Well with Arielle Lorre - 348: How to Prevent the Transition from Wellness to Illness and Foundational Practices for Optimal Health with Mark Hyman, MD

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

Mark Hyman, MD is a practicing family physician and an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and advocate in the field of Functional Medicine. He is the Senior Advisor for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, a fifteen-time New York Times best-selling author, and Board President for Clinical Affairs for The Institute for Functional Medicine. He is the founder and chairman of the Food Fix Campaign, dedicated to transforming our food and agriculture system through policy. He joins the show to discuss the transition from wellness to illness, how we develop chronic conditions and the specific foundational things we should all be doing for our health. We also talk about practicing systems medicine, the interconnectedness of the body, and the future of healthcare. Go to functionhealth.com and use code BLONDEFILES100, which allows 100 listeners to skip Function's waitlist of over 250,000Subscribe to Patreon for exclusive weekly content: patreon.com/ArielleLorreThis episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.Visit article.com/BLONDE for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Go to ritual.com/BLONDE for 25% off your first month. Visit drinklmnt.com/BLONDE for a free sample pack!Use MALK's store locator to find MALK Creamers at a store near you.Get who gets you, on eHarmony! Sign up today at eharmony.com.Go to helixsleep.com/Blonde for up to 30% off.Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Auto-hue with Sunny Cars feels as if the children Not me's Beasel stramble Sandvorda Actisvercare Verdwine Vacantia can chaotic

But who'sorgalose An auto-hurt Says No No Stress No own-vervict Novelte costs Always Follettive So foothoher sonder

Sovovue Go to your Reisadviseur Oncccuh Onescombe The following Podcast is a dear Media production

In a world of ever-changing wellness trends and information, what does it mean to truly be well? I'm Ariel Lurie and I'm going to explore this with you. Through interviews with world-renowned experts in medicine, nutrition, fitness, and, yes, even beauty, as well as inspiring guests and my own life experiences, I am bringing you candid conversations that will equip you with everything you need to live your best life and look good doing it. Think of Well is your go-to resource for all of the latest in wellness and me as your internet bestie. Well, let's get into it.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. Today's guest probably needs no introduction, at least among my audience, but probably beyond that as well. He is a major player in the healthcare field. He's a major player in functional medicine. He's a major player in the podcast world. the book world and beyond. I'm talking about Dr. Mark Hyman. So he is really leading a health revolution focused on using food as medicine to support longevity, energy, mental clarity, happiness,

and so much more. He's a practicing family physician. He's an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and advocate. In the field of functional medicine, he's the co-founder and director of the Ultra Wellness Center. He's a founder and senior advisor for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, a 15-time New York Times bestseller and board president for clinical affairs for the Institute of Functional Medicine. He's also the founder and chairman of the Food Fixed Campaign, dedicated to transforming our food and agriculture system through policy. He is also a co-founder and chief medical officer of Function of Help. He is the host of one of the leading health podcasts, the doctor's pharmacy, with 150 million plus downloads, and he's a regular

medical contributor to several television shows and networks, including CBS this morning. Today, good morning, America, The View, Fox, and CNN. And he joins the show to talk a lot about this transition that a lot of us make from wellness to illness and how to incorporate some foundational things into our lifestyles and our lives that can help to prevent this. We talk about autoimmune issues. We talk about some of the problems with health care today, including labs and lab values, reference ranges. We talk about systems medicine and approaching the whole body and how the body is interconnected instead of approaching it as very compartmentalized. We talk about the future of healthcare and so much more. I learned so

much from this episode and I know that you will too. So please enjoy Dr. Mark Hyman and he also gave us a code to use for function health, you can use the code Blonde 100 to skip the line. And he gets into what that includes in this episode. It's really fascinating. It's really data-driven healthcare, which I think is the future of health care. So please enjoy Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome, Dr. Hyman. Oh, great to be here and lovely to be with you and all your lovely guests and listeners out there. I'm excited to talk to you about what's going on in the world of health and medicine and the future. Likewise, we were just talking before we started recording about our podcasts and how long we've been in the game. And you were one of the top guests that I've wanted to have on for five years. So it's so nice that we're finally sitting here. And we're going to be getting into all of the health topics and the science and all of that. But I want to rewind to how you started because you were doing functional medicine before it was mainstream and what it is today. And it's always, you're always interesting to me when I talk to doctors who started on the traditional Western medicine

path and then have kind of changed their trajectory into this more integrative practice. And it always goes back to personal experience where they got sick and they couldn't get any answers, no healing. And that changed their trajectory. And that's what happened to you, right? Yeah, for sure. You know, I actually, you know, always was a little bit of weirdo. I mean, I majored in Buddhism in college.

I studied ancient healing systems from around the world. I studied, you know, shamanic healing, Tibetan medicine, Chinese medicine, just from an academic perspective. I was very interested in just the nature of healing. And I was a yoga teacher before. I went to medical school. It was just embarrassed to say. It was like 41 years ago.

I was a yoga teacher. They didn't have yoga mats back then. They didn't have Lulu Lemon. You were just in a towel and some sweatpants and t-shirt. And I went to medical school. and I decided to sort of go the nutritional route to really do what, be able to do whatever I wanted to do. And I got pretty good at it.

And I was practicing a small town family doctor and it was doing everything, you know, ER, living babies, working 80 hours a week. And I really enjoyed it. And I realized I was really kind of brainwashed. And kind of already kind of studied nutrition. I was already focused on lifestyle. I already was doing all that myself.

But I was still just doing people drugs to suppress symptoms. And I did that for a while. Then I went to China and worked as instead of developing these health clinics for expatriates because, you know, back in the 90s, there was a lot of expatriates, but they didn't want to go to a Chinese hospital or clinic. And in China and Beijing, it was really polluted. And I got exposed to a lot of the pollution from the coal burning, which is full of mercury and lead and other toxic chemicals and cleaned my air filter out every day. I got really exposed to. to a concentrated amount.

So this was super stupid when I look back at it, came back, worked in the air for years, and then I got really sick. But in that interim, I decided I wanted to go back and do something more around wellness and my original sort of interest. And I got a job at Canyon Ranch as a medical director, and after I got that job,

it's when I got sick. I love Canyon Ranch. Arizona? Yeah, it was in Lenox, Massachusetts. And I went down. Like, I had chronic critique syndrome. I went from riding my bike 100 miles a day to where I couldn't basically walk up.

up the stairs. I had incredible cognitive function before I could see 30 patients in a day, never take a note, remember everybody case and what they said and what to do and what I said and, you know, dictated at the end of the day with no problem to being not able to even remember where I was at the end of a sentence from where I started. And I mean, I remember having experience of reading my kids a book at night and I would read it aloud, but I couldn't understand it. Like my brain was really broken. I had severe muscle pain. I had developed autoimmune symptoms. I had terrible GI issues. I had, you know, diarrhea and we could call it CBO now. I didn't really, we didn't call it that then, but it was bacterial overgrowth in the gut. I was just a wreck.

