Liz Earle: The Real Reason You're Ageing Faster Than You Should Be

25:25Over nine in 10 reported more restful sleep. Grounded is launching very soon and you can shop both at diome.co. That's D-I-O-M-E.co. Use code Sarah20 for 20 % off, whether you're buying once or subscribing. One thing I also wanted to say before we go on Structured Water is, you know, when you were talking about the blue light with the phones, do you know something that really surprised me recently? And I can't say this for verbatim because it was on a podcast with Dr. Andy Gelpin, who's like a human performance researcher. And he was like, do you know what, Sarah, I've just found out something that might really shock you about blue lights.

25:57And I was like, what is it? And he said, it's not the blue light that keeps you up. It's the intake of the constant information as well that we're doing. and I hadn't even thought about that. Sometimes we're obsessed with the blue light, but actually… Yeah, yeah. It's not just enough to say I can wear blue blockers. No, it's like the constant information that you're never quite winding down. And it's the endless scroll. There is no end to the scroll. There is no end. There is no end and it was very deliberate that it would just keep going and going and going. And ideally, if you can, put your phone on flight mode from about nine o 'clock in the evening.

26:28It's really hard, that late check of something, because you're then switching your brain into, oh, let me be alert and think about this and start to process. Actually, we really should be focusing on our circadian rhythm. What do you do? I am not as good as I'd like to be. I do wear blue blockers. I do have old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs in my bedroom. They are not only giving off a different wavelength, but they're actually giving out a broader spectrum of light. If you look at studies, for example, where we're under just bright LED lights, like today, like shortwave blue light, our mitochondria are tanking.

27:08They really don't enjoy that. So they're going quite flat. If we just had one or two old fashioned incandescent light bulbs, which you can still buy, you can still buy them online and probably other electrical retailers, hopefully, they will give out the broader spectrum of light, which our mitochondria thrive on. You know, light is almost like a nutrient. We tend to think of food as the only form of nutrition to nourish the body. But I think we can see light as a nutrient because it is nourishing ourselves and giving us the energy, the body's currency, in a very similar way to food. We just have lost that connection.

27:44Well, vitamin D is actually a hormone. It is. And it's through the skin, through light, through UVB, but only through UVB, not through any of the other light forms. Okay. So water, structured water, people are going, what the hell is structured water? Isn't that exciting? I know. Well, first of all, just show me the water bottle. Oh, this? I know that you've got it down there. Okay, so yeah, I had to sneak this in. We might as well just get it out. Well, this is hydrogen water, so this isn't structured. So that's just H2. Oh, okay, fine. So hydrogen water is echo. It's low in battery, just so you know.

28:12It is low. I need to charge it. It's a bit like me. It's been working hard recently. So that just puts extra hydrogen in your water. Okay. And hydrogen water, it's a selective antioxidant. So, you know, you know all about antioxidants, they are knocking out all your excess free radicals, but they're very broad spectrum. They're brushing out, you know, they're knocking out all your, pretty much your antioxidant activity up to a certain point. But we need a little bit of free radical activity. We need a little bit of oxidation. It's like we need a little bit of stress. We need our immune response.

28:46You know, we need that. We can't be totally anti-inflammatory because you need a tiny bit of inflammation for wound healing and things like that. Where hydrogen is so clever is it's a selective antioxidant and it just knocks out the bad guys. That's why it's been so helpful for healing, for people with autoimmune issues, drinking hydrogen water. Dr. Nicholas Perricone, who's this big American dermatologist, who is a huge fan of hydrogen water. I think he's actually bought a hydrogen water company because he's looking at hydrogen water for helping with elastin and collagen creation. But actually, when you look and you dive into creating more collagen in the body, you think, okay, so what's driving the creation of collagen?

29:32It's actually the fibroblasts that are making the collagen and the elastin within the skin. What's telling the fibroblasts to do that? Your mitochondria are talking to your fibroblasts. What's stimulating your mitochondria, daylight. When you trace back, it's like, follow the money. It's like, where does it all start? And where is the end game here? So daylight and sunlight hitting the eyes, because our highest concentration of mitochondria in the body is in our eye. So all these cellular inputs are coming in. This is then translated to the mitochondria, who are strengthened and better able to do their job.

30:12They start telling the fibroblasts to make more collagen and elastin. Ergo, we then have better skin. So yes, we can take collagen supplements and I do. Do they work? I think to a lesser or greater extent. It depends how much protein you have in your diet to start with because you're just talking about amino acids, aren't you, basically? And you're slightly short-cutting it because you've got the little collagen peptides. You know, you're not actually swallowing collagen that then is just straightforwardly going into your cells. You've got the building blocks to create more collagen. Unfortunately, when you get to my age, the ability to create it slows down, so I probably do need an extra helping hand.

30:50I prioritise protein with what I'm eating. I do take collagen. I add collagen powder to my drinks just because it's also a good form of protein. It just ensures that if I've got a protein light day, that I'm getting a bit of extra collagen. I'm also aware that seeing that early morning daylight is also helping my cells to make more of my own collagen without actually having to go and pay for it. To buy it. So should we all be drinking hydrogen water? I think there will come a time when hydrogen water will have more of a place in medicine, mainstream medicine. The guy in America who's behind Echo, he got into it because he had a really aggressive form of rheumatoid arthritis, significant autoimmune issues, and was in bed, I think for something like seven years in extreme pain.

