You’re Aging Wrong: The Real Reason We’re Dying Early (and How to Reverse It) | Ep 284 with Dr. Mark Sherwood Co-founder of Functional Medical Institute

0:04So Dr. Mark Sherwood, something that I'm seeing a lot about now is longevity. It seems like it's not just the billionaires who want to live longer. It's everybody is obsessed with wanting to live longer, but not just live longer, live healthier as we age. And I think it's great that we're seeing people like 50s and 60s that they're still capable of doing everything. Because I feel like before it felt like if you get to your 50s or 60s, it's like life is over. Or why do you think right now, in almost 2026, we are so obsessed with longevity? I think there's two reasons. Number one, I think, is the negative side of it.

0:45We've been touched by so much death over the last four to five years. It's been a conversation piece that has reached epic proportions across the world. So no question, we've had death touch our lives close to us with various epidemics and things like that. The other side is that there's a lot of technology right now. We're seeing some incredible breakthroughs, miracles, I would say, in the idea of how can we live healthier longer? So with AI, with the ability to mine data, to do studies in a very quick manner, we're really learning how to, quote unquote, hack the system better to give the possibility of living longer.

1:26And there's a lot of people that believe that it's possible to live up into the mid-150s or so, something like that. Now, I'm not sure I'm in that camp or not, but I do know, as we were saying before we went live, that we are going to die. I believe that. But I do not believe that we have to die as early as we're dying. And I don't believe we have to have this decrease in health span the way it's happening. I think we can have an actual increase in health span. And along with that, conjunctively, we can have a longer lifespan as well. So based on the data, based on everything that you're seeing, the people that you're helping, how long do you think we can live?

2:07And how healthy do you think we can be as we get into those later years? I believe the organ systems probably from everything I've seen and read, whether it be biblical texts or actual science data records keeping over the years, probably about 120 is the organ span of our bodies. Having said that, I see no reason while we have to have brain decay or brain decrepitation where we're losing our mind. Therefore, I think we can be very sharp. Physically speaking, we have to preserve capital, as my wife likes to say. You can't, don't do dumb things, you know, as you get into your 60s, 70s, and 80s.

2:44But I do believe that people could be active, vibrant, living independently, very health related as well, well into their early 100s. There's no question about that. I know data tells us the oldest person's ever lived was 122 living in France. The oldest person alive as of today, the time of this recording, was 118 living in Japan. So having said that, I believe that history does tell us a story. History sort of unravels a mystery for us. But we have an exciting future there. I think our expectations probably should change towards that. So what are two or three things that you do right now in your life that you feel will allow you to live to that 120?

3:29Maybe you'll break the record. Maybe you'll hit 130. Well, I believe there's three things that we really ought to do. And this is perhaps oversimplification, but I do believe, Dan, that there's probably overcomplication of things. It's not that hard. I think number one is this. You have to eat real food. until you eat intentionally. And what I mean by that is if you have a real food that's created, if it grows from the ground or in the ground, on the ground, on a tree, swimming through the water, flying through the sky, or walking through the forest, it's probably food. So eat that. But there was no donut trees in the Garden of Eden.

4:06I'm just using that as a little bit of a humorous ploy there. But if we eat real food, we're actually getting real nutrients to the cells. nutrients, or information. Our body runs on micronutrients, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids, as opposed to calories. So high nutrient foods is key. So number one is eat intentionally. Number two, I think is probably move purposely, which is activity. The only day that you should not move is the day you're dead. And the only day you don't exercise, therefore, is the day you're dead. Movement is life. Lack of movement is rigor mortis. So we need to move more, set less.

4:43I'm not talking about going to the gym. You can, but we do need to be active. Activity is something that sort of metabolizes adrenaline, which helps us minimize stress. And stress is the thing that actually is an overt killer today, right? So we have to move purposely every day. Number three is kind of tagging onto what I just said. It's live at peace. We live in a world where media can be so negative and so hopeless, you know, so just absolutely just miserable, fear-based. And it gets a lot of clicks. I'll admit that. It might sell some tickets, but it doesn't generate life. And I find that troubling.