And I was sort of desperate to find out what was going on. I went to doctor after doctor and Columbia, Harvard, you know, everywhere. Like, and everybody was like, oh, you're depressed or you're, you're under stress or I don't know or spinaine or you know take some Xanax or whatever I'm like no no no no something's going on I'm a doctor I'm a real symptom I mean I would I would like have some certain foods and I would get rashes all over my face or my tongue would swell and get sores on it and I was like this were really things going on and then that's when I got introduced to dr. Jeffrey Bland who's a nutritional biochemist study with Linus Pauling and and he basically is a remarkable man who spent the last 50 years hoovering up scientific literature from a whole

ray of different disciplines and domains. So typically in medicine, it's like, you know, you go to the gastroenterologist and you say, oh, I have this and that reflux or, but I also have this rash. And they're like, oh, no, no, I don't know, deal with that. Go to the dermatologist. Go to the dermatologist. You say, my joints hurt. And they're like, well, and I, but I also have these stomach issues. And they're like, oh, no, no, go to the GI guy. I got to. don't deal with that. But they're all connected. The body's one connected system. So everything is connected. And Jeffrey Bland really helped connect the dots and see the future, which is systems medicine. He's thinking of the body as one integrated system. And now everybody's going to onto it.

Everybody's talking about inflammation and mitochondria and the microbiome and, you know, insulin resistance and all the things that we've been doing for 30 years are now like new, but they're not really new. Now we have way more data, way more research on it. But the, But the early research was there. I mean, I wrote about a book 15 years ago about, called the Ultramine Solution, talking about, you know, the role of mitochondria and toxins and the microbiome and mental health and neurodidididase. And people thought it was crazy.

But I'm like, no, no, no. One, first, I'm seeing this to my patients. And it works when you try it. And two, there is some data. And it's not like I'm making this stuff up. So it was, it's been exciting to see. I mean, it's like, you know, you work 30 years or something and then boom, it happens all at once.

So it's sort of like I'm kind of laughed at myself like, you know, it's not like really new, but the thinking is really important because most people out there are suffering who don't need to suffer and they are suffering from conditions that most traditional medicine doesn't have really great solutions for. You know, if you have an emergency, if you need a C-section, if you're like, have a car accident, if you need back surgery, which I just had, like, great. But for most of the things that people have, it doesn't work. You know, whether it's migraines or herbal bowel, or, or, you know,

or fatigue or sleep issues or hormonal issues for women, like PMS or fibroids, endometriosis, infertility. I mean, you can do IVF and all that, but still there's really not a lot of great approaches and functional medicine and a systems approach. And I don't even like the term functional medicine. It's like really just, it's just medicine. Like it's just the nature of reality.

So the way I think about it is, you know, we know the laws of physics. You know, maybe can't write them all down, but they know, oh, there's the law of gravity and the law of thermodynamics. and so forth. And nobody sort of knows the laws of biology, but I said, what are the laws of biology?

You're like, I don't know, you know, because they haven't really been well described. So what functional medicine is, systems medicine, systems biology is really an attempt to actually describe the laws of nature and apply those to human beings and use, for example, for example, the gut microbiome is a key way to treat

what's going on with your body. A lot of people don't know how to treat the gut. So I just talked to Marty Macrozz at John Hopkins, professor wrote a book called Blind Spots. And he was talking about the one of the blind spots is like the microbiome. It's linked to Alzheimer's and autism and cancer and diabetes and heart disease and depression and autoimmune disease and asthma and fibromyalgia and chronic disease. I mean, it's just like everything.

So, you know, how do we not deal with that in medicine? Because it's not dealt with. We kind of know it now academically. But practically, what do you do? Well, that's what we do in functional medicine. I probably don't have to tell you guys how much I love my morning matcha, but I'm going to anyway. and the way that I make it is pretty simple. So usually I like to drink it cold and I will mix my

plant-based milk with matcha and a little bit of maple syrup and a blender at night. And then I drink it cold in the morning. Now, when it comes to the plant-based milk, this makes all of the difference. So a lot of plant-based milks are made with things like fillers, gums, seed oils, artificial flavors, and other additives. However, Malk is one of my favorites because they are, are just made with simple, high-quality ingredients. And the flavor and the consistency are so good. And now they also make creamers. So the mulk creamers are a clean and creamy addition to your morning routine. And why I'm excited about this is because as we transition to fall, I sometimes like to go back to my hot match, but I love to do this foam on top. And the mulk creamers are the perfect way

to either make a foamy frothy latte or add a little bit of foam on top. So the creamers are made with just clean organic ingredients and sweetened with low glycemic coconut sugar. The malc creamers are available in vanilla almond, caramel almond, which is my favorite, and lightly sweetened oat. You can find malc creamers at sprouts, air one, and select whole foods. And you can also do a cold foam. So there's so many different ways to spruce up your coffee, your macho, whatever.

is that you are drinking. So use Malk's store locators to find Malk creamers at a store near you. After over five years of the podcast, I think I know my audience pretty well. And I think that you guys are pretty good at spotting too good to be true health hacks from a mile away. So if you can read labels like it's your job, you are a healthy skeptic. And ritual knows that every good skeptic deserves a multivitamin that exceeds your standards. If you have not already listened, to my episode with Kat Schneider, the founder of ritual, please, please do yourself a favor, go back. We recorded almost exactly a year ago. I believe it was last September. And it is truly eye-opening and something that anybody who takes supplements needs to listen to. It's pretty

shocking what actually goes into a lot of supplements and the capsules and the packaging and everything that they come in. So something about rituals essential for women 18 plus, aside from having high quality, traceable key ingredients in clean bioavailable forms, is that it's USB verified, which basically means that you can trust what you're putting in your body. Only about 1% of supplement brands on the market have the USP verified mark, which simply shows that the product contains the ingredients actually listed on the label. This is shocking, especially with supplements, they tend to be something that you're taking every day. So you really, really want to be mindful of what exactly it is that you're taking. Also, ritual multivitamin.

