Top Foods That Delay Menopause: According to the Doctor Who Reversed Aging by 3 Years | Dr. Kara Fitzgerald

30:16So a compound found in plants that have a very specific structure associated with them. And these guys sweet talk gene expression. They sweet-talk epigenetics, and specifically, they can sweet-talk DNA methylation. So we packed our dietary program with them. There's almost three grams a day of these polyphenols in the diet. It's actually higher than really any other research dietary pattern looking at DNA methylation. Ours is the highest when we quantified it. But other dietary patterns in humans are really badass, and we're just seeing this explosion of new data. So they don't sort of increase methylation, DNA methylation, but they arrange how DNA methylation is happening.

31:12as we age. And the reason that we can predictably measure aging, looking at DNA methylation, is that we start to, it starts to change. It starts to become negative, in fact.

31:30This one goes out to all my ladies, all my multitasking mamas who need energy to show up at work and at home. All my empty nest explorers who need a little gut health support for the journey ahead. AG1 is the daily health drink designed to support whole body health with over 75 essential nutrients and pre and probiotics. So you can make the most of every day and every decade. Learn more at drinkag1.com. I mean, it really kind of stinks. In fact, My original interest in DNA methylation and using a dietary pattern was when you look at cancer, when you look at DNA methylation in the tumor microenvironment, you can see that the tumor microenvironment is able to take over DNA methylation, turn genes on that push cancer forward, turn genes off that protect us from cancer.

32:23That was sort of my original aha motivation around building this diet and lifestyle intervention. It was before we knew that humans could reverse biological age or change the rate of biological aging. And when you look at the aging methylome or DNA methylation in the aging population, it looks like that cancer microenvironment. So as we age, we start turning on genes we don't want on. We start turning on genes that drive disease forward. We start to turn on genes that drive inflammation forward, that make us vulnerable to metabolic disease, to cardiovascular disease, to dementia, to cancer, most classically cancer.

33:06That's where the most research is. And then we turn off our protective genes. It's really crazy. So you can measure this along the journey of aging. When we're younger, we can control. Like we really have more say over gene expression. And as we age, it really becomes sloppier. So we can look at foods that will support maintaining a more youthful pattern. And that's these polyphenol compounds. They're incredibly powerful. They can really dictate strongly what genes are on and what genes are off. It's incredible. Polyphenols can help re-express the all-important tumor suppressor genes. So those genes that protect us from developing cancer, those genes start to become off.

33:58They're inhibited as we age. But these polyphenols will turn them back on for us. The pro-inflammatory genes, they can help inhibit expression of those. So polyphenols just seem to be these badass compounds, if you will, that can help optimize gene expression towards something more youthful. And that's what we saw in our study. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I wanted to ask, how did you ensure that people were following the diet and the lifestyle? And how successful were they in actually sticking to this diet for eight weeks? Yeah, that's an awesome question. We selected eight weeks because we designed this program long before we actually researched it.

34:42And we used it in clinic practice for many years. In fact, in 2016, we presented it at the Institute for Functional Medicine and made it available to professionals there as a white paper. So we made it available early on to our functional medicine peers and had a lot of experience in clinic practice. So we knew people could adhere to, you know, a pretty rigorous eight-week structure from our own experience in clinic. But they have a lot of support. We have a nutrition team. You know, they're just getting all sorts of support. We have recipes. We just support them in sourcing ingredients, et cetera, et cetera.

35:16When we were given a grant, an unrestricted grant to study it in the clinical setting or the clinical research setting, we had our nutrition team right in there working with them in the same kind of way, you know, helping them source ingredients, helping them with recipes, you know, just helping them build their lives around being able to do the dietary pattern. So it worked. We have really high adherence. I think the other piece was that it was a randomized control study. So we limited the amount of information they had about what we were doing, but they did understand we were doing something kind of cool, kind of special.

35:51It was a first of a kind study, you know, looking at epigenetics, looking at gene expression. And I think the participants got that enough where there was some like background excitement around doing something new. But without question, I would say the secret sauce in the success of our intervention and the high adherence rate came from having, you know, nutrition coaches and making that a requirement. They couldn't opt out of that. Okay. When it comes to the foods that you eliminated, so alcohol seems like an obvious one, but grains and lagoons and dairy, how important do you think it is for people to have those removed from their diet ongoing?

