.

So you've given four things so far. Just give me one final thing that can extend our life and the quality of our life as well. Great. So the last thing we want to do is we want to turn off as much as we can the sensor called mTOR, originally called the mammalian target of rapamycin. It's subsequently been discovered in all organisms besides mammals. So now it's called the mechanistic target of rapamycin. And so mTOR is an energy sensor, and it's in all of our cells. And

basically, we come from a circadian rhythm system of plentiful food at one time of the year and very little food at another time of year. Right. Fruit sometimes, not fruit. Exactly. And we use fruit to gain weight for the winter, and that's a whole other subject. So mTOR senses energy availability, and it senses sugar molecules, and it also senses amino acids, protein. Now, it turns out that it's very sensitive to particular amino acids rather than all amino acids. The ones it's very sensitive to particular amino acids rather than all amino acids. The ones it's most sensitive to are amino acids contained in animal protein.

And animals include fish. Animal protein includes eggs. It includes cheeses and besides meat. So beautiful work that's been done, a lot of it done by now my friend walter longo from usc from the longevity center is that the mimicking yeah fasting fasting mimicking diet i've taken that a couple times and i am that he got a patent for prolong yeah prolong yeah yeah got a patent for Patent for it. Prolong is a vegan, low amino acid diet that you do for five days. Yeah, it's tough the first time.

It is. For me, it was. Now, in the book, I wrote about it in The Plant Paradox, actually, before he made Prolong. But I write about it again, and he and I, and he's even given me a nice shout out on the back. The idea is you want to reduce mTOR as much as you can. And the longer, the more you suppress it, the longer you live. And here's the reason. If times are rough and you sense that times are rough, your body, your immune system actually goes around and looks at all the cells in your body and says, who's pulling their weight? Who

is really contributing to this effort? And who's a slacker? Who looks a little weird? Who's not doing? And it actually instructs cells to commit suicide. And it's called autophagy. And it tells cells, sorry, you're out of here. You die.

And so it gets the fittest of the fittest to survive it makes you stronger and you have to have these periods of time you have to call the herd as we say so unless you do that you have all of these cells that just kind of build up the debris they're called senescent cells some people people call them zombie cells. And it's the amount of these zombie cells that is actually going to make you deteriorate long before you should. And get sick. Yeah, exactly. So you got to call the hurt. So how you do that?

Five days in a row, once a month. Once a month you do this? Once a month. Five days in a row. Five days in a row. month. Once a month you do this? Once a month, five days in a row, five days in a row, you follow a vegan diet of about 900 calories, and I got some great recipes, it's easy to do, and you do it five days in a row. It's as if you did calorie restriction every day, and what this does is not only call the herd, but it activates stem cells. Now, everybody says,

oh, stem cells, it's the future. You've got oodles of stem cells in you already. Where do you think we get the stem cells? We take a liposuction and suck out your fat, and then we spin it around, and we get your stem cells and inject you right back in. They're already there. You just have to call them into action. So when someone does that, when they pull it out of you, they're essentially just killing off the dead cells and then putting the good ones back in? No, they're actually centrifuging out the stem cells. Stem cells are in fat.

They're everywhere, actually. But you've got to activate the crazy thing. actually. But you got to activate the crazy things. So you activate them by this modified fast, or you do intermittent fasting or time-restricted fasting. For instance, for the last 12 years, during the winter from January through June, Monday through Friday, I don't eat breakfast, I don't eat lunch, and I eat all my calories in a two-hour window from six to eight o'clock at night. So 22 out of 24 hours, I'm fasting. For how long?

For six months. Six months you do that? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Now, why do you do that? Because way back when- Just drinking olive oil and vitamin D all day? No, during the night.