are vegan, non-GMO project verified, gluten and major allergen-free, certified B-Corp and made traceable, and they're also heavily studied, which is not necessarily something that you find with a lot of supplement brands on the market as well. So no more shady business. Rituals Essential for Women 18 Plus is a multivitamin you can actually trust. Get 25% off your first month at ritual.com slash blonde and start ritual or add Essential for Women 18 plus to your subscription today. That's ritual.com slash blonde for 25% off. Yeah, it sounds like it's not new. And to your point, you have been practicing this for decades,

but now people are kind of waking up to it out of desperation. So you came to it out of desperation in your own experience. And now as a society, you know, we're all dealing with so many of these things. I mean, you're listing all of these things. And I'm like, check, check, check. I have all of that, you know, and so many people do. And I think that's why people, listen to podcasts like this. People want answers. And I think it's so interesting that, you know,

you were talking about your experience in China and your lifestyle and being exposed to these environmental toxins and things. But then you didn't really get sick until a few years later where everything started going haywire. So is that typically what happens where it's kind of a slow drip of exposure and then all of a sudden just bam? When I take someone's medical history, I want to know about their grandparents' health. I want to know what their mother's pregnant. and see what the mother did. I want to know what the birth was like. I want to know what she ate when she was pregnant. I want to know whether the baby was breastfed when it had its first antibiotic, how if there were any early signs of gut issues or colic. I mean, I go way back because when you look

at the history, we call it the timeline, you can literally put together the pieces and see how people get to where they are. So things don't just start like that. So for example, autoimmune disease tends to sort of show up in the 30s and 40s, you know, and it's usually the same story. Oh, you know, I took a lot of antibiotics as a kid. I had gut issues or I had acne and I took antibiotics or you know I had a lot of sinus and allergy issues and my gut wasn't good and then I started developing this and that and then it all turned into autoimmune disease. So I think you know we we have the story it can tell us what's really going on and these in these changes happened suddenly over time and for me it was it's really the total load of stresses right so I managed to keep an

equilibrium until I couldn't anymore until the weight of everything that happened and and what triggered the final breakdown was I was in Maine and I had some bug I don't know I got in some I don't know I was in a camp and I don't know the water or something and my stomach just blew up and I thought you know I had some weird stomach bug and then that just that was like the straw that broke the camel's back that's a triggering event and it's often like that there's a you kind of keep in equilibrium and then something happens and the bottom drops out hmm that's interesting I'm thinking about my own experience Ashley knows but that kind of happened to me last year where I got super super sick. Something happened. Actually, I got Botox, which I had been doing for a decade. And for whatever

reason, I don't know if it was from the Botox itself or my immune system, but it was like your experience, it sounds like when you got really sick, where it was the brain fog when you were talking about reading and not being able to connect. That resonated with me. I couldn't articulate that to anybody. I had like chills. I mean, just debilitating symptoms. And I've talked to a lot of people on the podcast who have had similar experiences. I had somebody yesterday who got Lyme, she was going through a divorce, she was building a business, that happened, and then everything else fell apart. Right, exactly. And so the key is how do you find out what's really going on with your body? And you bring up a really good point, which is the transition from wellness to illness doesn't

just happen in one day. It's a slow progressive phenomenon. And that's really, you know, why I'm so excited about the company that I co-founded Function Health with a number of others to help people get access to their own health data to be able to identify the subtle changes that happen on the trajectory from wellness to illness and intervene early and ultimately even save lives. I mean, basically function health is a health platform that is a co-pilot for your health that gives you access to your own data. I mean, right now everybody's wearing, you know, aura rings and Apple watches and biosensors and maybe the glucose monitor and people are hungry to know what's going on with their bodies.

But you can't go under the skin because, you know, you know, You've got to go through the doctor. You got to go through the insurance company. You got to get their approval. You got to get the test that you want. You can't even get them because the doctor goes, oh, you don't need that. You don't need that.

Or the insurance will pay for this. So we co-founded a company called Function Health that allows people access to your own lab data. You just sign up online. It takes five minutes. You go into the lab near you. I'll find a lab. There's 2,000 draw stations around the country with Quest.

You get your blood drawn and it gets analyzed and then upload it into your dashboard. you see your biological age, all your biomarkers, you can track them over time. And we do over 110 biomarkers for $4.99, which is about $15,000 worth of test retail. Because we sort of negotiated, we can actually be able to get the prices down. So it's really affordable. And people get really, you know, incredible insights about their health. And we found young people with cancer that they didn't know in their 40s and saved their lives. And, you know, women with uterine cancer, men with prostate cancer, who, you know, you would think it's a later stage thing. Or we're finding

people with 35-year-old man had you know fit guys super healthy it's great he exercises he looks great and he has a family genetic history of really bad lipid issues and so he had horrible lipid problems he didn't even know about because most 35-year-old guys don't get their blood work done you know and like lipoprotein we looked at lipoprotein A abo B lipoprotein fractionation all these tests that you do not get when you go to your regular checkup so if you go to a regular doctor checkup they're not doing the most current test. to look, for example, at cardiovascular risk. So you get your regular cholesterol,

you get your triglyl, your HDL, LNL. That's almost meaningless today. We now know you have to look at the quality of the cholesterol, the size of the particles, the number of the particles, other biomarkers like APOB and LPA, which are actually really important to look at your risk. And he had all these problems. So then we sent him for a heart scan using AI,

interpreted this heart scan, and found out his heart was full of plaque, and he's 35 years old, saying for heart attack. So we're able to help people identify things early, in the transition and save lives. And not only that, but like, we're seeing things that are really fixable. That maybe, for example, 13% of the people we've tested and we have over 60,000 members

now, we have almost 300,000 people on the wait list. And by the way, if you're listening and you want to join, you can go to functionealth.com and use the code blonde files 100 to skip that wait list. If you get your labs done, you can see yourself where you're at with it. trajectory of all these things. And 13% of the people in this cohort we've done so far have autoimmune thyroid issues. And often these are subtle things that people don't know. And the regular test that your doctor does, we'll miss it. We do five tests to look at your thyroid. They only do one. And so the five tests, look at antibodies, they look at T3, T4, the other hormones are really

important. And we see people have issues. And you could be walking around saying, oh, I'm a little tired, I'm low constipated, or my skin's a little dry, my hair's, to be falling out, my nails are brittle, you know, I'm a little depressed, and I know a sex drive I did, it's like subtle things that you just think, oh, this is just me, but it's not. And, you know, it's being mostly missed. Or seeing, for example, you know, a large percent of patients having low ferretin, particularly women, and low ferretin is, is an iron storage test. And again, it's not a test you get when you go to your regular doctor. They just check like maybe 20 or 30 things. They don't really do a full analysis of nutrition and top.

toxins and hormones and things that relate to your digestive tract and your cardiac risk and your metabolic health and blood sugar risk and we look at all of that and in great depth and autoimmunity and inflammation and things that just are not checked and so we you know we see a significant number of women having low ferretin now you might have not have anemia although some women do but if you have low ferretin which is the iron storage it can make you tired it can make your hair fall out and can cause insomnia and have a lot of other symptoms that you don't, oh, I'm not sleeping so good. Or, see, my hair's a little, or I'm more tired. I don't know what's going on.

Maybe I'm stressed. But it could be something as simple as you have a low ferretin. You know, we have mostly a forward population that we're testing and we're seeing enormous problems. Like 89% have significant metabolic dysfunction with blood sugar regulation issues and abnormal lipids, 51% of high apob, which is probably the most important biomarker for looking at your heart risk, your cardiac risk. We see 46% have eye inflammation.