5:30I mean, we've got to learn to live peacefully with people. So, you know, I'm with these wristbands that I give away and I don't know if you can see it, but it says hope dealer. And I believe that giving hope to someone else is what we should be about. So, you know, I've said many times, I believe hope should be the thing that becomes the new infectious disease around the country and world. And I think that would be a good thing, but living peacefully with people, man, having conversations, open dialogue, I'm not saying agree, but how about learning to love people again? And that gives us a chance to have some peace in our lives.

6:01I like peace in my life. So I'm with you. Crazy enough, it sounds like that could be the hardest thing for people just because, like you said, we're on our phones all the time. We're addicted to what's in our phones. But I'm hearing that younger generations are actually starting to use social media and starting to, they want to be more in person, like they want to be around each other more. So maybe they'll be the savior to our society. So going back to your life, you went from SWAT operations and near-death moments to becoming one of the country's most respected longevity doctors. So what is something that you learned from SWAT operations that you've been able to carry over?

6:44Well, I learned that anybody is capable of anything. And I learned that death life is a fragile subject. to see death occur in front of you, to watch people commit suicide, to see murders, to see death, and see people take their last breath. I remember one particular occasion we were on a SWAT operation, and one of the snipers had to use force to stop an hostage situation, and I was the first person to reach that individual, and it was a cold night. And Dan, I'll never forget this. As long as I live, you could see the breath. And I remember I saw his breath come out of his lungs that last time.

7:26And it changed and shocked me, you know, because you see it, you hear it. But when you're right there in the middle of it, it does something to you internally. And I realized that in a moment's time, you can go from death or from life to death. So how can we make life better? I realized that we're, again, like I said, we're capable of anything, both good and bad. I am one moment away, one breath away, one word away from being an idiot or a blessing. I'm going to choose to be a blessing. And so that shifted the way I looked at things. It shifted the way I look at people. And since then, I mean, people think it's a unique, perhaps, transition from SWAT team to a naturopathic, longevity-oriented doctor.

8:13but it's really not. I'm just expanded my area of protection and service, you know, protect people from the cells and perhaps serve them better. So is there something that you learned about leadership? Because I imagine, like you said, I mean, these are life and death situations. So is there something that you learned about leadership in that moment that you think could carry over into business, not just your business, but just something that people could apply to their business as well? Yeah, you have to own it. And I'm talking about owning physical, emotional, spiritual health. You have to own it.

8:46It's not anybody's responsibility to make you do anything. And I think with leadership, no one will go higher than you go. No one will go farther than you go. No one will be higher level than you are. So you set the bar, you set the tone for your business. The leader is the person everybody looks at. The leader sometimes stands alone. But the times the leader stands alone, that's the time the leader stands out. Doing the right thing, doing the best thing all the time, setting the bar high with excellence, never accepting that it's okay. Striving for perfection, but realizing you're going to get excellence on the way is probably where you want to be.

9:31but never accepting a C-level grade. We should always strive for A-plus every time. And the leader is the one that sets that tone for the entire organization. And it's not just about health. It's about financial stability as well. And we have to really master it, physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial. I know you've said health isn't luck, it's leadership. So I appreciate you sharing that. you've also talked about when your entire life changed the moment you realize that what people face isn't physical that it's internal and i have to say that is my battle like my mind is definitely my i battle with that every day and it's something i want to get better but when did you realize that it was an internal it was your mind that's actually battling against you and how do you then rewire yourself to change?

10:27I think my biggest turning point in life, Dan, was when I discovered and was told that my mother committed suicide. No kidding. It was a shock to my system. But I realized at the time that her mind went in a different direction than was the best direction. And I realized that she believed a lie, that she wasn't valuable. And when I experience those things, it changes you. And you have to begin to make the decision to whether you're valuable or not. Yes, we all have this battlefield of the mind, I suppose. But the mind is made up, not by the way you feel. And this is very important. The feelings have to follow the actions.