During the evening. Two hours, yeah, just drinking it? Okay, wow. Yeah. But that's why you look so young. I don Yeah. But that's why you look so young. I don't know. That's why you look so young. Actually, if you look at pictures of me from 1995, which was about 25 years ago now, I

look much older then than I do now. But you used to be much bigger. I was much bigger. Oh, yeah. And you were doing- I was doing exercising. But you were doing heart surgery. Yeah, I was doing heart surgery.

Eating a lot. And if you guys want to learn more about that story, you can doing- I was doing exercising. But you were doing heart surgery. Yeah, I was doing heart surgery. Eating a lot. And if you guys want to learn more about that story, you can watch the last interview we did. And I want to be mindful of time here. But in the last interview, we talked about all that. And I'll also go into the history of that in the intro here. But those five keys, if we can do those five things, I like them.

Is it fasting mimicking or mimicking fasting diet? Fasting mimicking diet. That thing, when I did that, I've done that twice. And both times, first time was very challenging. Second time was a lot easier. I think you get used to it. Yeah, you do. I looked younger.

I looked healthier and younger after like three days. I can notice a difference. And so for me, it was very challenging because I usually eat thousands of calories a day. But to have 800, 900 a day was, and the specific calories, you know, the specific things that it gives you. And you talk about it in here, how to do that. Yeah. And here's how to do it. And, you know, God bless him. You know, all of his profits go back into research, which is great. It's a good product. I show people how to do it just in their own home without that. And he, you know, bless him, he backs my way of doing it.

Right. But again, these are the tricks. Most of us, the reason it's called longevity paradox is most of us look at what's happening. And old age doesn't look very good. It really doesn't. People now assume that they're going to get their hips and their knees replaced, and they're going to have a bypass or a stand

or a valve replacement, and they're going to end up anyhow in the old folks' home drooling in their oatmeal. And none of us, we've seen that happen to our parents or our grandparents when we go, we don't want that, we don't want that. It doesn't have to be that way. What shocked me is I've had a number of people, and I talk about some of them in the book, who have been scheduled for knee or hip replacement and have come to me for cardiac clearance, get a stress test, make sure they can come through the test.

And we would put them on my program in anticipation of getting them in better shape for their hip or knee replacement. And one of them that I talk about in the book, he was scheduled for a knee replacement. He was a diabetic. He had heart disease. We put him on the program for six months pending his knee replacement. And when I saw him right before the knee replacement to do the final test, I said, okay, you're ready to go. You don't have diabetes anymore. You passed your stress test. I said, you can have your knee replacement.

And the guy says, what knee replacement? I canceled it. My knee doesn't hurt anymore. And he starts skipping around the exam room. And people can regrow cartilage. Wow. And I talk about why you lose cartilage because of the things you eat,

including lectins. Lectins are one of the major reasons why people have arthritis. Darn. More on the plant paradox. This book is called The Longevity Paradox, How to Die Young at a Ripe Old Age. It's out right now. You guys can get it. I highly recommend it. There's 40 plus pages of notes backing all of the data and the research and the science in the back. You've got all the research. You've got the diet

programs, what to eat, what to take, everything you need. Get this for yourself. Get it for your parents. Get it for friends. This is going to be a game changer. Make sure you guys check this out. You brought me a bunch of goodies for my birthday. Happy birthday. I'm going to be a game changer. Make sure you guys check this out. You brought me a bunch of goodies for my birthday. Happy birthday. Thank you. I'm going to be trying all these supplements and putting fish oils

in my brain and vitamin D3 in my gut and all that stuff. Mushrooms, galore. Good thing I like mushrooms. Yeah. I love mushrooms. So you got a mushroom supplement too? You got all these things? Yeah. The fungus. Yeah. Everything you need, you guys have this stuff. Where's the website to get the book and to learn more about the supplements that people can get?