31:38And somebody suggested that he tried hydrogen water and he's now running a huge company and bouncing around, feeling fit and well. So in that bottle that you just showed me, do you just put normal tap water in there? It's filtered water to keep the filters clean. So I think I can probably get it going. And if you just press the little button and then you'll, I'll leave it there and then you'll just see it creating hydrogen. There you go, there's the hydrogen gas. So it counts down? It counts down, so it'll tell you how many parts per million of hydrogen. It takes about 10 minutes. So I don't know if you can see that bubbling in.

32:14So you put filtered water in there? Just filtered clean water. And then you'll see hydrogen water popping up in high-end spas and longevity clinics, in tins and in like little kind of cardboard containers. The thing with hydrogen, you can also buy tablets that you pop into a glass and they'll fizz like an effervescent tablet. But hydrogen gas dissipates quite quickly. So you have to drink it quite quickly. You know, as soon as you've made it, really, you need to. But in 10 minutes, I will take the lid off. It'll go fizz like that because of the gas filled up. And then we'll have to drink it straight away.

32:53Okay, that's fascinating. Okay, so I'm tracking this. So that's hydrogen water. So basically, when you look at the ancestral inputs that our mitochondria have evolved to respond to, light is key. So we've talked about sunlight and daylight being really good, beneficial. Then the advent of modern indoor lighting, not so good. 90 % of us spend our time. We spend 90 % of our time inside, Dr. Saty Panda told me, which is terrifying. It's not good. So if you are indoors, think about an incandescent light bulb. Think about opening your window when you can, even if it's just a bit. Yeah. Light isn't linear.

33:29It doesn't just come in in a straight line. It'll come in and it'll bounce around. So if I'm in the car, for example, this is something that I've started doing since my research, I just crack open the window a little bit. That's great idea. Because the light is then just coming in and I'm benefiting from it. So light is number one. Water, when you think about that lovely, almost kind of living water that we used to get ancestrally, it bubbled up from aquifers underground and in doing so, it accumulated natural mineral salts from all the layers of rock. Then it was sparkling and pure and clean and we were enjoying it.

34:04That's a world away from what happens when we switch on the tap. Unfortunately, modern tap water, it's great that we have it. It's not available in a lot of parts of the world, so we're very fortunate to have it. But it's kind of like the equivalent to ultra-processed food. It's ultra-processed water. It's been through the human body many times and it has to be chlorinated to keep it safe. It may be fluoridated. It'll probably have picked up traces of agricultural farming pesticides and residues, pharmaceuticals, traces of hormones, you know, painkillers, all the rest of it that go through microplastics.

34:42Again, a huge issue with water. So I say basically you've got different levels of what you can do to your water. I would say at a basic level, filter it. And it's easy to do that. You could do that with a jug filter, you can invest in more high-tech reverse osmosis filters if you want to. I'm a great believer in adding a little bit of mineral back into your water, like the water we would have evolved to drink. A bit of salt. Sea salt or maybe some powdered electrolytes or a squeeze of lemon for some potassium, whatever. Then if you want to hydrogenate it, you can. You could add hydrogen to that if you wanted to.

35:22Then you get into the realms of other areas of water, which is really fascinating, and this is structured water. Structured water, also known as exclusion zone water or EZ water, well, the Americans call it EZ water because they say Z, don't they? Not Z. Not Z. When you hear about EZ water, you might think it's not simple water. It's not because it's just quick and easy. What they're actually talking about is EZ water, exclusion zone water. And that was really discovered by an amazing professor of biophysics in America called Jerry Pollock, Professor Gerald Pollock. He discovered essentially the fourth phase of water.

36:04The fourth phase of water was a new discovery and it kind of shook the scientific community. Until then, we just assumed that we had three phases of water. You've got liquid water, comes out of the tap. You've got water that's solid when you freeze it, turns into a block of ice. Or you boil it and you get the vapor, turns into steam, so gaseous. So three phases of water. Yep. Ask any scientist, how many phases do you have of water? Answer three, tick. What I love about science is that there's no such thing. Ah, that's my water bottle. There we go. It's now ready. It's now ready. And okay, so we'll come back to that.

36:40So you hear that? Oh yeah, I can hear that. That's released the gas and then you can just enjoy. It tastes exactly the same. Oh really? It doesn't taste any different. Do you feel different from drinking it? Yeah, I mean, I do. I feel that I have more energy. It certainly feels that it's part of my repertoire. I don't think it's an essential, but I think once you know about it, particularly if you're busy and stressed and you need just a little bit of extra support, then why not? If I get one for the book tour. Why not? Yeah, it'll keep you going. Keep me going on mine. So, the fourth phase of water.

37:15This was quite revolutionary because he discovered that water has a structure to it. When you look at it really up close with these scientific magnifiers, you can see that normally water might look quite jagged, the particles, the elements of the water around. You can take photographs of water. There's an amazing researcher, Veda Ostin, you have to look her up online because she does extraordinary pictures, photographic images of the structure of water. He found that when water is structured in our cells, which is something that our mitochondria help with, the structures become aligned. They're all in this lovely regulated order.

37:58Our body loves structured water. Plants love structured water. It's almost like a gel. It has a kind of a viscosity to it. If you look at the water that's in grapes, for example, or melon or cucumber. It's not just thin liquid, is it? It has a kind of a structure or a substance to it. So that is structured water. Our body, our cells contain structured water. It's what helps with the energetic charge through our cells. And one of the key things that structures… This is Vader. I know there's a pelican next to it or something. So she does photographs of water in different surroundings, which is fascinating.