11:12It doesn't matter how you feel. Your actions have to lead, the feelings match up, which creates predictable results and creates consistency. And that leads to a trustworthiness that you have with yourself. Therefore, you don't become a perpetual liar to self, but you become a perpetual truth teller to self, meaning you can now trust your own word, therefore giving you a solid, stable mindset that is foundational going forward. And when you do that, there's really nothing you can achieve. And I think health is not just about that physical thing around us, you know, and not about just what you eat.

11:52It's what you believe. It's the framework. I mean, do you think about sickness or do you think about wellness? Do you think about leadership or do you think about following everybody else? Do you think about being an example or do you get wore down from not, you know, being able to stay out front? So it is about mindset. And that's some of the patterns that I've learned over time. So when you look at this whole biohacking space, do you see anything that you're like, wow, you know what? That actually what people are saying is great thing. Like, like, should I be going into the sauna and should I be going into the cold plunge?

12:28And I mean, it seems like there's a there's a whole lot of things, right, that we're just seeing from this. I'm using, you know, quote unquote, biohacking. Is there something out there where you're like, wow, you know what? I would do that. Or, and, or is there something where you're like, I would never do that? Yeah. Everything should be focused on the mitochondria, in my opinion. And second behind that is resiliency. So let's start with the second one first. Resiliency would be something akin to using the cold plunge and the sauna. When you go to the extreme with cold or hot, you activate what's called heat shock proteins.

13:01And those things are the proteins that prevent cellular damage. And so when you have this ability to tolerate the cold plunge, the 40 to 50 degree water for, you know, three or four or five or six minutes, and you have the ability to tolerate the 140 degree, you know, sauna for, you know, 25, 30 minutes, you actually train your heat shock proteins that these extremities are something you can tolerate, building resilience. And that resilience goes in all parts of life, of course. The first one, though, is mitochondrial health. Realizing the mitochondria is the centerpiece of the energy production of our cells.

13:45With mitochondrial production, the cells will operate efficiently. Without mitochondrial function, the cells die efficiently. So it's all about pushing the envelope with those. And there's a few things you can do with that. Obviously, I like NAD, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. I like using molecular hydrogen, whether I consume it or I breathe it. I think those are outstanding for that. And frankly, I like using peptides. I think these are great. Those modalities right there as far as what we can do to help our bodies create resilience, create life, become more functionally healthy in a time are very, very important.

14:24And I, you know, again, go back to the three things I mentioned earlier. You got to eat right, move right and think right. So when it comes to NAD, I've been looking at this NAD or NAD plus. I don't know if there's any difference there. Is it more of a like a supplementation, like a pill supplementation or does it have to be injection? I'm just seeing so much of it now. I don't know, like, what's legit, what's not. There's a lot of push out there right now in the biohacking space and the longevity world. You're going to get a lot of people selling stuff. Personally, I use it in a subcutaneous manner to get it inside of my system.

15:00So I inject it. You can also do an intermuscular injection. You can also do a slow push IV as well. I haven't had good success with oral forms yet. There's some people out there now today that are developing forms that are liposomal delivery forms. And I haven't tried those yet because I've been doing the real thing for so long. So I suppose there's other ways out there, but it's very good. If people don't know the effects of that, basically it's required to recycle your body's chief antioxidant called glutathione. If you can't recycle glutathione, oxidative stress runs amok in your system, which creates damage and inflammation inside the mitochondria.

15:46Wow. What about peptides? I'm fascinated with the amount of peptides there are. I've seen ones where you mix a bunch of different peptides and one does this or one does that. And I know a lot of friends who are doing it. I mean, they look phenomenal. Like you're saying, I have a friend, she's in her 60s and she looks better than when I met her when she was in her 50s. So is there something when it comes to the peptides that you're using or that you think has been really beneficial? Yeah, I use a lot of peptides. I'll just a few of them that I have and do use Tessa Moreland, which is more of a build muscle, burn fat, protect the brain, the heart.