36:32So, by the way, it wasn't perfect. Our adherence was high. In fact, my co-principal investigator, Ryan Bradley, he was relatively convinced we would not get high adherence because it is a pretty rigorous intervention. And so he was sort of studying how we were going to make that happen. And it was another shout out to our nutrition team. But we didn't have 100 % adherence. So it's pretty cool. I want people to know the only way to do that is to actually take these people, lock them away, and that you make all their food for them. And then it would be completely artificial. Because then it's like, well, what happens when I lock you in a hospital and only feed you this food?

37:16That's right. That's exactly right. So we probably had somewhere in the neighborhood of about 80 % adherence. And it kind of depended. I mean, we wanted people to eat liver. Liver is a methylation superfood. And we can talk about why. It's basically a multivitamin in a food matrix. That's why it's so important. Do you have to eat it or can you supplement with it? Well, now, you know, we didn't at the time recommend supplementation. I just wasn't aware of it. But yeah, now 100%. Yeah, just take capsules. I wrote a book. Gosh, what was that? Like 2013, I think. My first book, which is on postpartum health.

37:48And what I actually recommended, this was before people had liver capsules available, is you actually get the liver from the butcher. You chop it up into small pieces. You freeze it. So it's a pill size. and then just swallow it for women to do it. And that's what I was using my practice back then with women, because I'm also like my kids, they'll eat liver. Me, I'm like, because they didn't grow up with this. But I'm like, I will freeze it and I will swallow the liver. I will make that happen. But I'm curious, you know, so that's me. You know, I am like, seriously, I'll bastardize anything because I'm lazy and I don't I'm I'm like, you know, OK, but I know this is good for me.

38:27But we see that there's liver capsules now available as supplements. So that's my question. Does someone have to eat the liver or you can take the supplements? Yeah, go with the supplements. Absolutely. You don't want them to be defatted. You just want those freeze-dried liver capsules. And we can get really clean source liver capsules. They're not super pricey, 100%. We would have used capsules back then had we known, but we didn't. So we gave them. I don't think that, yeah. I mean, they're relatively new and coming available. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think that there were some encapsulated organ meat products, but they were defatted and then you lose vitamins.

39:04But anyway, yeah, I just I wasn't sensitive to them. But now we have capsules go with capsules. A hundred percent. It's easy. I mean, that's how I take it. I'm with you. I'm I'm like a good pate every once in a while, but I'm not going to eat pate weekly. Yeah, I know. If I'm like hanging out in Paris, then like, you know, give me the because like here it is. It's like those are the best you can get, like even steak tartare. I'm like, yes, I will roll with it there, but anywhere else in the world. And I'm like, no, thanks. So adherence wasn't perfect, but we did have a high degree of adherence because we had that additional support.

39:38It's an eight week intervention. I think people really need to understand that this isn't for life. In the U.S., you know, dairy tends to be inflammatory. In the U.S., grains, they can be inflammatory. And we really wanted to control glycemic cycling. This is a keto-leaning intervention. It's not a ketogenic diet. It's keto-leaning. Triglycerides dropped. Triglycerides are, you know, that change suggests that there was some ketosis, some background, gentle background ketosis happening. Ketosis is anti-inflammatory and supportive, et cetera. Anyway, so we wanted that. So we pulled the grains out.

40:20Legumes we pulled out for a couple of reasons. One, again, we wanted it to be keto-leaning. Some individuals eating a legume-based diet are going to have a harder time achieving a little background ketosis. The other piece is that the American gastrointestinal tract really, frankly, kind of sucks. And a lot of people don't tolerate legumes until they do a little bit of basic gut work and kind of clean it up. So we pulled legumes out for the eight-week intervention. We wanted the dietary pattern to be as well tolerated by as many people as possible. And alcohol doesn't support DNA methylation. Unfortunately, alcohol is not great for a lot of reasons, so we pulled alcohol out.

41:02And there was at least one guy who continued to eat his grain every day. I think somebody reported that they had alcohol a handful of times, et cetera. So it wasn't perfect adherence, but we still achieved those numbers, which is awesome. In addition to reversing biological age, people lost weight, their triglycerides dropped, their LDL cholesterol dropped, total cholesterol dropped. They significantly increased circulating methylfolate without taking any B vitamins. So we achieved our goals without perfect adherence, which is important. After the eight-week time, people can transition back. You know, people can have a drink if it's appropriate for them.