We have 30% have autoimmune immunity. You don't even know it, a lot of them, the positive DNA. We see, you guys have said 13% with autoimmune thyroid disease. We see 67% with a nutritional deficiencies. And these are not deficiencies that at the level that I would think are good. Like, in other words, your vitamin, like, what is the vitamin D level you need so you don't get rickets? Well, it's like 20.

That's considered normal. Anything over 20 is fine. What's the vitamin D level to achieve optimal health to prevent infections and help prevent cancer? Like 50, right? So we're talking about levels, not that I would say the optimal levels, but at the reference range levels. So it's, it's, you know, look, we're a sick population. 93% of us are metabolic and healthy, 75% of us are overweight, 40 plus percent are obese, one and two have pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes, 903% are some kind of metabolic dysfunction,

you know, which means they have high blood sugar, high cholesterol, or high blood sugar, or had a heart attack, stroke, or overweight or obese. And that's 93% of people fall in that group. So, you know, people are, like, waiting around until something happens. And medicine is very reactive, not proactive. So, you know, there's a really an amazing scientist named Lee, Ray Hood, who started, really founded systems biology, helped decode the human genome, which was very involved in immunotherapy, discoveries.

He's won the Alaska Prize, one of the highest science prize. you can get in the world like the Nobel Prize. He talks about something called P4 Medicine, which is preventive, it's predictive, so it tells you where you're going, it's personalized, and it's also participatory,

meaning you have to participate. And so I think this is, after COVID and everything, people are like, gee, man, you know, I want to take more control of my health, you know. And I think the goal for function health is for people to become the CEO of their own health to actually own their data,

to track their data over time. You know, right now, if you go to this doctor here and you move a city, you go to that doctor, you go to this hospital or that lab, it's a mess. You can't get your data. You can't track it over time. You can't see the trends. You're probably not even testing the things that matter most in terms of your risk.

And so that's really why we've created function health. And it's amazing because we've done no marketing, no advertising, just word of mouth. And I've done a few, obviously, I've done a few Instagram posts about it. But it's like people are hungry for, I mean, 300,000 people on the wait list with no marketing is crazy. And the reason we have a wait list is we just, you know, we just are building this as we're flying it.

So we're still in beta, but the experience is still profound. We're going to be creating what I call medical intelligence, which is kind of like AI, but am I? Not the heart attack kind, but the idea is imagine, imagine having a place where you can inquire about your own data and get a personalized response that is, informed by all the scientific literature in the world. Because I can't, if I spend 24-7 the rest of my life from the day I was born, I could never read all scientific papers ever published.

But an AI can do it in about five minutes, right? And then it can synthesize it and stratify it based on the quality of the evidence. We're bringing in knowledge experts from the world's top doctors. So we're not just relying on AI, but we're not just, you know, reading the science, but actually what is the best doctors in the world think about how to approach this problem? And what does your data say, you know, and be able to gather all your data? So it's not right now. It's just your lab test and where biosensors are going to be integrated.

We now get your electronic medical records. We'll be able to get your omics, your stool testing, your blood testing, saliva testing, your genome testing, metabolome, all of it, and imaging even. All of it will go into your personal portal. It's like your hub, your health hub. And we'll have data-driven health care. Right now we, not right now, we don't really have. data-driven health care. You're going to see your doctor. And, you know, I mean, even the best doctor,

they only know what they know, right? They only been to the school they've been to, been to, been to , read the articles they've read and seen the patients they've seen. And it's a limited data set. So would you rather have your, for example, retina looked at or your skin lesions looked at by a system that's seen billions of skin lesions or by dermatologists who's human who, you know, has seen, you know, thousands, not billions, right? And so I think we're moving in an era where we're going to have AI-enabled health care. It's not that it's a-a-is-going to replace the doctor, but it's going to help us to really understand the patterns and the connections and what's going on in your body and ways that we haven't been able to before. My dad is a cardiologist, and anytime I ask him a medical question, he goes, here and here.

I'm pointing to my chest. Well, that's exactly right. I'm like, I appreciate the honesty. Oh, my God. See, this is such the problem. Obviously, I'm a systems thinker, and when I was in college, I studied theory and studied Gregory Bateson, who was married to Margaret Mead, who people know was an anthropologist from way back when.

And Gregory Bateson was an incredible thinker, but he really talked about sort of the idea of systems thinking, and called the cybernetic. And everything is connected. So think of it, like an ecosystem and a rainforest. You know, any thread you pull will affect everything else. And so it's absurd that we have these subspecialties that where doctors aren't trained to think about the body of the systems.

For example, heart disease could be caused by a bacteria in your gut. Wow. Right? It could be caused by heavy metals or toxins. It could be caused by infections that drive inflammation that you might not be aware. So, you know, when you think about heart disease,

it's not just, you know, here's your cholesterol's high, take a statin, end of story. it's much more complex than that. So I think we're starting to understand that disease is very different than we thought and that the names we have for a disease don't really reflect what's really going on in the root cause.

So root cause medicine is what we really do and looking at systems and understanding the connections between everything because, you know, I'm interested in all your data. Like if you come in, say your ears itchy, well, that's a really important data point, even if you came in because you have a rash or because your stomach's bothering you

but you also your ears itchy. Well, that tells me something, right? And that, I think medicine has become very, unfortunately, super specialized and not inclusive of all your story. It's not their fault. They're busy. The healthcare systems are we're burdening them. It's very stressful to be a doctor these days. You're like a cognitive machine. Right? These are burnout. But the problem is then people aren't getting the cure they need. When it comes to being properly hydrated, it is not just about how much water we are drinking. In fact, there is a growing body of research that is revealing that optimal health outcomes occur at sodium levels two to three times government recommendations.

So when I approach my hydration, I approach it through water and also through electrolytes. So I have been drinking element electrolytes for years. Each stick pack delivers a meaningful dose of electrolytes free of sugar, artificial colors, other dodgy ingredients. And it's basically formulated for anybody on a mission to restore health through hydration. It's perfectly suited for athletes, people who are fasting, those following keto, low carb, whole food, or paleo diets. And like I said, it's not just about drinking water.

So being optimally hydrated is about optimizing your body's fluid ratios. And this fluid balance depends on many factors, including the intake and excretion of electrolytes. Basically, electrolytes are charged minerals that conduct electricity to power your nervous system and they also regulate hydration status by balancing fluids inside and outside of your cells. So years ago, I was dealing with a lot of water retention and my nutritionist at the time actually told me to add salt to my water, which sounds so counterintuitive, but it really, really helped with that fluid imbalance that I had. So why I love Element is because, first of all, they taste amazing. I love the flavors. My favorites are orange. I love citrus. I love grapefruit,

but they have so many good ones. And also, it contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio, which is 1,000 milligrams of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium, and 60 milligrams of magnesium. Lastly, we all know that dehydration can cause a host of symptoms like muscle cramps, headaches, but also electrolytes, especially sodium, regulate fluid balance in and around the brain. So they also help transmit signals between neurons, which literally allows us to think So if you are suffering from brain fog, you might just not be properly hydrated. They also help to maintain steady energy, potassium, and magnesium, support the processes that convert stored energy, which are calories, into usable energy, ATP.

