The Foods & Supplements You NEED TO EAT For Longevity & Overall Health | Michael Murray

our food supply has changed more significantly than our DNA and what our body requires what the heck should we be eating for longevity I mean when you look at the longevity field you hear everything from you should be a complete vegan because animal protein will kill you and will drive mtor and cause an early death or people who are saying no you actually need a lot

of animal protein to build muscle and to live a long time so you know should you be keto should you be vegan should you be paleo should you like what the heck is a longevity diet that you've come up with that makes sense that incorporates all the scientific research that we do know about how our bodies work and how we age so we kind of get

out of these ideological Wars and come up with what actually is scientifically prude and insensible it makes sense yeah that's very practical I take a very pragmatic approach and we develop philosophies that sometimes are convenient but uh for me it's been a lifetime of Discovery and I've gone through different phases of my life when I first got into Health Nutrition I was a strict vegan for

six years then I started eating fish and then you know now my my diet is uh uh you know I would say I eat very clean I don't eat any processed foods per se but one of the dietary principles that I I uh I had a thought when I was taking physics and looking through a prism and seeing a beautiful rainbow and the rainbow diets kind

of gotten very popular these days but I I had this back in the 70s and the idea is that uh we should be taking advantage of all these different plant pigments in in in in our diet and I have a love affair with a particular type of plant pigments flavonoids there are over 8 000 different flavonoids in nature and as a class of compounds flavonoids are

referred to as Nature's biological response modifiers and let me Define what that term means it means that these plant compounds these pigments can help modify our response to environmental issues and things that are going on in our body and this is demonstrated by their antioxidant antiviral anti-cancer anti-aging anti-inflammatory effects in many many more and flavonoids are the key components in many foods and medicinal herbs that

are responsible for their medicinal effects so I have made a very strong commitment for over over 45 years now of eating a diet really rich in flavonoids we're taking a lot of supplements and by the way this is a sample of what I take every day I take a lot of you who can't see it on audio it's a big little baggie full of stuff probably

30 or 40 pills in there yeah exactly I on my on my website I people always ask me what do you take what do you take and so I I put it on my my website drmarie.com uh all the supplements I take and and why and if you look at uh that supplement list it focuses a lot on on plant flavonoids and then uh on my

website I also have uh an article that I wrote on how to how to measure your flavonoid intake how to have a target of what you ideally should reach and uh how to get there through dietary choices and supplements so I'm a big fan of of lab noise and the great thing is they they are readily available in food uh uh you know everyone thinks of

blueberries but red kidney beans actually have higher uh antioxidant activity higher flavonoid content than than the uh than the than the blueberries uh dark chocolate is a good choice uh raw cacao powder is better uh so there's just a lot of secret ways that I've found to really boost my my flavonoid intake no matter what diet that you follow I think you have to take advantage

of these beautiful gifts from nature and the way they work in our body is truly a miracle because these are highly active compounds so uh Nature has built in a way that we can ingest them and they circulate in our blood bound to various compounds like glucuronic acid or sulfur and what's interesting is uh they are liberated from those conjugating agents or the compounds they are

bound to in areas of need so it's it really explains how they can be so pharmacologically active but very safe because Nature has built in a safety profile for them and and so I like to flood my system with these flavonoids to make sure that they're there when my cells need them now that's very interesting I don't want to talk about something that's in the in

the field right now which I don't agree with but is certainly getting attention is that plants have these anti-nutrients that the phytochemicals and prints are actually poisons and that we shouldn't be eating that and that the whole carnivore extreme version of eating which is basically just eating meat or animal protein suggests that at least plant compounds are actually harmful that all these phytochemicals are the plant's

defense mechanisms they're their own poisons per se their pesticides they're herbicides there the things that repel various predators and we're consuming these and how are they good for us if they're the plants defense mechanisms that may be poisons yeah it's just it is flooding your system actually the right thing or is there a particular dose that matters versus just having a huge amount of let's say

green tea extract or grape seed extract or something you know floating around your blood the these these phytonutrients or phytochemicals are really interesting the way they they work in our body and sometimes uh uh it's they don't have a we get lost in the direct effect but uh the fact that they're able to influence uh the expression of certain genes and uh the overall impact on

our cells it's it's pretty hard to argue against them they really are conductors of a beautiful beautiful Orchestra that's designed to keep us healthy and and I think uh I think uh if we if we don't consume a diet rich in these Foods we're really uh uh doing a disservice that's not to say that we can't see temporary benefits from following even extreme diets but I