38:42And there's a whole theory that water holds memory and that you can change what water looks like, if you have it under certain conditions, which is also fascinating. So this is where we go into what would have, I think, been called the world of Wu. But actually, modern science is catching up with it. I always say there's no such thing as scientific fact, really. There's only current scientific thinking. We used to think there were three phases of water. Then Jerry Pollack comes along and he blows that theory out of the window. We now know that there are four. We used to think that the atom was the smallest particle and that was in the science books.

39:21Then we split it and then we discovered neutrinos and then dark matter. I think scientists need to sometimes just take a step back and not be so black and white about saying this is proven scientific fact. Yes, it's what we currently believe to be true. It's current scientific theory, and that's the perceived wisdom of the moment. But I think we also have to be prepared to accept that there's a lot that we don't know, and we don't know what we don't know. I also think with the world of Wu, I mean, I'm obviously, you know, really do believe in the importance of science, but I also do believe in importance of holistic medicine at the same time.

39:59I don't think one should be one or all. The two can coexist and they should coexist. They should. They absolutely should. I was with some researchers recently from the John Innes Institute and they were looking at genetic engineering of crops to make them more disease resistant, etc. I was talking to one of their leading scientists and she writes poetry about the beauty and the inherent energy of plants. I said, that's very poetic and that's kind of bordering on the womb, we were talking about the potential telepathic nature of plants. This is not something that I expected to be having a discussion with, with a so-called serious scientist.

40:36I think you need to have that open mind because we are just beginning, again through the lens of quantum biology, to understand that everything relates to energy. It all comes back to a lot of the things that have been around us hiding in plain sight, like the sun, having this amazing cellular impact on our bodies and how we age. And we just didn't realize it. What did we do? We invented the electric light bulb and we blocked the sun. I mean, we're in also the era of AI. So it's actually only going to get more intense because we are more fixated to our laptops. And I mean, I'm saying this as someone who is.

41:14Yes, although maybe it will make us work smarter and faster so that we can then spend more time outside. I mean, that would be a wonderful end goal. It would be nice. You know, when I do research, I used to spend a lot of time. In fact, my kids say to me, because I wrote my first book 35 years ago, before the web. And my kids say to me, well, you wrote that without Google. And they kind of look, how did you learn anything? And I said, well, do you know, there's a building on the Euston Road. It's called the British Library. and in it amazing books and you can go and you can look up virtually every research paper that's ever been printed on an actual piece of paper and you can go and you can sit there and if you talk nicely to them they'll actually have let you have a look at these things and then you can note them down and then you can go and talk to the researcher who did the study and find out about it and that's how I wrote my first books well that was great but of course it took a lot of time yeah and it I was spending a lot of time indoors.

42:13Now, I can say to my AI, give me a meta-analysis of all the researchers and could you please include all those publishing in Russian and Japanese and translate the papers. I'm going to go out now and have a walk and I'll come back and you can tell me when you've done it. You need to check it because it doesn't always get everything right. But I think there's definitely a place in research and data mining. Yeah, it should be. And we should run it that way and not be a slave to it. Remember, it works for us and not the other way around. I attended TED earlier this year and I found myself in conversations with the founders of No Watch.

42:48You've probably seen me wear something on my wrist and lots of you have messaged me asking me what this is. It looks like a classic watch, but it's actually quietly tracking something much more meaningful, your autonomic nervous system. This is a system that governs everything from how you respond, from excitement to anxiety, calm to overwhelm. Most wearables just give you a score but if you're anything like me that score can sometimes make you feel worse, like you're already behind before your day even begins. No watch works differently, there is no judgment and there is no dopamine chasing dashboard.

43:22It simply reflects what your body is already experiencing and also helps you notice what it might be missing. It gives you minute by minute timeline of your stress responses and your recovery. The recovery is the most important part and it's the part that no one talks about and it is often the most revealing marker of our long-term health. In just five days it calibrates your body and it builds your personal health fingerprint. You can try for free now for 30 days and if you use the code LWBW you can also get 15 % off. If you want to understand your body not just through performance but through self-awareness then this is where I'd begin.

44:01So energy is really interesting because the third part, this is the part that I love as well, is the grounding, walking barefoot. Now, Dr. Gemma Newman came on here maybe a year and a half ago and she spoke about the importance of the kind of electronic transfer that goes on through the ground into the body as an antioxidant. Yes. And, you know, I think there's something so powerful about it because it also takes us back to like our ancestors, right? We're also meant to have our feet out. But I don't know why I still get squirmy about putting my feet out in London. Yeah. I mean, it's, you can wear cotton socks.

44:40Okay. You know, and you can get grounding trainers. Okay. I have grounding trainers and grounding shoes. They're just like thinner sole? They have copper, conductive copper pads. So they allow the Earth's energetic current to be passed through. And actually you can also ground through bushes and trees, for example, especially damp. So if it's been raining and you're outside and you've got a tree outside, just growing in the street or in a park maybe, even just standing with your hands connecting, you are then connecting through and using the grounding roots of the tree to then transmit through the palms of your hands.

45:19Do you ever think about, because I'm very connected to nature and I've always had this push and pull to, do I leave London or do I stay in London? Now my career is in London, right? But my happiest is in nature. But a lot of people that I know also do not feel that at all. They don't have the connection to nature. Now I feel that whenever I'm stressed, I'll run to the park and find a tree and I'm the tree hugger. And I love it. and it really soothes me. But a lot of people just don't have that same connection. Do you ever wonder why that is? Like some people are so connected to this and others aren't.