And electrolytes also impact energy by regulating hormones. Like I said, maintaining that fluid balance and blood pressure, regulating the heartbeat, promoting restful sleep, and much more. So right now, you can get a free element sample pack with any purchase at Derect. Drink element.com slash blonde. This is a great way to try all of the different flavors. And also, they have the new element sparkling, which is a bold 16 ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water. It's so good. So again, go to drinkelement.com slash blonde for your free element sample pack with any purchase. We spend about a third of our lives in bed. So when it comes to your mattress, you should not

be messing around with something that is subpar, which is why I love Helix. So the Helix lineup offers 20 unique mattresses, including their award-winning lux and ultra-premium elite collections. They also have the Helix Plus, which is a mattress designed for big and tall sleepers. And they have Helix kids mattresses designed for growing bodies and endorsed by child sleep experts. So if you are curious how to find the mattress that works for you, just take the Helix Sleep Quiz and find your perfect mattress in under two minutes. then your personalized mattress is shipped straight to your door free of charge. And Helix knows that there is no better way to test out a new mattress than by sleeping on it on your own, which is why they offer a 100-night trial and a 10-to-15-year warranty to try out your new Helix mattress.

Everybody is unique and everybody sleeps differently, which is why Helix has so many different mattress models to choose from, each designed for specific sleep positions and fuel preferences. They have models with memory foam layers to provide, optimal pressure relief if you sleep on your side, like me. And they have models with a more responsive foam to cradle your body for essential support in stomach and back sleeping positions. Plus, they have enhanced cooling features to keep you from overheating at night. Also me. So Helix is offering 25% off all mattress orders and two free pillows for my listeners.

Go to HelixSleep.com slash blonde. Again, that's helixleep.com slash blonde. This is their best offer yet and it won't last long with Helix better sleep starts now it's really empowering to have all of that information and as you're talking i'm just curious why is there a discrepancy between not only the types of tests that most doctors do but the value ranges because it sounds like what you were saying about yeah it's like vitamin d standard range they say 20 okay you're good because you don't have rickets or whatever yeah yeah but that doesn't mean it's optimal well there's a couple problems. One is in medical school, we're trained, and every doctor's trained like this. The way you diagnose is history, history, history, history, which is true. You need to take a very good medical

history. And then they say, well, you only do test to confirm your hypothesis. So if you think someone basis, let's say someone comes in and they have, they're thirsty, they're hungry all the time, they're peeing all the time, then, you know, oh, those are signs of diabetes. So then, oh, I should check their blood sugar, right? As opposed to proactively checking the blood sugar. It's like a bad patient who came into see me and his blood sugar was like like 115 or so 20 which is sort of pretty close to diabetes and I'm like hey did your doctor check this and look at it he said well yeah I said what did your doctor say he said well I said when you reach you know like 126 which is diabetes then we'll give you medication oh god so doctors are really not good at this proactive

testing they they trained to think it's a waste of time a waste of money it's going to create a lot extra work, it's going to pick up things that you're going to chase called red herrings that don't mean anything. But on balance, it's way better to have more data on yourself and learn what's going on. And so that's one reason that doctors don't do it is just we're told to not to not do it. And the other is that, you know, idea that's really important is that you want to test, you don't want to guess. Like I've done an enormous amount of testing my patients and it's amazing how much you find about what's going on that you don't know. Like, for example, I had a patient's I thought he was pretty healthy today, but I looked at his lives this morning, and he had a lot

of free radicals and oxidative stress, and he had this deficiency of something called C-15, a very important fatty acid. It's one of the kind of a new essential fatty acid. Fatty-15. Fatty-15. Fatty-15 is just the brand name, but the biochemical name of the, it's carbon, it means carbon-15 is where the carbons are, the bonds are on the baddie acid chain. Technical doesn't really matter, but bottom of what, he was very low in this.

And I was like, oh, wow. So, and it's really important for aging and inflammation and longevity. So, like, there are things that we are missing all the time with people that we don't test. So I think it's really important. Second is, why are this ranges all over the place? Well, the way we come up with lab reference ranges is based on something called a standard deviations from the mean of two standard deviations. So it's just a technical way of looking in statistics.

So if you were, if you were a Martian and you came to America, you know, it's 75% of the population is overweight, it would be normal to be overweight. That would be considered that normal. So when we say normal, we mean something that falls within two standard deviations. That's what the definition of normal is. But if the whole population is skewed to being sick,

then, for example, insulin is a great example. Most doctors don't tend to insulin. If you look at the lab reference range for insulin, it's 15. Well, if your level of insulin is 15, you're in trouble. your level of insulin should be five or less. Five to ten, you're getting into trouble. Over ten, you're in trouble. And the lab reference training is 15.

Why? Because 93% of Americans are metabolically and healthy. So when you're testing thousands of people, the bell curve is going to look a certain way and you're going to go, okay, well, this is where people fall and that's average. It doesn't mean it's optimal, right? That's a little terrifying that we're using that as our reference point for our health. Yeah. So, so, and it keeps changing, you know, we keep changing. Like, doctors get smarter. Like, we used to have the diabetes used to be a blancher 140. Now it's 126. Blood pressure,

it was high, used to be 140 over, above 140 over 90 was concerned high blood pressure. Now it's like, you know, 130 over 80, right? So we keep changing the goalposts as we begin. We say, oh, you know, he would go and he was fine up to six and a half. And then we're going, yeah, maybe it should be five and a half. You know, because we see, we see increasing disease in a linear way with higher level. So, for example, you know, the A1C is something most people don't check, but it's part of our panel that function health. It's a measure for your average blood sugar and damaged proteins and sugars and sort of like a sign that things aren't right. And when we talk to the guys at Quest, they could see starting at a level of five.

Now, six is considered diabetes, by some standards of six and a half. But five and a half or less is considered optimal. But they found even between five and five and a half, if you track those people and you look at their biomarkers or other lip biomarkers like cholesterol and everything and their cardiac risk, their cardiac risk starts to go up with everything with a level over 5.1 or 5. So what's the optimal? Maybe it's five. You know, what if we were living in perfect health? What would those numbers be like? So let's talk some of the foundational things that we can do on a daily basis in our lives and our lifestyles to reach optimal. health. Yeah, well, you know, the one thing that's so surprising to me is that most humans, you know, are pretty smart, but they're really dumb about understanding a very simple fact, which is that we are a biological organism and we require certain things to function. Like, if you buy a million dollar racehorse, you're going to make sure you take care of it properly,

exercise it properly. You're certainly not going to go feed at pizza, McDonald's and a Coke, right? True. You know, we feed our dogs better than we feed our kids. Yeah. I mean, you wouldn't give your dog French fries, a Big Mac and a Coke, but we feed that to our kids. It's insane. And so we somehow think that we can do all these things to our body like eat crappy,

not exercise, drink a lot, not sleep enough, not manage our nervous system. We were just chatting a little bit earlier how, you know, we're both doing a lot or busy. We're trying to be involved in making the world a better place by doing the work we do. But sometimes, you know, it's like you wake up and you got stuff to do or you get on your computer or it's stressful. And, you know, you need to understand you're a biological organism. So you have to follow the laws of nature. And if you don't, you're screwed. Basically, you get sick.