41:42If dairy is fine for them, not a deal breaker, go. I'm a huge fan of legumes. I think they're wildly important. And, you know, if the gut can tolerate them, by all means, you know, resume consuming legumes. We might actually do a study in Mexico. Hopefully we will. and probably will include legumes because it's such a fundamental part of the dietary pattern here. And I think people do better with them generally here. It's also interesting as you're talking about doing a study in Mexico, because as you're talking about this, I came across recently research on blue corn and white corn and the antioxidant capacity in there.

42:18And what's so interesting is that we're looking. So when I say corn, I'm not talking about GMO Iowa corn in In Mexico, they were the very first country, I believe, to tell Monsanto to jog on with their GMOs because they're like, corn is so important. I mean, culturally, I mean, for people to know, there's a goddess of corn and there is a baby god kernel of corn. Like that is how important corn is to Mexican culture. But what was interesting is the way that Mexicans actually process their corn traditionally liberates the nutrients. And then adding lime, which is what you do when you eat a taco, if you're eating a taco right.

42:57actually helps protect these some polyphenols, these antioxidants that are present in there. And it's just fascinating to me because when you look at how people traditionally eat in their culture, you actually find that there's ways that one, they have been supporting, you know, the food in being able to liberate nutrients and being able to get the best antioxidant capacity, but also the way that they've been eating culturally fits so much with their body. So as you were saying, I mean, frijoles, that's a staple of like a Mexican diet. So it would make sense that you include that. You made a comment about dairy being inflammatory in the United States.

43:35And I know people are already running to the comments right now to be like, say more. What does that mean? So can you explain more about that? So casein, you know, or certain casein structures, there's a handful of the different casein structures, well, not seem, drives a pro-inflammatory kind of phenotype in many of us in the U.S. And actually, probably the world over, our immune system kind of picks up that protein relatively commonly and sort of tags it as something not helpful. We see dairy being associated, I mean, you know, from early infancy, driving the atopic presentation. So eczema, potentially asthma.

44:26I mean, I certainly was taught, and there's plenty of experience clinically, that it was pathognomonic for ear infection. So basically, if you're a kid and you're getting a lot of ear infections, that's a classic sign of being reactive to dairy. There's milk colitis, which is common in kids. So this is developing colitis in response to cow's milk. What else? Migraine headaches have been associated with dairy reaction and various inflammatory arthritis, including rheumatoid arthritis. What else? Individuals with autism frequently have dairy intolerance. So I would say on and on and on. Dairy is a bad actor in the U.S.

45:12It's possible that raw dairy or cleaner source dairy is better tolerated by some. But, you know, I think of all the foods that are being regularly consumed, some of the proteins in dairy are just really a problem for a lot of individuals. I actually met with a reproductive immunologist who is based in Spain. He's an older gentleman. He had to be in like his 60s, maybe close to his 70s. and when I met with him first two recommendations he gave me is eliminate gluten and eliminate dairy and I was like it is so interesting that you say that because this is something I've been talking about for like over a dozen years and I have been called a quack and crazy and all of these things and I'm like in the United States this is just not regarded as something you do if someone has autoimmune disease and he was just like and that is why you guys are so sick and your health care is so far behind.

46:05And he's like, is it the one thing that's going to be triggering everything or causing problems in everyone? He's like, no, but there's enough evidence there. And in my clinical expertise, this is something that if you have immune system dysregulation, you need to remove. To your point about autism, what's really interesting is I came across research on autistic individuals. These were nonverbal children who, what they found in this research, and of course we need more studies to understand it fully, is that dairy was triggering an autoimmune condition to their methylation pathways. And the way to circumvent that while you remove the dairy was to actually bring in folinic acid.

46:44And I've seen other researchers say fortifying our food with folic acid, great for pregnant women. We want to prevent spina bifida, potentially harmful for our neurodivergent children who are having methylation issues. Have you seen research on that? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. And you can measure those antibodies in clinical practice. Yeah. So the oxidized folic acid, so the synthetic folic acid that we use in fortification, they're not able to activate. And it can block central nervous system uptake of the natural folates, including methylfolate or folinic acid, the various vitamins. For sure, I have seen that clinically and we can measure the antibodies and dairy can promote the development of those autoantibodies.

47:36So, yeah. What was interesting in that study is these kids became verbal again. And I'm not saying this is absolute, but I want somebody who is listening to study this because I have a hypothesis just based on observation and what I've seen in the research. that potentially why we are seeing autistic expression of symptoms, maybe more heightened, may be the fortification of these foods with folic acid. And so, as you were saying, it's actually blocking their ability to use the folate, use the B12 to actually run these processes, not only in their brain, but the detox systems. And when you look at autistic people in general, they tend to have issues in their detox capacity.