think when you look at what our body needs it's uh it's clear to me that we're meant really designed to be uh omnivores we're not designed to be carnivores we're not designed to be uh vegan we're designed to take advantage of both animal foods and plant foods and there's certain foods that I think promote Health more than than others and uh uh you know I think

fruits and vegetables uh uh legumes I think you know most people are kind of getting away from from grains I do think they have their place but not so much processed grains I think we definitely would need to get away from Ultra processed foods right that's what the research keeps showing over and over and over there's a wide berth of what our bodies can consume and

be relatively healthy uh and likewise there are uh a narrow a range of foods that we can eat to make us achieve our optimal level of health and you know I think both of us are kind of living proof of that uh you know we're not separated that much by by age I'm a bit a bit older than you but uh like you I plan to

be forever young body at least in uh uh spirit and attitude totally it's so true I think well for sure it's also possible to be healthy in body too and that's the whole point of this I just finished writing my book uh Young Forever about longevity and it was very clear to me that that as I Came Upon the science of the things that are really

working to both make us healthier and live longer that they hearken back to the principles of natural medicine which is activating the body's own innate healing systems its own innate healing mechanisms that are embedded in our biology that are designed to keep us alive and well throughout our lives but they get honestly Trashed by our modern lifestyle right and so so I don't want to dig

into your approach as someone who's really an expert in this around the things that you discovered as you were writing your book the longevity Matrix and and the kinds of things that you found to be um most effective what were the the most important strategies from a diet and lifestyle perspective and and maybe some other things so we can get into some of the details but

I want to know what is is the thing that you kind of were like aha to you that were so powerful in my book what I what I focused on first was a couple with basic things because uh I look at what is effective in helping people not only live longer but have a higher quality of life and I what I discovered years ago one of

my big aha moments was I was reading a Sports Illustrated article about Stan usual and this is one of the most beloved Sports Heroes of all time and he was famous for acknowledging people and showing appreciation and I I realized that the people that I knew who were long-lived that's a polite way of saying whom I respected loved and appreciated they all had one common feature

they had many different personalities different uh routes in their lives that they shared a common feature and that was they had an ease to expressing appreciation and they lived in a state of grace and you know Cicero said that uh gratitude is not only the greatest virtue but the mother of all others and I started looking at the science of gratitude and there's a whole field

of psychology that's rich of wonderful discoveries it's a positive psychology and you know our lives are supposed to be full of such a range of emotions and the ones that we need to feel more of that they really start with gratitude but uh you know I look at all the emotions that I truly love experiencing awe Wonder excitement enthusiasm inspiration and all the these fuel a

life worth living in and really fuel us to to want to live longer so that was one of my big aha moments and wow I'm curious about yours yeah so it's interesting so it's not about like what you eat or exercise or any of that it's not about the right supplements it's about your mindset and how you see the world and how you feel about your

life and whether you're grateful or resentful whether you live in a a state of joy and connection or whether you live in a state of regret and heard and victimhood and and I think there's a real phenomena that is is biological that gets translated to our thoughts and our feelings so whatever is going on in your life whether you know you're a prisoner in Robin Island

like Nelson Mandela for decades but somehow he managed to keep his sense of humanity and his kindness and his wisdom I mean that like you know you think our lives suck well imagine being on Rabbit Island in South Africa and apartheid and and how he survived that I was just down there so it kind of reminded me of of that when I was I was in

Cape Town and I and I was like wow you know it's really so much about what goes on up here that determines what goes on in the rest of our body yeah and here too and I I want to I want to uh make an observation that I've had about you know until all your viewers and listeners and they probably noticed this as well the longest

study uh in history is the Harvard men's study and they looked at uh man I think the study started in the 1920s and they looked at men in a different socio-economic uh levels and what they found was following these men over their course of their lifetime the biggest impact on determining Health and Longevity and happiness and the quality of their lives was the quality of their

relationships and their ability to make connections and my observation about you Mark Hyman is you are gifted in that area I I really know uh no one better in making making heartfelt meaningful connections and uh I know you have great connections in your life and I know that has to be a big aha moment for you because I I've known you a while and they I

just want I congratulate you thank you thank you it is actually part of The Secret of My Success it's like you know it's actually valuing and spending time and energy on keeping maintaining developing beautiful relationships across both you know personal and professional categories so I think you're right it's it's really a key part of longevity which is feeling connected and feeling a sense of belonging and

meaning and purpose um I think all that is so true I want to kind of dig into some of the more practical things that people also want to talk about I want to sort of come back to a little bit more granularity on the nutrition front so clearly I agree with you that I think a lot of these phytochemicals are important many of these work through