45:54Yeah. I also wonder if it's not an age thing. You know, you're a lot younger than me and I've found that I'm more drawn to spending time in nature as I get older. And I know that, you know, a lot of older people, for example, they'll go and retire to Southern Spain to be in the sun. They're kind of like instinctively drawn to it. But then obviously, you know, you benefit from being in nature and you sense that. I would say that you are probably a higher vibrational being, maybe. I'd hate that. Yeah, that's a good compliment. I think, you know, as I was always told, you know, in life, you know, people do give off energetic, you know, and you feel it, you know, somebody gives you good vibes.

46:33Even our very language of having a good vibe about somebody or somebody has good energy. And I was always told that you should stay close to the radiators and away from the drains. And I think that's very true because there are the energy vampires out there that will latch on to you and just they'll want that energy, whether they're doing it deliberately or just without even being conscious of it. They want some of what you have. You have to protect it a little bit. If you're somebody who gives out a lot, you have to be careful that you don't get too drained. Yeah, I think any empath can connect to that.

47:06You can take on a lot of other people's energy and emotions and then you'll kind of mix, are they mine? Are they theirs? Yeah. And some people are highly sensitive. And some people who can, I don't know, they can see things or that they're aware of that other kind of spiritual dimension. I mean, I'm not that person, so I don't have personal experience of it, but I know plenty of people who do, which is really interesting. And maybe that's why nature is even more comforting to those people, potentially. Yeah, maybe. Because when you think of where we came from, how we evolved to be, and it's fascinating looking at things like forest bathing, which is huge in Japan, and walking through nature.

47:43We know that at different times of the day, particularly early in the day and then later in the day, trees, the spores give off different microbes that connect to our own microbes and talk to us without us even realizing it. We're just breathing it in, and we're just absorbing this stuff through the skin. So I think there's a great unseen world that we are just beginning to become aware of. We shouldn't dismiss it. Just because something can't be proved in a scientific lab experiment doesn't mean to say that it's wrong. I think we also have to remember that a lot of these things seem quite out there until they become normalized, until they become mainstream.

48:24A few years ago, it wasn't that long ago when I was writing about gut health and the microbiome and gut microbes. If you started to talk about the link between the gut and the brain and microbes affecting mood and emotion, people would think, what do you mean, Mike? Little things in your gut. What's that got to do with the brain and emotional support? Now we know about the gut-brain axis and the vagus nerve, the superhighway, etc. You go into any supermarket and it's just full of, you know, gut health supplements and drinks and cereals and goodness knows what else. And that was in a very short space of time.

48:59So I think that a lot of what I'm saying now is going to become pretty normalized within, I don't know, within the next five to 10 years, for sure. I think definitely the nature part, I mean, all of it, but I think the nature, I wrote about that in my book, that there was a really interesting Stanford study where they took people that were stressed and they either walked around the streets or they walked around streets that had trees on and the ones that had greenery, they had much lower stress at the end of that study. Very small study, again, but there's lots of these ones that show just like how much it can reduce your stress.

49:31Yeah, even just looking at pictures, even if nothing else, look at a picture of some trees on your phone to reduce stress levels. The blue water theory is one of my favourites. Love it. Which is about like how obviously that calms you as well, being in nature and everything like that. And also sound. So with water, when you're by a waterfall, for example, again, that's giving off the negative ions that we get from the Earth. So that is also really helping to calm us. And the sound. So sound is really powerful. So I talk about that in the book, about the sound research. We think about the Tibetan monks banging gongs and having these Tibetan bowls and how that vibrational sound can change what's happening within us on a cellular level and how we can then tap into that.

50:16And you can go on to any of the music providers, you know, Spotify and Apple and YouTube or whatever. And if you just type in Solfregio frequencies, you'll just get these free playlists of things that you can have on in the background. There are sound waves for healing, sound waves for energizing, sound waves for focus and concentration, which I'm playing to my kids at the moment who are sitting exams. You know, just have them on in the background, you know, you don't have to listen to them, but your brain is subconsciously taking them in. And sound waves for sleep. Yeah, I have a sleep one that And it's not really great music.

50:49It's just sort of these weird sounds. And I can feel it going through my body on an energetic level. Or go to a sound bath, which is a real treat. I know that's my favorite. Yeah. One thing I didn't mention when we were talking about water, I want to go back to it, because people love practical tips on here. And I saw that you had a really good way of saying whether you're dehydrated or not. Yes, with your skin. Yeah. So I have to put this in. So if you pinch your skin and it doesn't go down. Ideally, when you pinch it, it should go down. it should snap back straight away because you're well hydrated.

51:20If it takes one to two seconds, a bit like me, oh well it's kind of borderline, then it means you're slightly dehydrated. And if it basically stays up there, which it does in a lot of elderly people, then they are chronically dehydrated. And I think one of the reasons as we age where you need to focus more on rehydration is that we tend to lose our thirst signals as we age. And that means that we go for hours without realizing and you go, well, she hasn't drunk anything today. And we haven't had that signal saying, right, okay, time to take a sip of something. Also, your thirst signals switch on when you're 2 % dehydrated.