And it's not that hard. It's like, and diet, you know, the diet is the foundation, right? Food is medicine, number one. So understand everything you're putting in your mouth is regulating every single biological function. It's affecting your microbiome. It's affecting your mental health. Your immune system. It's affecting your metabolism.

It's affecting your gene expression. It's affecting which peptides get produced in your body. Everything, literally everything, the structure you're made of, how your tissues are formed. Everything depends on what you eat. So there's all these extreme, you know, controversies about diet. Should you eat be vegan? Should you be a carnivore? You know, what's like? And the reality is that in, you know, in the middle, like in a very large swath of the metal, like maybe 2% on either end or there's like kind of extremes. But everybody agrees. We should. should eat real food. Everybody agrees we should eat whole foods and unprocessed foods. Everybody agrees we should not be eating so much sugar and starch. Everybody agrees that ultra-processed food are bad for us.

Everybody agrees we should be eating more foods and vegetables. Everybody agrees with nuts and seeds are good. Everybody agrees that like, you know, you need at least adequate protein. We can talk about where to get the protein from. But, you know, the science is not that questionable. Like, it's pretty darn good. Yes, there's still stuff we have to figure out. But eating real whole foods and understanding how to eat an anti-inflammatory whole-food diet is just so key. The second is you've got to move your body, you know, like and figure out how to do that. And whether it's just taking a walk or going to the gym or whatever turns on, hiking, biking, tennis, yoga, do something. Strength training particularly as important as you get older.

Sleep, people don't prioritize sleep and they don't know how to do sleep. Hygiene, they're on their phone or on a computer, and then they try to bed and they're like, ah, I can't sleep. or they wake up 10 times a night or they drink. And, you know, we have to wind down at night. We weren't evolved to live in an environment where we're exposed to an incredible stimulation. I mean, you can watch like a horror movie at 11 o'clock at night with bright lights on, like, and your nervous is.

Rolling on TikTok. Oh, yeah, I don't even know. I don't even know what TikTok is. I kind of avoided it. I know I didn't, but I mean, like, I just like, this is. That's a luxury. Yeah, so we need to sort of practice good sleep hygiene, you know, dark room, cool temperature, don't eat your eyes before bed, you know, wind down at night,

take a hot bath, the abdomen salt, just simple practices that you can build into your life. And then learning how to regulate your nervous system. Most people don't know how to do that. And breath is incredibly effective. And we always have that. Just take a deep breath. It's like it's your diaphragm will actually activate the vagus nerve, which is the nerve that resets your stress response.

And so just by taking five deep breaths into the count of five, out to the count of five, five times, you'll be a different person, five breaths later. You know, and if you want to do more stuff like yoga or meditation or, you know, breath work, I mean, all that's fine. There's all kinds of abs, headspace. I like new common uses binaural beads. And there's a lot of ways to reset your nervous system. So you have to get all those basics.

And then once you've got those basics of food, exercise, sleep, stress management, and you learn how to make them automatic and build them into your life, right? If your life isn't set up for it, you're not going to do it. So, you know, make sure you have what you need around you. Like in your morning, if you want to have your morning smoothie, make sure all this stuff is out and easy to get. You know, if you want to work out, make sure you have a pair of running shoes. Take a walk in, you know, learn simple, simple, simple things.

And I've written a lot about this in my books and blogs and so forth. And then vitamins and supplements, I think are really important because we live in a very nutritionally depleted world. And I wish we didn't, but I can tell you after doing, you know, probably 20,000 patient's lab tests and nutritional levels that most of us have some problem. I mean, it is not my opinion. This is the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a large government survey that's an ongoing research database that tracks Americans over time and measures their blood work. And they're like, yeah, 90% of Americans are deficient in one or more nutrients

at the minimum level to prevent deficiency disease. So how much vitamin C do you need to not get scurvy or vitamin need to not get ricketts? That's what they're talking about. Not levels that are optimal. So it's, it's probably like all of us need a multivitamin, fish oil, vitamin D, magnesium, maybe probiotic. And that usually covers the basis. And then you can get into all kinds of other fancy stuff. But if you just do that, like you're 80, 90% of the way there. Yeah, I mean, a lot of these things really are so simple. But I think what happens for a lot of people is that they get overwhelmed because there's so many different areas, right? There's sleep. There's exercise. There's diet. there's stress management and it feels kind of insurmountable and especially when people are busy,

you know, it feels like there isn't enough time in the day. And I get this all the time. I started doing TM in 2018, which is 20 minutes twice a day. Meditation and silence changed my life. And everybody is like 20 minutes twice a day where how do you find the time? But yet, you know, I do this too sometimes. How many hours people spend a week trying to feel. out what they're going to watch on a streaming service like Netflix. Every time I sit down to watch TV, which is rare, I spend an hour scrolling, trying to find something to watch, and then I don't find anything I turn it off. Yeah, we waste a lot of time.

I mean, if you actually did a time of your life and a money audit, people are surprised. Like, I don't have money for this, I have money for that. Well, look at what you spend your money on. You know, maybe you're, you know, getting that coffee at Starbucks every day for five bucks. And when that adds up to more than $1,000 a year, right? So maybe there's a few things like that if you care about your help, but you can sort of shift your priorities and invest in yourself a little bit. If you are anything like me, then you go into total cozy nesting mode as soon as it becomes

September and fall starts rolling in. It's my favorite time of year. And one way to make your home super cozy and ready for fall without totally breaking the bank is article. So article believes in delightful design for every home. And thanks to their online-only model, they have some really delightful prices, too. They have an amazing curated assortment of mid-century modern, coastal, industrial, Scandy, and Boho designs. So it makes furniture shopping super simple. And they just expanded their best-selling living room collections with hundreds of new sofa beds. They have amazing sectionals. They have modular sofas, lounge chairs, swivel chairs, ottomans, and more. Plus, on top of that, they launch. And nine new fabric options, which allows you to pick the perfect sofa to create your dream living space. So you can get that cozy sectional for fall. They also have amazing decor so you can do the whole room. And the whole process is so easy.