activating various longevity Pathways in our body these switches that uh we now are are understanding more carefully as we kind of peel back the layers on what we call the Hallmarks of Aging these underlying mechanisms that go wrong as we get older that are influenced by everything we do from our thoughts and beliefs like gratitude but also to the phytochemicals in food and and exercise and

and all sorts of inputs that we can regulate um but you wrote this book uh the longevity Matrix what was your what was your main thesis and what was the sort of main concept behind the book and that what led you to write this book because I think there's so many books on longevity I'm just curious about like your frame of this as an as a

doctor who's really expert in natural medicine well Mark uh you know I learned something uh years ago from uh one of my one of my favorite patients of all time his name was Dean and he had a very rare genetic disorder and he was the most compliant motivated patient I ever had uh and uh he said something to me once I asked him why he was

you know going through all this because it was a very painful existence and he said uh uh he goes all I can do is all I can do so why wouldn't I do all that I can do and when we look at when we look at what what constitutes Health if we look at what helps us live a longer and healthy life it's a constellation it's

a matrix of different factors different facets and we really have to pay attention to all of them and that's my point of of the book and one of the big stress points in the book things like something I stress over and over again is that uh there just about every major uh class of medicine that you look at every Placid drug that you look at is

providing short-term benefit but providing long-term damage and that shows up in studies looking at the impact of various drugs on our longevity whether we're talking proton pump inhibitors we're talking benzodiazepines we're talking about other sedative hypnotic drugs we're talking about acetaminophen or Tylenol very simple drugs often produce disastrous long-term effects and so philosophically I want to help people get away from that mentality and focus on

what they can do to build Health to create a matrix in their body that will support them uh for the rest of their lives and what I found in in most people Mark is that uh they're not so much interested in living longer they want to live better better and stronger now and one of the first things I focus on in the book is is helping

people create a why because what I found you probably found this as well is that many people really don't want to be here because right no they're they're they're they're not happy they're dealing with with health issues that are hard and they're struggling and life is such a challenge and they don't feel well you know so it's you know talking to them about living more like

this it's not appealing to them so helping them realize that that's not what life is supposed to be life is a celebration we're supposed to be getting up every day and say fantastic man I'm thankful to be alive today and this is what I'm gonna do and and go out and do it and uh you know there's a lot of things that go into feeling like

that and and that's really the base of my book and I'm sure your book is well we have to help people feel better now so they want to live longer that's absolutely true um in terms of the the the sort of protein question I want to sort of come back to that because I think you know in the longevity field there's a lot of debate about

this and a lot of longevity researchers are suggesting we should be vegan because we don't want to stimulate mtor can you kind of speak to that and and and and the whole idea of protein and aging and muscle mass and sort of the kind of balance between sarcopenia and and the need to build muscle but also they need to kind of do clean up and repair

through autophagy which is cellular cleanup yeah uh it's a it's a big topic I I uh I I eat uh uh predominantly a high protein diet but I try to get my protein from from clean sources uh I uh rely on uh whey protein I know that's controversial for some people but it's a very high quality protein and it's very clean I I focus on a

a moderate consumption of fish particularly clean fish like salmon and I also uh focus on uh on uh eggs and egg whites uh that's where I get the majority of my my protein and I I like a high protein diet because uh I think that that promotes uh muscular Health you if you don't have that protein intake then you're going to lose muscle mass and when

you lose muscle mass uh you're accelerating aging muscles are the main furnace of our body it burns it burns fat it helps our metabolism it it everything works better if we have an appropriate muscle mass and we start losing that muscle mass and as we age we're we're gradually losing it then we start being more frail uh that we now know that that sarcopenia the loss

of muscle mass uh is kind of the the predecessor to osteoporosis we know that there's a there's a link between sarcopenia and uh uh you know loss of cognition uh so we we're we're starting to understand that it's important to to to to build and maintain our muscle mass throughout our life so uh that plays into the next area lifestyle in you know and I'm a

big believer in regular exercise it's a great investment uh for every uh hour of exercise you put in you're supposed to live two hours longer so you and I really we should never die without these sounds exercise is one of the best correlators to living living a long life and and uh and and I think certain exercises are more effective at doing that sure we've got

get our heart rate up but we also have to build muscle mass and and I think that's important for uh for our health and for living longer so I'm a big proponent of strength training I'm a big proponent of stretching and getting body work done making sure you're structurally aligned uh you know I I I remember once this woman came up to me after a lecture

and she was all hunched over and her posture was really bad she says uh hey I've been taking glucosamine and I haven't really seen any any benefit I said well you know we've got to straighten out your your mechanics here because you have mechanical stress and nutrition can only do so much there we've got to get your you aligned better and get your your biomechanics better