51:57So it's a bit late, isn't it? So you're already dehydrated. You're catching up. Yeah. And now I remember studying that when I was back at university in nutrition and being like, wait, so when I'm actually thirsty, I'm already dehydrated. Yes. Yeah. And that's the worrying thing. And plus, we can also mix our hunger signals with our thirst signals. So sometimes we're like, I'm ravenous, but actually really thirsty. So I always say to people, have a big glass of water before you have anything to eat, then have something to eat. I think that's great advice. And I think for women, it's even more important because on the basic biological level, we're much more prone to recurrent UTIs, for example.

52:34And so actually flushing through the bladder and the urethra more often is really helpful in helping to to keep that clear because our urethra unfortunately is very small yeah compared to the guys where it's much longer so i think this is really helpful to start with so making sure that i have enough protein yep getting sunlight in the morning or just daylight daylight daylight for daylight light but that's not and what i will say to that is because i was speaking about this literally this weekend at a conference in france and a guy was like well i have windows everywhere." I was like, no, you need to open the window.

53:10Well, it depends on the glass. Interestingly, architects are now looking at that because a while ago they were all for coating glass and putting UV blockers and everything on the glass because it was seen as the best thing. Actually, now we know that letting in a bit of daylight through non-coated glass is a good thing. They've also done studies where they've looked at office workers and they've compared those who have a window by a desk and those who don't. And those whose desk is getting daylight have a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. So it's affecting our insulin response, our relationship with light.

53:46And architects are now looking at this and looking how to build healthy light into buildings. I think not necessarily altruistically, but they don't really want to be sued later on by people saying, hey, you knew about this. you know about this light stuff and the glass and you've still you know put us in buildings with coated windows and windows that don't open if i'm on a tour and i'm being booked into a hotel you know my one rule is please book me into somewhere where i can open the hotel room window there's nothing worse because you can't get air it's sealed and you can't you can't do it but you can't get the light either that's really true okay so morning light preferably good sunlight outside i just think open a window you also get some air in your face it like wakes you up a bit doesn't it?

54:27And then grounding, going outside, does it have to be grass? No. So any surface that conducts, so that would be grass, stone, soil, even concrete. Decking? Decking. It depends what the decking's on, potentially. So wood will conduct, and if the wood's on grass or on stone, then yes, it's coming through. The only thing that won't really do it if you're out and about is like asphalt and tarmac because you've got all sort of the rubber and the plasticizers in the material. But yes, and obviously on holiday, you know, things like sand is really good, beach, if you can do wild swimming, form of open water.

55:09You do that, don't you? Well, I have a pond in my garden. I wouldn't say it's not a grand, like a lake or anything, but it's a pond that I sit in. It's not deep enough to swim, but I sit in it and I love it. and that is a form of grounding. But it's also cold and it's that cold exposure. So although it's warming up now because it's coming into the summer, so I have to come in and have a cold shower instead. Hey guys, I am very bad at asking for this, but I wanted to stop for just one minute and ask a huge favor. If you want to hear more diverse conversations from female voices such as myself, I would love if you could hit subscribe.

55:46We work so hard on this show to bring you some of the best guests in the world. And having a female voice sometimes gives a different perspective, and I really want to elevate more of that on this channel. So please hit subscribe if that's important to you, as it is to me. I came on your podcast a couple of weeks ago, didn't I? And I was going to talk about not, I didn't want to say not wearing sunscreen, because that's the wrong way to put it, but also about allowing yourself kind of 15 minutes before you put your sunscreen on. Yeah, just a more educated view. Yeah, and then later on putting on the sunscreen.

56:18But I didn't say it because I was talking to Lizelle, And I thought she's going to scrutinize me on this podcast. Oh my gosh, did you not say it? No, no, totally. And then afterwards you were like, why didn't you say that? And I was like, well, I didn't want to say it on a podcast that I thought I probably shouldn't say it on. But you then agreed with me. So I thought, well, let's talk about it today. There's a whole section in the book on sunscreen and how, when, why, all of that. In fact, I've just come, I was at the Francis Crick Institute earlier on where they do a lot of biomedical research.

56:45And I was with some researchers who were looking into pediatric dermatology at Great Ormond Street. and melanoma. That's their big thing. Afterwards, there was one of the associate professors there, and we were talking about sunscreen use. She said, well, I never use sunscreen. I said, okay, so talk me through your rationale for that. She was actually researching melanoma and has done all her life for decades, and very strongly linked to genetics. Genetics, again, that's what you're predetermined towards. Excess sun exposure can trigger melanoma in those who are already predetermined genetically.

57:21So her research is basically how do we then find out who is genetically susceptible and what can we do to switch those genes off, which is really fascinating. That's epigenetics. And that's epigenetics, exactly. So the whole sunscreen thing is if you look at what you're trying to do with a sunscreen is you're blocking UVA and UVB light. That's the point of it. Well, first thing in the morning, there is no UVA and there is no UVB. So there's no need to wear a sunscreen first thing because there's nothing to block. And the light signals that you're blocking are the beneficial ones. They're things like the red light, the red infrared, which you're paying a lot of money for in a face mask.

58:00So why are you then buying a face screen that's going to block your red infrared light? So where it gets more nuanced is then later in the day, you start to get UVA. Do you know what time roughly? Like Well, it depends on the time of year. So there's virtually none in the winter, virtually nil. Professor Brian Diffie, who was actually the inventor of the five-star rating system for sunscreens assessing UVA and UVB, he says there's less than 5 % in the winter. And we're indoors anyway, so there's negligible UVA. So it depends where you are in the world and what even in London will vary compared to Scotland.