48:25So the clusters of genes that go together, you know, they cause or they're correlated with increased inflammation, immune system dysregulation, nervous system dysregulation, and we can see poor detoxification. And so when I start thinking about the fact that, you know, we've got kids who, you know, they start restricting eating, they have sensory sensitivities, their diet is really limited, Then they're getting processed foods. Maybe they're getting a multivitamin that has folic acid. And then they're also eating a piece of bread that has folic acid. And we haven't really explored that. And what tends to happen is that we put one initiative in place for public health.

49:03And we're like, we did this one thing and it's super great. And we're saving people. And we're like, yes, we love that. And we never go forward to think about the consequences in the rest of the populations. And that's not to say that we should stop fortifying food. Like, obviously, this intervention has been helpful. But at the same time, we have to ask the question, like, is that best for everybody going forward? Yeah. This one goes out to all my ladies, all my multitasking mamas who need energy to show up at work and at home. All my empty nest explorers who need a little gut health support for the journey ahead.

49:39And AG1 is the daily health drink designed to support whole body health with over 75 essential nutrients and pre and probiotics. So you can make the most of every day and every decade. Learn more at drinkAG1.com. 100%. I completely agree with you. I think it's incredibly important. In fact, I talked about it in the book, specifically for pregnant women, avoiding the, you know, synthetic folate. And it's pretty easy to do if you read labels. So folate is important, but get a bioidentical form of folate. And we can do that pretty readily, like folinic acid or methylfolate, rather than folic acid.

50:23So if it says folic acid on the label, that's your clue that it's a synthetic form and it's harder for the body to activate it. And yes, in the case of some individuals with autism, it's cerebral folate deficiency actually is the name of the condition that can present as autism because there's no absorption, there's no uptake, there's no folate is not able to get into the central nervous system because of this autoimmune process. And for them, folic acid can absolutely be toxic. it. It's so interesting that you bring up the folic acid for pregnant women. This is such a hot debate. And what's so interesting to me is that I will see OB-GYNs who are like, no, folic acid, there's no reason for methylfolate.

51:10There's no reason for anything else. And when I was pregnant, my last pregnancy, I'm 40, my maternal fetal medicine specialist was like, are you taking folic acid? I'm like, no, I'm taking methylfolate. She's like, good. don't want to see any of my patients on folic acid. I go to my regular OB-GYN who's, you know, also involved with the pregnancy and she's like, why are you taking methylfolate? You need to get on folic acid. And I'm like, I'm going to default to this expert here who also understands my thyroid better than you do, but there is such a disconnect in this. And the big reason is we studied folic acid and the outcomes in pregnant women, but we don't want to repeat that because we don't want to repeat it with methylfolate because like the potential of harm, right?

51:55It's an ethical issue. We don't experiment on pregnant women. And so we're not going to see those studies again. Although I'm like, we could because there's lots of women opting in to methylfolate and choosing not to like take folic acid. So we could look at those outcomes. We certainly have the retrospective data to be able to understand that. But I think where people need to like pause is to actually understand nutritional biochemistry and to understand that going folic acid and then going methylfolate down that line, if we're giving you methylfolate, like we're skipping a step, like you're going to get there hopefully eventually, like that's the plan.

52:34But, you know, it's something met with so much resistance because people are like, well, there are no studies. And I'm like, okay, but also I don't think you actually understand nutrition if this is the only argument you're bringing. Yeah. You know, it's cheap. It has a really, it's very stable folic acid. Yeah. I just think the biochemistry isn't really well understood. It takes more energy to activate it, to actually convert folic acid into a bioidentical folate that the body can use. Some of us don't do it as efficiently as others. So there's all sorts of mischief. And at this point, we just really don't need to use a synthetic form.

53:18So yeah, and it's toxic for some of us. Who are the people that it's toxic for? Well, I mean, I think if you eat A, have any kind of genetic inability to activate folic acid, you want to avoid it. It probably isn't toxic for you, but it's just going to be less effective for you. It might inhibit some of your ability to make the more active folates that the body uses. People with cerebral folate deficiency for those individuals, and they can present with the characteristics of autism. Yeah, for those, that population, folic acid is, you know, is a no-no. And how would someone know if they have that condition?