so I'm a big proponent of really taking care of your body in every aspect feeding it right making sure it's getting exercise and making sure it's in proper alignment yeah the muscle cattle health is super important because that's what determines our function as we get older and we often lose that so that's a really key key part I want to dive now into sort of a

sticky area that I love but you you also clearly love which is the area of supplementation okay so the argument argument goes gee you know why why do we need supplements why can't we get everything we need from Whole Foods we need a Whole Foods diet you know our hunter-gatherer ancestors never had supplements why do we need them and and and and sort of first answer

that and then let's dive into actually what we do need and why we need it particularly in the in the perspective of longevity research yeah uh our food supply has changed more significantly than our DNA and what our body requires and our food supply today uh has no uh resemblance to the food supply that we had thousands of years ago even the the paleo diet is

kind of a joke when you start looking at what uh what they ate back in the Stone Age you know we're having paleo chocolate chips right no no it was it was uh it was much different than than what what we have available now so uh the the question is I think can we we provide the optimal level of not only the nutrients our body needs

but also the phytochemicals from diet alone and the simple answer is no it's impossible because our food supply has changed so much and it's it's no longer nutrient Rich it's no longer phytochemical rich and the type of chemicals in our in phytochemicals in our food is is is changed and it's changed by modern farming and and I'm sure you've had many experts talk about this but

if we look at the the flavonoids as I've said I've loved them if you look at the flavonoid composition of organically grown tomatoes and compare it to GMO Tomatoes it's different the pesticides herbicides influence the the plants production of these like you mentioned protective compounds so I I really think that it's it's uh it's important to take advantage of all these superfoods that we have available

to us and all these these supplements that can help promote Health and Longevity and if we don't you know yeah we we might be able to get by but we're not going to be thriving and I'd rather see people thriving than just getting by I agree and in terms of you know uh longevity what are the things that are the kind of have to I mean

there's a list a mile long and I want to talk about your your personal recommendations that you take because you I've looked at your list and it's quite it's quite extensive right but what what is sort of the have to's the non-negotiables that are really key that are backed by science around what we need to take for longevity I think uh uh in anything you're doing

in life Sports uh your job building Health you have to pay attention to the foundation so your question is what are the foundational supplements that promote longevity I think you need a good high potency multiple vitamin and mineral formula because a deficiency of any single nutrient can have catastrophic effects on our health next uh I I I do believe in the in the vitamin D3 research

I do think that it that it's critical that we have adequate vitamin D3 levels so take enough vitamin D3 to get you in that ideal range uh uh 60 to 80 nanograms per ml or micrograms per ml um then next uh I I think uh these uh pharmaceutical grade fish oils are a great gift because you're getting these long chain omega-3 fatty acids in a very

clean form and you have thousands of scientific studies showing the benefits of of these long chain omega-3 fatty acids to our health so taking a good high quality fish oil getting enough of them getting at least a thousand milligrams combined with EPA and DHA each day I think is is a good goal next I think it's important to take some sort of plant-based broad-spectrum antioxidant a

good flavonoid Rich extract it would be a good choice something like a grape seed extract or a pine bark extract in the range of 150 to 300 milligrams per day you could take a one of these uh enhanced versions of curcumin that would be a good choice or there's so many uh great broad spectrum antioxidants you could take a green stream just something that's rich in

in phytochemicals that can produce some some real benefit uh I mean it seems like the ones that you've actually listed in your personal list are the ones that have seen to be the for me the most data on on Health and Longevity like quercetin curcumin green tea extract Resveratrol uh we very are sort of the things that grape seed extract which are the things that actually

are based on literature the most promising yeah well you know uh coursesame is interesting because it it activates the the longevity Gene everyone's trying to uh like I know nmn is a big yeah what you're doing is you're you're filling in a bucket that has a hole in it there's a there's an nmn bucket and that there's a hole in it and so we're filling that

bucket up continually by taking nmn instead of fixing that hole that hole that hole is related to an activity of of an enzyme and we can we can um help heal that that bucket by taking quercetin it it activates that longevity Gene and and that that raises uh the body's own NAD plus levels instead of having to take in nmn so I think uh what is

that longevity Gene you're talking about with quercetin because I think that's a very important one for longevity that maybe people haven't heard of it also assumed to be very effective in covid and helping with the immune system it's great analogies and gut healing so tell us a little bit more about the mechanism of action of course because I think it's something people hear about but may