58:38So obviously, near the equator you are, the more UVA. That's why people who live near the equator originally had darker skin, because they needed to be better protected. The fairer skinned people were up north because we needed to get more vitamin D. We needed to have more susceptibility to receive these light rays. So UVA is the first UV to appear. UVB, where we get our vitamin D, that doesn't appear till later in the day. Again, it depends on the time of year, but it might be around 10 o 'clock in the morning, it might be around 11 o 'clock, it depends. So if you want your UVB to give you vitamin D, you're not going to get it first thing in the morning.

59:17The skin's ability to absorb and create vitamin D is non-existent first thing. So don't think that because you've been out first thing in the morning, you've got your vitamin D because you haven't. And you can buy or not even buy, I think they're free actually to download vitamin D trackers, their apps, and you just put in your location and the time of day and your skin type, and it'll tell you how much vitamin D you're making. Oh, wow. So it's really easy to do. And I have a couple on my phone that I've used for research, and it'll also give you the UV index, and it'll give you the amount of lux, which is how bright the light is around you.

59:51Because to get those early morning hormonal signals, we need quite a lot of lux. We need quite a lot, maybe 4 ,000 or 5 ,000 worth of lux, whereas if we come indoors, we might only be getting 100. Indoor lighting is very low in lux, that's why we need to physically get outside. So the whole area of light is so fascinating. And then if you look at later in the day, what happens, so then first to go is the UVB and then the UVA. So then by sunset, again, there's no UV, so you wouldn't need to be using a UV screen later in the day because there isn't any UV. But you are getting all that lovely red light and all that signalling that is talking to your circadian rhythm, telling you to make melatonin so that you sleep better and have a deeper, more relaxed sleep and state of mind.

1:00:41So, I think if we disrupt that, we need to be really careful because we're messing with our circadian rhythm. We're also ignoring the fact that our skin is actually a light receptor. It's not just this barrier that keeps our insides together. We actually have light receptors on the skin. That's why sleeping in a dark room is really important because we need that light in day. We need that differentiation between it's daytime, I can produce chemicals and hormones that are going to keep me up and active and alert compared to the ones that are going to keep me into a state of deep sleep. Even if you wear an eye mask, interestingly, some of the researchers who are looking at this are saying that you actually need to be in a completely dark room because your skin will still see the light, even if your eyes don't see it.

1:01:32So your skin sees. It sees in the sense of receives these signals. Just as the same happens that even for those who are blind or visually impaired, still can benefit from daylight and sunlight because it's hitting the body and being absorbed, even into parts of the eyes without the rods and cones to see, because there are other things going on in the eye. The eye is not just for seeing, it's for absorbing light signals. It's mind-blowing when you look at it. It is mind-blowing. Well, that's why I always say, like, make sure that you have your arms out as well. It's not just your face. Like, it's also so important to have more of your body showing before you put sunscreen on.

1:02:14Because I grew up in the modelling world, So I was like terrified of... Obsessed. Yeah, with wrinkles. So I would be, and also being on set, your makeup artist would be slathering you. Covering you with everything. And then following you with an umbrella, because obviously also they didn't want your makeup to melt. So when I was younger, I never was in the sun. Ever. But actually, I don't think that was probably the best thing. I think you must never burn. The sun is an unbelievably powerful form of energy and we need to respect it. It's neither friend nor foe. It's a superpower. So never damage the skin.

1:02:51Don't let the skin go red. Don't let the skin burn. But actually, a lot of that comes from melanin dysregulation because we haven't adapted the skin to be prepared. So first thing, for example, we get these inflammation signals that come to the skin to produce anti-inflammatory chemicals first thing. Even before there's any UV, our brain and body is already preparing the skin for later on. When you think about it, it makes sense because if we were hunter-gatherers outside all day, we're up in the morning and the body knows that later on it's got to be protected because there's strong sunlight coming.

1:03:27It's like, okay guys, we're going to start making nitric oxide. We've got some UVA here, that's going to make nitric oxide through the skin, that's going to be an antioxidant, that's going to help repair the skin and protect the skin. And then later on, we get the stronger rays. Yep, okay, we know that's fine because we've prepped it. What we do now is we stay indoors until 11, 12 o 'clock with fair skin and then we go out and we fry ourselves at midday and then we wonder why our skin becomes pigmented or becomes damaged. That's completely the wrong relationship. Yeah. And it depends on your skin type, it depends on your Fitzpatrick type, it depends on your colour.

1:04:03What's Fitzpatrick? So Fitzpatrick is a scale. So basically, it's a dermatological scale of skin types, one to five. Right. One being the fairest, fairest skin, sort of typical Irish skin that never burns. You might have freckles, you know, strawberry blonde hair. You're never going to tan because you don't have the melanin capacity to do it. And then right the way through to Fitzpatrick V, really rich, deep skin tones, probably originating from Central Africa. And then there's everything in between, olive tone, South Asian, Mediterranean skin. So depending on where you sit on the Fitzpatrick scale, depends on how your skin responds to sunlight.

1:04:45And actually those with darker skin really need to be aware of their vitamin D because they're not absorbing enough. Yeah, I say this a lot. Get your vitamin D, and it's free to get it from the GP if you're in the UK. We have a lot of American listeners on the show. Okay, all right. So you get free vitamin D. Interestingly, the research on vitamin D is that, yes, it's good to take a supplement, but it probably isn't doing quite as much as when we synthesize it naturally through the skin. Just in the winter, it's just harder to do that in the UK. It's very hard to do it. Yeah, so it's better than nothing, absolutely, to do it.