So you could go to drgundry.com. You can go to gundrymd.com. I've got a YouTube channel. We now have a podcast wherever you get your podcast, Dr. Gundry Podcast. Sweet. Go to Amazon, go to Barnes & Noble, go to your local bookstore. Amazing. Go to Amazon, go to Barnes & Noble, go to your local bookstore. Barnes & Noble, by the way, will have a separate table with all my books now in the front. Wow. And the Longevity Paradox at Barnes & Noble has 10 additional recipes that you cannot get anywhere else.

Can't get it on Amazon, huh? Can't. So Barnes & Noble, if you want the 10 extra recipes. Amazing. Okay, so drgundry.com. Check out the book, Longevity Paradox. Get The Planet Paradox as well. That one's been a game changer.

34 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. I'm sure this will be on there for a long time as well. To save time, everyone can go listen to the last interview, which has a million views on YouTube, The Planet Paradox interview we did. Incredible insights transformed a lot of people's lives who have applied the lessons that you teach and the philosophy you teach. So thank you for that. They can learn more about everything there as well. I want to acknowledge you for this. You continue to show up and do the research to help people live healthier, longer lives. And I think it's really cool to know that

you're this heart surgeon who worked on, I think, 10,000 heart surgeries. And you started that look within and ask yourself the question, this isn't working. When people are going through heart surgery, then they come back three years later, it's a band-aid, but it's not fixing the root cause. And we need more roots, I guess, in our gut is what you're saying. So I acknowledge you for essentially evolving something that you were taught early on that you spent a lot of time and money going to school for and evolving out of that to help people live longer, healthier, happier lives. So I acknowledge you for everything you do. Dr. Gundry, you're an inspiration. And my final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

Let's see. I've forgotten what I said last night. We'll compare both of them, yeah. If I can teach somebody how to fish, I don't have to give them a fish. And so teaching somebody is my definition of greatness. And again, I used to give people fish by operating on them. And now I teach them how to fish and they don't have to have operations anymore. And again, the greatness that I see is, and I've talked about this in dedications, I owe everything to my patients. Because they either asked me a question I couldn't answer, or they were willing every three months to do some silly dietary things or go to Costco and Trader Joe's and buy a supplement and I'd look to see what happens.

And without them, I couldn't do this. and I'd look to see what happens. Without them, I couldn't do this. And I was at a meeting a few months ago walking with another very famous nutritionist, and he said, you don't still see patients, do you? And I said, oh, gosh, yeah, I see them every day. Actually, on Saturdays and Sundays. I have full practice tomorrow in Santa Barbara.

And he says, what do you do that for? And I said, well, because I learn every day from my patients. I learned a couple things yesterday from my patients. So I can't imagine doing what I do without having my patients help me. So I'm never going to retire. Oh, and that's the fifth thing. Never retire, ever, particularly men. We are social creatures, and you have to be in a social network.

And men in general find that in the workplace, women more and more. And I see so many men, and now women, who retire, and it starts the downward spiral. And it's because their social network is gone. There you go. I love it. I'm going to get this book for a bunch of friends. So thank you for everything you do. And thank you for having me. It's always one. Like I said, I think it was my favorite podcast the last time around. We'll do it again for the next book. All right. Appreciate it. Thank you. Good to see you. There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, if you enjoyed learning about the fountain of youth, how to live longer,

then make sure to share this with your friends, lewishouse.com slash 772. Again, super powerful insights. Check out the full show notes over there. Check out the new book. Watch the video over on YouTube as well. Again, your health is an important thing, and that's why we have these episodes on health. If you're looking to achieve greatness, you must achieve greatness within yourself first, with your body, your mind, your soul, your heart. And if you want to live longer, if you want to

have the opportunity to make a bigger impact in the world, you've got to live longer to reach those people that you're looking to create with. So as the Buddha said, to keep the body in good health is a duty. Otherwise, we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. Make sure you're taking care of yourself today. Make sure you remind yourself how much you matter and send a hug and some love to someone else around you today.

Spread love. It's easy to make an impact. All you need to do is smile towards someone else and brighten their day. I love you so very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Bye.