not be aware of yes uh this uh this particular uh Gene increases the expression of the enzyme that regenerates NAD plus and this is the NAD plus levels tend to decline as we age and and people are taking things like uh nicotinamide riboside or nicotine nicotinide uh mononucleotide in a man to try and boost uh NAD plus levels but quercetin and other flavonoids by influencing uh

the production of a very specific enzyme can help regenerate that NAD plus and I think a more sustainable fashion otherwise you're just you're you're not addressing the underlying cause good medicine always involves trying to understand what's really going on in the cell and in the body and trying to repair it and so uh do you remember the name of that enzyme uh it's it's uh uh

naphtha quinone Oxo duct tase one oh that's a big one that's a big one well we're going to put that in the show notes it's an interesting mechanism of action and I think that's a that's a very insightful point so maybe even if you took NAD or nmn or NR and you of course along with it it might help right yeah yeah uh I I personally

don't take nmn because uh I I believe in in the flavonoids that uh that I that I'm taking but you're also digging a lot of other stuff you're taking things for detoxification and mitochondria which would play a big role in aging things to help your metabolism so can you talk about some of those compounds that you're taking oh my God uh yeah you know uh if

you're looking at wanting to live longer you've you've got to have plenty of energy so you have to ask the question well how do I how do I make sure my energy producing Machinery is working properly in in the uh the best way to to do that is to focus on things that help your mitochondria work better so your mitochondria or the energy producing compartments of

our cell it needs uh virtually all the B vitamins it needs coenzyme Q10 and it needs a protective agents around it because basically your mitochondria like a little mini nuclear reactor they're producing energy and that's what gives us life and in that process it's generating a lot of pro-oxidants and oxidants that can cause damage to the mitochondria as well as our cell so there's some special

compounds that protect the mitochondria one of my favorites is is called pqq that's short for pyroquinoline quinone that's why we called it pqq you I I love this compound Mark I'm sure you've talked about it but it's found in Stardust and you could make you could make a claim that uh peachioq is the these the spark of Life spread through the Universe um because it's absolutely

essential for for life it plays a key role in mitochondrial function it's it's it's found in our diet in very small quantities uh but it's they're necessary and it it it uh it it will someday be classified as a vitamin similar to in quantities to like like folic acid and it is available in in supplement form it's been shown to work very well with coenzyme Q10

yeah yeah and but anyway uh this is it related to CoQ10 it sounds like you know from the name of it it may be but it is it different than CoQ10 it is it's it's it's it's a bit different and every time an anti we use this term antioxidant a lot but there's many different antioxidants is there are musical instruments and uh you need that whole

band playing but every time an antioxidant performs its function it it's it's called the catalytic conversion uh some some antioxidants are relatively cheap like vitamin C it's only it can only be used four times and then it's spent uh pqq it can it can survive twenty thousand catalytic converter conversion so it makes it very special and that's why it's really concentrated in the mitochondria because it's

a very valuable antioxidant to protect against damage during during that energy production glutathione is another example of a key antioxidant but pqq is many times more more powerful than even glutathione and and I don't know if anyone's talked about uh ergothionine in in literally yeah we do we have talked about it we'd love to hear your thoughts about it before before you go on about PPQ

I just want to sort of say something about it it's it's one of those compounds that that activates what I called one of these longevity switches you know your body has these Hallmarks of Aging yeah and then the most important one of these deregulated nutrient sensing and there's like there's I call these four longevity switches that regulate insulin uh mtor sirtuins which which have to do

with you know Resveratrol and things like that Ned but then there's ampk which a lot of people are taking metformin for but pqq activates ampk which helps to really work on all the longevity Pathways it very well said and uh you know that leads us to Bear Marine too bear Marine uh is one of my uh my standard uh supplements it's a compound found in in

gold and seal and uh it it has great research showing an ability to lower cholesterol levels lower blood pressure and lower uh blood glucose levels if it was a drug it'd be the biggest selling drug of all time we were talking we were talking nearly 30 double-blind placebo-controlled studies showing that this this compound uh that's found in in plants like Goldenseal and Barberry and gold thread

can lower cholesterol levels as well as the Statin can lower blood pressure as well as an Ace inhibitor and can lower blood sugar levels as well as metformin that's impressive it has some other a really unique effects as well including activation of ampk yes there's a lot of compounds in nature that activate amp K and my whole diet is full of them you know it's uh

it's it's just amazing all these different compounds they all have some common features uh you know Nerf Nerf 2 activation is another key anti-aging strategy it's a non-specific uh Call to Arms by ourselves to activate our our antioxidant mechanisms and it explains you know one of the things that has happened in in uh in flavonoid research and some of the phytochemical research they do test tubes