1:05:16So I've got a question. You've been in the wellbeing industry for how many years now? 40-odd. Why do you think that there's a lot of people that write in and say, I feel I'm successful, but I'm physically exhausted the whole time? What do you think's going on now with people? I think they probably become dysregulated with their circadian rhythm. Look at your relationship with light. Are you sleeping well? Are you getting deep sleep? It's quality of sleep, it's not just number of hours. So I track my sleep and I see what level of deep sleep I get. You don't need to have lots and lots of hours of deep sleep, but you need to have a good hour and a half to two and a half hours of deep sleep if you can.

1:06:01A lot of us just stay in that light sleep, the light sleep or the REM sleep, which is fine for processing, but it doesn't tap into when the brain's glymphatic system starts to clear away all the toxins and the, you know, the alkaloid plaque that might then potentially lead to Alzheimer's or whatever and create more stress. What do you say to women that are struggling? So I think about my sister in this kind of case scenario, right? Perimenopause, two children, stressful job, doing everything, never has time for herself, insomnia. So look at the relationship with light, see daylight first thing, even if it's just having an open window.

1:06:41Watch your relationship with light late at night. Don't catch up with your social media in bed with the scroll late at night, which you might do when you're busy all day. I know it's so tempting. You've just got to step away from the phone. But also perimenopause, that time is classic time to sort your hormones out. I wish I'd looked to HRT sooner. It's really, really important. It's so health protective. And for low mood, anxiety, low-grade depression, insomnia. For me, I never had a hot flush in my life and it was really the lack of sleep that sent me running to my GP to get oestrogen. I was very fortunate the first time I used oestrogen gel, I had a good night's sleep for the first time in about four years.

1:07:27And I kicked myself looking back. I just wish I'd replaced it. It's weird how we struggle for so long, isn't it? And we just accept it as normal. Well, we accept it as normal. I thought I was just stressed. I thought it was just me as a woman doing too much, that midlife sandwich generation that we talked about earlier. But also, our doctors, unfortunately, for the most part, aren't trained in female hormonal healthcare outside of pregnancy. But not every woman is going to get pregnant and have a baby. Every woman will have a menopause and a perimenopause. And some, it may come earlier than others.

1:07:59It can happen. One in a hundred women is happening in her 30s and she may not be diagnosed. Don't say that to me, Liz. Just be aware of it. Just be aware of your hormones. I'm sure you're super aware of your body. But these days, the good news is that you can do little finger prick blood tests just to check. It's not really worth it past the age of about 45. In fact, the NHS NICE guidelines don't recommend it because our hormones do fluctuate day to day, hour to hour. So what's the point of doing a blood test? Because if I do one now, it's going give me a different result on Tuesday morning, so which one do I look at?

1:08:34But I think for younger women it can be very helpful because you know that your estrogen levels should be pretty high right now. And if you do a blood test and you find that you're not sub 45, then you know that you might perhaps want to have that conversation. What do you say to people that want to check out their biological age? Because we mentioned that at the beginning, you were like there is a lot of I think it's a useful thing if it's going to give you a bit of impetus. So, for me, I've got a younger boyfriend and we kind of have a bit of this thing about how young are you really, you know?

1:09:11And it's like, yeah, but you say you're younger, but biologically, we're kind of about the same, aren't we? You know, so he's now trying to dial his down, you know, so that he can say, yes, but I am still younger than you. So, I think it can be a useful line in the sand to then work from. So for example, if you look at something like glycanage, that's looking at levels of inflammation. And we know that we can dial that down over a number of months simply by an anti-inflammatory diet and by reducing stress levels, maybe doing a bit of grounding in the morning. You know, those are the things that can help reduce that low grade chronic inflammation.

1:09:44And then you can retest and you can see, did it move the needle? And it's quite encouraging then to go, actually, yeah, I've dropped two or three years. I'm going to carry on doing this. Conversely, you can have really young, fit guys, for example, maybe in their 20s or 30s, who do this and go, yeah, I'm going to be great. Then they get their biological age, and they might be in their 50s. They go, what am I doing? It's because they're overtraining, and their immune system has been tipped into overdrive, and actually, their levels of inflammation are higher than they should be. They can then also make necessary adjustments.

1:10:18So I don't think it's something that we need to be paranoid about or be obsessed by, but I think it can be definitely a useful marker. Do you think what Brian Johnson's doing is right? I don't really follow him so much because he is way out there and he's doing things that I would never do. I like eating real food. I kind of like going out to dinner with my friends. So, I wouldn't do a lot of those things. And it's not my goal to live forever. It's my goal to live longer, better. Where do you think you'll end up? What's your aim? Where do you gut feeling think, I can get there? Well, when I wrote A Better Second Half, which was my book before this one, I was just turned 60.

1:11:03And I thought, actually, yeah, half. You know, I'm probably going to hopefully max out at maybe 120. So it felt realistic. And, you know, my grandma was 103. So genetically, you know, the genes are there. And she didn't have access to all this stuff and this knowledge. I mean, she probably was looking after her mitochondria anyway, because she was going out early morning and, you know, pegging out the washing and doing all of those things that took her out and doing gardening and dog walking and those kinds of things. So for me, it's about living well, living pain-free and just maintaining purpose and drive and being useful, you know, feeling that there's a point to me being here and hanging around for a bit and not being a drain, hopefully being a radiator and not a drain.