Articles team of designers are really all about finding the perfect balance between style, quality, and price. The pieces have really thoughtful craftsmanship that stands the test of time and looks good doing it. They don't leave you waiting around. So you can pick the delivery time. They'll send you updates every step of the way. They offer fast, affordable shipping across the U.S. and Canada. And their knowledgeable customer care team is there when you need them to make sure your experience is smooth and stress-free. And I can attest to that because when I got my ivory bouclea chairs that I love so much, it was truly a flawless experience start to finish. They helped me move my existing furniture. The delivery men were so

nice. Article was so helpful. It was so fast. There were no crazy lead times. So if you are looking to cozy up your space for fall, article is offering my listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit article.com slash blonde and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com slash blonde for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. For this episode of The Blonde Files podcast, I have partnered with E-Harmony. dating app to find somebody that you can be yourself with. Dating is hard, let's face it, especially in this day and age. And it can be really hard to find somebody that really gets you and that you can be fully comfortable with. So when it came to my relationship, what really made my partner stand out was the fact that everything just felt so effortless. It felt like

we were speaking the same language. We were on the same page about everything. I was fully myself with him and vice versa from day one. And we are just really compatible. But it can be hard to find somebody like that, which is why I really like E-Harmony, because they have a compatibility quiz that helps your personality come out in your profile. So that makes all the profiles on E-Harmony way more interesting and fun to read. And you can find somebody that you can be yourself with. We live in a world of facades and people not necessarily being their authentic selves. And it's great that on eHarmony, they kind of weed that out and do the hard work for you so that when you are looking at somebody's profile, you know what you're getting and you know if you are going to be compatible with them.

So you don't want to feel like you have to be anybody other than yourself. You want things to just flow naturally and feel like the person that you're with is picking up what you are putting down and vice versa. So that is eHarmony's whole shtick, helping you find someone that you can be yourself with. That's what true connection and compatibility are all about being seen, being heard, being understood. And that is why people are turning to E-Harmony. E-Harmony, get who gets you. Where do you think is the easiest place to start? Do you think it's food? If somebody is listening and they're going, I don't do any of this. I'm up. Whatever time they wake up, they get on their phone, they're on their phone until the end of the night.

There's no diet. There's no exercise. What I found is in my practice how powerful food is to change people quickly. People can make incremental changes. Like if they're drinking 12 Diet Coke, they could go to six. Okay. Or if they're eating, you know, like cereal for breakfast and they switch to eggs. Okay.

But the real issue is how do you get people to understand the connection between what they're doing and how they feel? And I wrote a book about 10 years ago called The 10 Day Detux Diet. And essentially it's out of the work of seeing patients and that the most anti-inflammatory healing diet that can be done in a short time to shift people's well-being. And I've done this with thousands of people. And it's remarkable in 10 days of just changing your diet to whole foods, getting rid of processed food, practicing a few simple habits, the average reduction in symptoms from all diseases.

And we're talking about everything from sinus and allergies to irritable bowel to migraines, to depression, to joint pain, to acne, to whatever, you name it, whatever the problem is, wherever it is in the body, in 10 days, there's a 70% reduction in all symptoms from all diseases. Like if there was a drug that could do that, it would be like a way bigger than Ozempic. Okay. But in 10 days, people can actually see the connection between what they eat and how they feel. And the diet is very simple. It's just protein, veggies, nuts, seeds, berries, get rid of all processed food, get rid of sugar, get rid of flour, get rid of grains and beans for a short while because sometimes people have trouble with those.

Get rid of dairy, get of gluten. Just get yourself on a diet that's going to be incredibly healing. And it's delicious. It's not deprivation. It's not calorie restricted. And I'm actually launching a 10-day detox online program course where people can join. But it's such a profound experience for me because when I see people, you know, when we have them do these questionnaires which score their symptoms before and after,

and the way people feel is just tremendous. So I think as a place to start, you know, you can do anything for 10 days. Encourage people to think about doing that because if you do that, then you'll see, oh, geez, I don't have to have these migraines or this joint pain or my nose doesn't have to be congested and I have this post, and it'll drip all the time or I don't have to be like tired and I don't, like your body will change so fast. And then you can see just the role of food in how you feel.

Then you can make a choice. So you all, you know, look, I know that if I eat dairy, I will get congested and I'm running nose and I might get pimples. I know that because I've done this experiment. But sometimes I'm like, I love pistachio and hazelnut gelato. So I'm going to eat it. and I will suffer the consequences. But at least I know.

And then if I stop, it'll go away. But we have to learn our body. So I think just starting with food is really important for people. Yeah, and I think feeling good is the best motivation. Really, once you get a little taste of that, too, then you want to continue that and healthy habits, beget healthy habits. Exactly. I mean, you know, I mean, the first few days for the 10-D detox can be challenging

because people are actually getting into withdrawal symptoms. And they have lots of inflammation in their body. and they have all these immune complexes that can make them feel like they have the flu. And it's a physiological thing when your body gets off the crap because it's used to it. But it's creating this low-grade

chronic inflammation in the body. You get rid of that. And people are like, wow, I feel so amazing. And it's like we don't have that, you know, opportunity to really make the connection between what we eat and how we feel. Even the smartest people, I'm like, have no clue.

You mentioned earlier protein sources. Yeah. So I know that there's a lot of confusion around that, as well right now. So what are the best protein sources? What should people be looking for when they're incorporating that into their diet? I read a number of books, food, what actually I eat, and the Pagan diet is a shorter kind of version, which is sort of like a how-to, which kind of summarizes science. And I've written a lot about this. And, you know, there are four issues really

around meat and veganism. One is health. One is environmental, and the other, and climate, and the other is moral. About three issues, not four. And the moral issue, you know, if you're a Buddhist and you don't want to kill anything, I get it. That's your value system. You just have to know how to manage. For example, I was the, I was a doctor for this abbot of Menry who basically is from the Tibetan tradition called the Bon tradition. And he was the Dalai Lama's meditation teacher. This guy was, you know, was 87, whatever. He had typed your diabetes and he was a, you know, vegan. And I was like, you know, you're really causing yourself a lot of trouble with the way you're eating and because you're eating a lot of flour and the traditional sampa, which was their breakfast

with barley flour. And I, and I showed him what he was doing and we checked his blood. I convinced him there's an issue. And we just got him eating more nuts and seeds and more beans and exercising more and getting all the starch out, all the other starch out of diet, more veggies. And he lost 30 pounds. His diabetes reversed. He felt great. And so, you know, if you're vegan, you can, can do it, but it's harder. I think that the environmental climate issue, the regenerative agriculture movement is really important. I'm working really hard in that area to try to change how we farm, but conventionally raised animals is just, is a crime. You know, it's a crime for the animals. It's a crime for the environment. It's a crime for climate. It's a crime, you know,

against us because we're eating all this stuff that's really poor quality. It's affecting our health. But we generally raised animals are actually very healthy for you. And if you look at the data on meat, you know, people can point to this or that study. When you look at the totality of the evidence, really, there's no evidence that unprocessed meat is bad for you. And that, in fact, the opposite. If you get older, the amount of protein you need gets more because you develop muscle loss and you also have something called anabolic resistance where you can't actually build muscle. And so people need way more protein than they think. So you need about a gram per pound. Now, if you're a vegan, the only way, the only way to get that much protein is because, for example,

if you have four ounces of chicken or meat, that's like two cups of beans or six cups of rice. No one's going to be eating two cups or beans or six cups of rice at a meal. So you have to supplement with processed protein powders like pea protein or soy protein. And you have to supplement with additional amino acids because they don't have the kind of amino acids that build muscle. So you can do it. But you have to eat a lot of processed food to do it, which I'm not a big fan of. It sounds like processed food is probably one of the biggest offenders that we encounter in our day-to-day lives.