to studies and and to see to see what actions it might uh produce and then uh but those test tube studies show us what the concentration is it's required to produce those effects and sometimes it's not possible to achieve that level of concentration uh they get metabolized but they're still active so how are they working and then and then that turns into a really interesting study

because we we see uh more clearly has a pharmacology has evolved we we've rediscovered some of these compounds that we thought were inactive because we didn't have the models to explain how they work and what we're seeing is that many of these uh these natural compounds uh activate really important uh cellular targets like you mentioned the four Hallmarks of Aging uh in in in cyclic amp

is is certainly one of those those key factors because it not only lowers lipid levels improves blood sugar levels it increases the formation of mitochondria yeah you increase the number of mitochondria you increase the energy of a cell you increase the energy of the cell it works better so it's you give that it's it's like you know I look at it uh the brain is our

our most uh metabolically active tissue okay and yet many people are there they have a their dimmer switch is is turned to dim because they don't have the mitochondrial uh energy production needed to to have that brain be be bright and to function properly and uh you know uh it's it's an epidemic uh of of uh mild cognitive impairment to dementia uh in our elderly right

now and uh and I think uh helping them have more mitochondrial uh numbers and better mitochondrial function is the solution and so many of the things that we look to to improve mitochondrial function improve uh brain function as well I started taking this product markets from our friends at Natural Factors is called regenerife yeah I love this product because I take a lot of pills but

this comes in in a powdered form so you got a little little scoop here and you just empty that that orange powder into your glass and you you've got a great cocktail it contains the acetyl-l-carnitine CoQ10 and some other key compounds for enhanced mitochondrial function and it's just a it's just a great way to get that dimmer switch to to turn up a bit yeah I

put that in my smoothie every morning I do actually it's great yeah you know I I think it's just important to emphasize what you said earlier about these plant compounds that work on these Pathways that drugs work on so a lot of people in the longevity field are thinking about metformin and taking this diabetes drug for longevity and there's a large trial going on now called

the tame trial targeting aging with metformin which was which is really designed to determine whether or not this is an effective longevity intervention that can reverse biological age but what you're saying is that there are many of these compounds like berberine and other things that actually do the same or work better than these drugs is that true yeah yes absolutely and if we look at uh

the the contrast between uh bear brain and net form and is is really interesting uh metformin by the way was originally isolated from a plant so uh conceptually it is a natural product and it does have some it does have a place in medicine but I think that bear brain might be a better choice and what's interesting about both metform and and bear brain is the

effect the microbiome but if you if you I'm sure you've in different ways yeah exactly I'm sure you've had people on Metformin what's their biggest complaint Mark digestive problems digestive problems yes because I don't think it's affecting the microbiome in a healthy way bearing has phenomenal effects on the microbiome uh it has it's a selective antibiotic it's it's a pathogen specific disease-causing organisms specific antibiotic and

it promotes the growth of many Health promoting bacteria one of the key ones is called acrimensia mucinophilia this compound or this this uh bacteria it works uh with our intestinal cells to create the mucin layer it's given the name eucinophilia philia means love it loves that mucin and it helps uh improve the quality and function of that mucin uh when we talk about leaky gut we

we're talking about uh the loss of of that mucin and we're talking about a deficiency of acromencia mucinophilia when we talk about diabetes when we talk about non-alcoholic fatty liver disease we talk about systemic inflammation caused by a leaky gut we're talking about decreased acrosia mucinophilia and bare brain increases the the the the accounts of this health promoting bacteria helps re-establish that mucin layer and is

a very important remedy for leaky gut diabetes and inflammation systemic inflammation fatty liver disease all these sequelae of what we know are the result of absorbing gut derived toxins that create uh all these problems in our liver and our metabolism so I I think the contrast between uh metform and and bear Breen on gut health is it's night and day one metformin questionable benefits maybe some

harm bear brain looks very beneficial interesting so maybe we're searching for love in the wrong places that maybe the plant kingdom actually is a source of a lot of these compounds and this is what I found when I wrote my book Young Forever that a lot of these compounds are in nature working on these Pathways that we are trying to find drugs for but they do

it in a way that's kind of more in line with nature less likely to have side effects and potentially even more more benefit yeah and what's exciting Mark is the best from nature is Yet to Come I've had my my fingers on the pulse of research for for over 40 years now and I'm telling you with it with the increase in in our understanding of how

uh natural compounds work in our body we're going to be gaining a greater appreciation you know one of the uh the the biggest uh uh indicators of of how far we've come in that regard is looking at uh curcumin so curcumin's been the subject of over 8 000 scientific investigations why are researchers studying curcumin because they're trying to find a drug that'll produce the same actions