16:23I like SS31, which is a mitochondrial membrane stabilizer. I like MOTS-C, which is a mitochondrial biogenesis creator, helps us create more gasoline for our bodies. I like BPC-157 that prepares tissue cells, joints. some of the thymocins thymocin alpha one thymocin beta four can activate the immune system to make us younger in our recovery and our ability to defend themselves and i should say peptides are nothing more or less than amino acids that are structured together so they're not unnatural the safety profile is absolutely tremendous and frankly we should be using them more now i know there's a lot of regulatory pushback on those things but that'll probably continue as most things do, you know, some things that work well, they are kind of attacked from time to time, but they are helpful.

17:19And we're very experienced in those things. And I'm a full believer in those. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Because I went to a place recently, they had so many things. And they're like, what do you want? I'm like, I have no idea what I want. Like, like, tell me what I should what I should take. But I'm really, really interested. I was super into taking supplements and things since I was probably around 15, 16 years old, up and through my 30s. And then I kind of fell off a little bit. So I want to get back in because I just see, I just see incredible results happening for people. And I'm in my 40s now.

17:54So I'm like, really starting to think these things through, you know, Dr. Mark, like, when I get into my 50s, 60s, like, I really want to remain healthy. And it, you know, like, you know, it's, It's almost scary thinking like, wow, my life could be halfway done. But if I'm in my 70s and 80s and I can't do anything, then I feel like my life is kind of over. So I'm glad that there's hope here for us. And thank you for sharing that. So when it comes to some of the testimonials that you're seeing with reversing the aging process, can you share those? Yeah, I've got some really cool ones, Dan. And I think, you know, being in my 60s, I can relate to what you just said.

18:35So I was like, wow, man. You know, but ultimately, we're able to test the biological immune system of people. We're able to test biological organ systems of people now. And it's really fascinating about what we can quantify and analyze right now through epigenetic testing and some other testing, such as glycan testing. but I have seen people routinely have a 30 year younger immune system functionality. So if you're 60, I've seen people have an immune system functionality of 30 and that's very, very routine with our therapies. And what does that mean? That means you're going to have more resiliency within the ability to defend oneself to, you know, viruses, bacteria, injuries, et cetera, just recover faster.

19:21And again, I had one guy who is in his 70s. He has a biological age, immune system-wise, of 29. So it's shocking what you can achieve. Now, again, is it going to advance? Of course it is. But nonetheless, it does give people a lot of hope. Well, you look like you're 30. So I don't know. Oh, man, that's very nice of you. Thank you. I'm giving you that biological age. So I know you have an ebook. I know you have a lot of information that people want to read. I'm sure there's so much to digest from this. I want to say it's probably maybe it's my social media feed, but it's like all that I'm seeing is all about longevity, biohacking, things that we can do, which I think is great.

20:08You know, I think it's great that we're that we as a society seem to be moving towards something as positive as this. And I hope that we all have, you know, connection with one another, the peace that you mentioned that we're all at peace. But I learned a lot today. So if you want to get, if you want to find out more information, they want to get the ebook, how can they do so? Go to drmarkshirwood.com. You can scroll down the page and there's a nice cool ebook that my wife, Dr. Michelle and I wrote. It's called Hope, health and freedom. And it's, I would love you to have it. It's, it's about 20 some odd pages.

20:42It's got everything I talk about and some, and some more stuff in there that you'll, you want to have, put that in practice, put it in your life and your life will be better. Man, I could tell you're just so positive. And I think that's like a breath of fresh air nowadays, but, uh, I hope everyone gets the ebook it's free. Like, why would you not get this? You know, but Dr. Mark Sherwood, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing all your wisdom and the impact that you're going to have on people's lives is, you know, this is why I think we all show up every day is we want to make sure that not only we're having a great life, but that others around us are.

21:14So thank you for joining us on Founder's Story. Dan, thanks for having me. It's been an honor to be with you.