And it's something that we're exposing ourselves to eat three times, potentially more daily. What are some of the other biggest offenders to our health? You know, it sounds like we've been talking about stress, things like environmental toxins. Yeah. Toxins and our skincare products are cookware. What are some of those major things that we could be cognizant of? I mean, I would say the three things that are probably, let's just sort of assume exercise and sleep and stress management are all really important.

The three biggest drivers of disease are ultra-processed food and sugar and starch. That's one. The second would be changes in our microbiome that are related to the dietary factors as well. and the third is toxins, environmental toxins. And those are things that we are exposed to. We live in a sea of toxins. I just had my blood work checked. And I'm like, you know, been for 30 years, been trying to, you know,

detox and eat healthy and not have crap. But I go out. I eat at restaurants. I'm not like living in a bubble. So I don't like on a farm in Hawaii where I'm growing a mile food and drinking my own water. That comes from like a spring, you know. Sounds nice.

I mean, that's great. But my body was full of toxins. Formaldehyde, phthalates, pesticides. I mean, BPA, because I touch credit card receipts. I have to, because for a business reason, I have to sign the credit card receipt and keep it. And it's full of bisphenol A. And these are serious toxins.

Heavy metals, mercury, antimony, aluminum. I mean, and I'm very careful. I don't use lumenodotron. I don't drink, you know, I don't have things that you can get from, for example, like if you have heartburn, there's aluminum in some of the antacids. But I, you know, I don't do any bad.

And yet my body was just loaded up. And I did a process to clear it out. But, you know, we're all toxic. And so reducing your exposure is really important. That's why I'm on the board of the Environmental Working Group, which is our EWG. org where they really guide you on how to reduce your exposure. So how do you do that? Well, filter your water.

So I have a reverse osmosis filter in my house, an air filter, a purifier, making sure all your food is as clean as it can be. So they have a dirty dozen list, which is the worst contaminated fruits and vegetables and a clean 15, the least contaminated to help you choose what to pick. They tell you how to choose the right animal foods and which fish are least toxic and which household cleaning products are least toxic, which skincare products are better for you because you can use their app skin deep and you can see, oh, this is my makeup or this is my skin cream or this is my whatever.

And it'll tell you. But, you know, what I would say is if you aren't going to be able to eat it, you shouldn't put it on your skin, right? Because everything goes through your skin. Like, you know, when someone comes in to the emergency room and they're having a heart attack, the first thing we do, before you can get an IV in, is we take a toothpaste tube full of nitroglycerin and we squirted it on their chest

and put a bandage over it, so it goes right through the skin. Wow. Because it works really fast. We know an estrogen patch, right? Right. We know there's a lot of medication. Drostron cream. There's fentanyl patches, right?

Yeah. Like, all this stuff goes through your skin. So whatever you're putting on, whether it's sunblock or makeup or, you know, skincare products, you know, they're full of crap. And so there's a lot of ways you can reduce your exposures. I think there's a lot of cognitive dissonance too. Yeah, microplastics. I mean, like, I love that you're drinking out of a glass bottle because, you know,

we can now measure microplastics in people and there's microplastics in the plaque in the arteries and men's penises and like, in all kinds of crazy places. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. So you want to reduce your exposures for sure. And by the way, we test toxins. I mean, I'm amazed at the function health test.

How many people are mercury poisoned? Really? Because people like sushi. And people don't think twice about eating tuna. And it's delicious. I love tuna, but it is so high in mercury. People are actually poisoned and they don't even know it. And what happens is they don't know because they feel fine.

And then it just accumulates until something happens and they got autoimmunity or they get chronic fatigue or they get heart attack or something. Yeah, does everybody have a different threshold and, you know, certain people can keep exposing themselves to those things and nothing really happens while others get really derailed? Yeah, for sure. Like it depends on your genetics. For example, I have really crappy genetics when it comes to detoxification. So when I was in China, I just accumulated a ton of mercury. I remember I had a 70-year-old patient who loved to eat, you know, sushi,

and he had a mouthful of fillings. And he didn't have any, when he checked his system, he cleared it all out. So the people are different, for sure. But a lot of us are just walking, I mean, around toxic waste dumps. I mean, if we were food, we wouldn't be safe to eat. That's a big takeaway. Well, I think there are so many practical tips that people can take from this episode, easy things to incorporate into their lives and maybe cut out and also a really actionable thing that they can do, which is, you know, get all of this testing done and to your point, become the CEO of their own health. So I think I think what you're doing is amazing. Thank you. I mean, to me, this is really the future of healthcare. You know, we're disrupting the whole healthcare system by creating a data-driven model that you own where you're into.

charge where you have access to your data where you can use medical intelligence, this kind of concept that came up with to really help you provide insights into what's going on in your trajectory of your health and intervene early or even, you know, if things are fairly progressed, you can then get on them. Like my friend who was 35 who had this, you know, blocked arteries and he's 35 years old, like he's got to get on this stuff. So I think, you know, we had this incredible a moment now where we're democratizing health care, we're decentralizing health care, we're providing access for people, where, you know, we're putting knowledge in people's hands. And, you know, I'm getting out of this paternalistic system where the doctors and the health

care system and the insurance companies are this firewall, they have to fight through to get what you need and what you want. And then you don't even get it because they don't know what to do with it. Thinking about health and thinking about disease. So, you know, we don't really have a health care system. We have a disease care system. And, you know, we don't really have. And, you know, we don't really have health insurance. We have disease insurance. So I think of Function Health as true health insurance. So for $4.99 a year, it's pretty, pretty cheap.

Well, tell everybody where they can find you and where they can sign up. Well, they can go to functionhealth.com and they can use the code, blonde files 100, to skip the wait list of almost 300,000 people and get your labs done. It's very easy process. Five minutes sign up. You go to the lab near you, Quest Lab, 15 minutes in and out. To check out my work, you can check out my podcast, the doctor's pharmacy. I have another call health hacks. And also, I've written, you know, 20 books,

and you can check my website, Dr.hyman.com. And also my social media is just Dr. Mark Hyman. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you liked the episode, and if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes such a long way in supporting the show. Follow the show over on Instagram at well.pod. You can also follow my personal Instagram at Ariel Laurie. I'm always sharing great clips from the episodes, and we also have full episodes on YouTube as well if you want to watch in entirety. Thanks for listening. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in

products or services referred to in this episode.