and they they haven't been able to find one it's been intense research over 20 years and most natural compounds exert what are called pleiotropic effects this is UN unknown in with traditional drugs if we look look at inflammation like a Celebrex or an aspirin they work on one enzyme there are over 40 different enzymes that have been implicated in causing the Cascade of events that lead

to severe inflammation curcumin impacts all of them it's been shown to impact every known uh activator of inflammation well the drugs only work on one or two and it's it's really it's really quite interesting I I believe in the power of nature you know we we uh we fall in love with technology but uh you know I wrote a book called The Magic of food and

my my my thought was how I came up with that title was that uh uh Sir Arthur Clark who wrote uh uh 2001 A Space Odyssey had had a great quote he said any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable for magic and we have lost either where true technology lies because you know We're All Amazed by our iPhone and our computers and all this technology but the

greatest technology in the universe is is nature and the way we commune with nature on a daily basis is through the food that we eat and you've talked about this uh for for years you've you've you've made a I've heard I I listened to a lecture where you said food is information it's information it's technology and uh it's right it's really like yeah it's true it's

technology is about information and food is information and your biology is an informational system and actually there's a whole new Theory of Aging called the information Theory of Aging which talks about the dysfunctional information that we're either producing or that's being put in our biology that's actually causing us to age rapidly so it's exactly this problem oh wow so Michael Michael I wanted to loop back

on this ergothian thing we went down the rabbit hole of berberine and yeah and uh and some of the other compounds pqq but I wanna I wanna sort of kind of talk about this because something people may not have heard about and it's an interesting new compound that we've sort of found plays a role perhaps in aging absolutely uh uh ergothionine is an amino acid that

has a sulfur molecule uh it's a it's part of a group of compounds called thiol kind of like coenzyme Q10 and uh uh uh glutathione so the richest dietary source is mushroom and when mushrooms and when you start looking at the data uh you know we we talk about the Mediterranean diet we look at the you know these people living in Japan that live long and

you can make a very strong case that it that the intake of mushrooms is the is is the is the most uh significant factor associated with with these these folks uh living longer and being healthier because mushrooms are rich in this compound ergothionine and uh what it is it'll be considered a vitamin someday uh the reason why it's not now is that it it exists it

has existed in our food supply in low quantities for forever but our food supply is different uh so for example um uh this ergothionine is produced by by fungi so if if uh the ground is which contains a a lot of uh fungi if it's being tilled excessively or you're dumping a lot of pesticides and herbicides into that soil uh the the the fungal content is

lot of the benefits that we that we know are with mushrooms like preventing cognitive decline and promoting anti-aging effects it's related to their ergothionine content so uh it I think to me looking at the data it just really signifies again how far we've come from what we're designed to to be right because this is a compound that I think has historically uh humans were getting plenty

of because they were eating dirty food what did it do like what's the mechanism of action how does it influence us it's it's a very powerful antioxidant so it's it's it it exerts anti-inflammatory effects and it uh and those are kind of blanket terms and we you know we can look at specifically the way that it that it works but uh it's a it's you think

of it you know glutathione is a is a a tripeptide so it's a very large molecule this is a very small molecule it's just one amino acid and we actually have receptor sites on ourselves that pump it into the cell our cells only have those receptors sites for things that are really important like potassium and maybe yeah it's interesting it's very important so what it does

inside that cell is it acts as one of the primary antioxidants and it's it's very important in preventing cellular damage and we know that oxidative damage is what is associated with aging and so it's it's you know Bruce Ames who developed the Aims Test looking at muted ones uh he identified ergothionine is one of his longevity vitamins and it will be considered a vitamin like pqq

like q and eating and like a few other compounds that are absolutely essential and they haven't been a big deal because we were getting the Trace Amounts that we need from uh from the foods that we eat but now uh our farming techniques have changed the composition of our fruits and vegetables and other Foods has changed and we've got this ever increasing load of pesticides herbicides

and other man-made chemicals it's just uh yeah so we really need we really need these compounds that are cellular protectors in in ergothionine is one of the key cellular protectors yeah interesting it's interesting because you know when I went to icaria and the blue zones they ate a lot of mushrooms that made a lot of wild mushrooms it was just sort of part of their diet

they were always foraging and hunting for mushrooms so are there particular mushrooms that have higher levels that people can buy at the grocery store or they're just sort of like yeah even button mushrooms will have it but cremini mushrooms uh the the the the darker brown ones they're off often sold as buttons they're higher shiitake uh lion's mane and uh oyster mushrooms have the highest levels