1:11:50What would you say to anyone and me that's worried about aging? I really want to reframe the narrative around aging. I've never used the expression anti-aging. Not anti-aging. Anti is negative, isn't it? I'm pro-aging. I want to start the pro-aging revolution for women. Love that. And reframe it in a way of positivity. We know our own mind. We know what we're doing. We have our friendship group. We're wiser. We're experienced. We don't suffer fools. And I I think we need more positive role models that we can really look to and say, you know, this idea of this stereotype, old lady, is somehow somebody who's shrunken and immobile and frail and irrelevant and invisible in society.

1:12:38That's not where I want to be and I think that's not where the sisterhood should be. So I think let's bring it on for pro-aging, never anti-aging. That's one of the most important things. I think it's so important, especially for women, because I don't think men have as much stress around this as women. I think societally, we have been programmed to look younger. There's all the media images, although it's getting better. You must see that in fashion, that there are a lot of older models who are coming back on the scene and being used for campaigns and things. That wasn't happening before. But then I think we have filters today that we didn't have.

1:13:17True. You know, I think there's part and people are making their faces so they're so to a filter. Like there's a huge surge in it and it's worrying because we're losing any individuality with our faces. I think for me, aging is more about the inside and it's about confidence and strength. You know, I would never look to be skinny. I would look to be strong. You know, that's why I lift weights because I want to be able to pick myself up off the floor in the future and I want to be able to hold my balance if I trip on a curb and not fall and break. And, um, you know, I want my bone density to be strong and I want my immune system to be working to full capacity.

1:13:58So I think it's about really thinking about how do we age well to give us the best chance of the next half of life. Because I think as women, we've earned it too. We often spend the first half of our lives as primary caregivers and looking after everybody else. And then by the time it's our turn, our body has kind of given up and society's told us, well, don't worry because you're irrelevant anyway. And actually that's not fair, is it? This is our time. This is our time to shine, our time to thrive, not just survive through it, but really thrive through it. Yeah. Well, it's like what I said earlier, right?

1:14:32Like to not survive, to actually thrive. And I think that's what kind of, I think, mixed stuff in the longevity world. Um, because I think that can also sometimes cause us more stress because we're trying to do everything. And then we think we're failing if we're not. And then that causes us more stress. Yeah. It's about being balanced, I think, and just being realistic, not putting ourselves under too much pressure, finding your tribe. You know, if you are on social media, finding people who you resonate with, who you want to follow, who are giving out good messages. And you know, I'm the mother of two girls.

1:15:04I have three boys and two girls. And, you know, my girls, I want them to have strong, positive role models and understand that, you know, success is actually about living well and about being fulfilled and about being healthy and strong. And, you know, I hope that I am a good role model for them and for their generation because that's what's needed. And I certainly don't think that I had that necessarily growing up. Yeah. I think now the older women, women of my age and older are creating it now, hopefully for the next generation. And how important do you think emotional stress is for the body?

1:15:37Like, I've got to end on this part because we've spoken about all the kind of things that we can do, the sunlight, the food. But I'm such a believer in the emotional side of things with our body and inflammation. And I think as women, we carry a lot. Yeah, we do. How do you navigate emotional stress? Like, what's your tip to...? I think for me, I wish I'd worried less when I was younger. And I think, you know, worry in a way is a senseless emotion because it doesn't really achieve anything. It shows that you care, which is really important. It's really important to care about things. There's a fine line, I think, between caring for something and worrying about something.

1:16:17Now, I think I have a bit more perspective on it. And I will say, yeah, this is really worrying me. But is it going to worry me in two years' time? And if the answer is no, because it's a small thing, why am I letting it into my head now? You know, some of the things are big and they need sorting out. And yeah, I'm going to deal with it now because otherwise it will still worry me in two years' time. But there's a heck of a lot of stuff that's going on that, you know, that comment from somebody or that deadline I missed, or if only I'd said that, or this person, you know, over here needs to be more like that.

1:16:50I'm not even going to remember that in two years' time. So why is it in my head now? So I think just taking a step back and taking a breath. And yeah, just being kind to ourselves, you know, doing all the things that you talk about and acknowledging that self-care is not selfish. We need it. We really do need it. And we can't look after others unless we've looked after ourselves first. So for midlife and older women, that's often a hard thing to come to terms with because it's always been about other people very often. But yes, I think emotional support, keep your friends close, you know, keep that love element going and, um, yeah, just prioritize you a little bit more.

1:17:33What does live well, be well mean to you? Live well, be well, essentially for me means aging well. It's thinking about the future. It's future-proofing you so that you have something to look forward to, that you know that you can step into, to the fullest extent, full of vitality and joy and purpose and strength. I love that, the future-proofing Lizelle. What is next? I hope more of the same because I love it. But the whole thing about longevity research is that it's fluid. It's moving all the time. So I hope they'll be sitting here in a few years' time with the next chapter the next chapter of lizelle i'll be interviewing you at 120 if i make it that if i make it that long oh you will liz thank you i'm gonna put this book in the show notes the link to the book which was sorry to have to say number one instant bestseller um i've become more obsessed with that list than anything else right now because of well good luck with yours yes i'm on my own journey but i mean i'm following um and how many books you've written now i think I think that's the 37th.

1:18:41But a lot of them are very small, so I only count maybe a dozen or so. Are you guys proud of this one? I think I've heard you say that. That's my best ever. No question. That is the one. That's my life's work and beyond, I think. Wow. Well, congratulations, Liz. Thank you for having me.