but you'll find it in in all levels and uh uh the the I love shiitake mushrooms I roast them I I stir fry them a little olive oil and garlic it's great yeah so if we look at uh like the the the per capita estimated ergothionine intake in in America uh I might not get these numbers exactly right but I think it's like six milligrams and

we compare it to like Italy it's like it's almost it's almost two and a half times it's about oh really so yeah again so we you can you if you and if you think about it think about all these Blue Zone Cuisines right uh mushrooms are part usually part of the diet yeah it's true they really are and I I found that when I was traveling

in the sardinianicaria and I was like Wow and they always were serving them and I'm like this makes sense it's just just what we ate and it's one of those foods that you know are forageable so probably you've been eating it for hundreds of thousands of years uh if they didn't kill us are there any other kind of up and coming compounds that you're excited about

that we may not have heard about so ergathione is that something you can take as a supplement or just have to eat mushrooms and and it is available yeah it is available as a supplement uh uh and I I think 25 milligrams is a is a is a good amount there's so many compounds uh Mark and you know as I told you I uh I have

an affinity for for flavonoids and one flavonoid is is quite interesting uh Nobleton I don't know if you've heard of Nobleton it's it's a flavonoid that was originally isolated from unripe tangerine peel and what's interesting about it is it opened my eyes up to the fact that all cells of our body have a a circadian clock a biological clock and they screened over over 5700 compounds

looking for compounds that will bind to these receptor sites that regulate each cell's biological clock in this Nobleton was able to to bind and influence that that improve Resonance of the cell and this is really interesting because it has a chemical effect but it produces a a frequency effect and it causes increased cellular oscillations and uh it it has a remarkable benefits it it reasonable dose

levels it's one of the few flavonoids that uh are uh is a bioavailable uh without being transformed and conjugated so I think that that's one that's that's really exciting and uh uh gee I mean uh there's so many others uh I think spermidine is an interesting oh that sounds like an interesting one tell us about spermidine well yeah spermidine is uh part of the uh putricine

family polyamine family and historically these have been associated with kind of poor health because some of them don't sound too good like cadaverine and people yeah no uh spermidine actually has a lot of anti-aging effects and uh when we when we lose spermidine content in our cells we lose a very valuable component to regulate cellular functions so we start seeing uh we start seeing accelerated aging

in cells that have a lower spermitting content and there's disruption of this this whole polyamine pathway so I think spermidine is quite interesting we get it from uh you know wheat germ is one of the richest uh sources so there's there's some good research coming out with wheat germ extracts uh or spermadine supplementation and what's the mechanism of action of experimentine how does it sort of

enhance longevity oh it it basically it's a polyamine so it's it's donating those uh those amine groups when needed and that helps with uh with stability of the uh the uh epigenetic Matrix like the histones and that leads to to you know with greater uh stability of that uh that DNA you get better transcription amazing amazing well this is just such great information and I think

you know we've covered a lot of ground I think I think we've gone deep into the world of supplements which is interesting for people I think people get overwhelmed and take too much stuff and I think you're ambitious I I think I tend to be more in your camp but I mean it is still experimental when you throw all this stuff in your body what happens

how much of it's used how much was wasted you know what is actually doing you know how do you track the results I mean there's all these questions but I think I think there is really good evidence or some basic foundational things that you mentioned and then we'll link to in the show notes um any final thoughts or words for people who are focused on what

are the key strategies for living a longer and healthier life oh boy uh like I said what do you do Michael I do it all I do it all I I try to I try to have good thoughts I try to have a good attitude uh I I try to uh have a very healthy lifestyle you know getting enough sleep Mark uh that is really a

key to to life in many ways uh if you sleep well uh you have more energy if you have more energy life is easier everything's brighter so uh you know one of the biggest tools I've found to help people feel better is to help them get a better night's sleep I really believe in the in the power of uh of a good night's sleep it just

recharges us it clean cleans ourselves it recharges our batteries and then exercise uh you know I I I believe in that uh and then you know I I eat a very clean diet and I focus on giving my body all the tools it needs to to be as healthy as possible um you know I I eat the good things I stay away from the bad things

yeah I'm a health nut and which is crazy right we we call people uh nuts because they're they're they're wanting to to live the healthiest version of themselves in life and uh it's crazy in my mind not to be that way so I encourage people to embrace being a Health Net and do everything they can to make those choices they make every day healthier choices than

they're currently making it's just that simple really isn't it if you love that last video You're Gonna Love the next one check it out here glycation leads to us literally cooking from the inside like a piece of toast in the toaster that's what happens and then when we're fully cooked we die that's why we diet and so the more glucose spikes in your diet the faster

you age