54:01Or how would a parent be able to know this is not truly autism, this is actually a folate deficiency? So you can measure those antibodies now. So I would go to a doctor who's versed in it. And that would probably be somebody who's got an expertise in working with individuals with autism, who's been trained in functional medicine. And those antibodies can be measured, you know, fairly readily. We've been talking about pregnancy and pregnancy has been shown to age us at a biological level. Can you talk about that? Yeah, that was an interesting paper that got a lot of attention. So pregnancy as a pro-aging thing.

54:37Well, you know, pregnancy is like a pretty intense journey. So it makes sense to me that during that process, that measuring biological age using the various clocks that they were using, you might see an uptick in action. But the cool thing is that women reverted back to their previous biological age after giving birth, especially if they breastfed. Sometimes I think that women who gained weight and didn't lose, so if they had a healthy pregnancy, if their dietary pattern was decent and they breastfed, they just rebound back and they rebound well and strong and as they should, as we should, right?

55:23But if you gained weight and you haven't been able to lose it, or if you adopted less healthful dietary patterns, I think you can put yourself into a pro-aging state and then pregnancy perhaps can start that journey. So I think high stress events as pregnancy certainly is at certain points in time can be pro-aging, but ideally only for a short period of time. Certain scientists like Matt Caberlin will argue then, therefore, it really isn't pro-aging if you rebound. And I think that that's fair. That's a fair argument. But I also think it's interesting, you know, as measured using the biological age clocks, it appears to be pro-aging.

56:14So for me, I don't have a problem looking at this short-term pro-aging phenomena and then just ensuring that we rebound back. I mean, for me, the semantics, I don't I don't really get caught on. But we know surgery can have a short-term pro-aging effect. Certain illnesses can be short-term pro-aging. A high-stress experience can be short-term pro-aging. But in the best of all worlds, we get through it, we get to the other side, and then we rebound back. What about breastfeeding? It's helpful in reversing that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So in that particular study, breastfeeding was awesome. Did they say why or what it was about that?

56:52I wonder, like, because you're bathing in so much oxytocin, right? Which that's like, I always am like, oxytocin sees cortisol and is just like, quiet over there. Like, I'm doing my thing now. I think that's probably a good guess. I don't know if they teased out the mechanism, but that's fabulous. Yeah. Because stress, cortisol is phenomenally pro-aging. I mean, short term, again, it's beneficial. You know, we need it absolutely for survival. But that chronic grind of stress is, you know, gasoline on the fire of aging. It's potently pro-aging. What are the things are people doing with their nutrition and their lifestyle that's aging them more rapidly?

57:30Certainly, you know, following a standard American diet, a standard American lifestyle is wildly pro-aging. You know, it's wildly pro-aging. You know, we've extended lifespan, you know, through heroic interventions, through drugs and surgeries, et cetera. So we're living longer than we were. maybe a couple hundred years ago. But we're not living better. You know, when we spend the bulk of our final decades sick, I mean, on average, you know, most of us have multiple chronic conditions. Most of us are on multiple drugs. I mean, our final years living, we live in poor quality health. I mean, it's just, it's really heartbreaking.

58:11I think the promise of this new science, the science of longevity, is that our genes don't dictate our fate. And we really sit in the driver's seat of how well we're going to live, how well our health span, how robust a health span will be. And I think science is tinkering a little bit with lifespan. And, you know, our lifespan, humans, really is about 120 max. But I think, A, I think science will allow us to actually achieve that more readily with some of the tools. And using diet and lifestyle interventions, which we'll never be able to drug away a poor diet or poor lifestyle habits. But I think if we combine some really good science and we continue to lean on the dietary patterns, the exercise, etc., sleep, etc., you know, stress, managing our stress, we'll be able to have this beautiful health span along with a longer lifespan.

59:14Are there supplements that you've seen in the research that can also support that? There are supplements that have awesome promise that I'm incredibly bullish on. I'm really excited about. Urolyphen A, it's a postbiotic compound. So it's coming from a polyphenol, again, going back to these plant compounds. The polyphenols from berries, from pomegranate, from certain nuts and seeds can produce this compound, well, this handful of compound called the elegic acids. And then our microbiome will act on these compounds and produce something called urolithin. There's a handful of different urolithins.

1:00:00And of all of those, urolithin A seems to do the heavy lift physically and really supporting mitochondrial health. And there's cool, cool data on urolithin A in supporting muscle mass, in supporting mitochondrial fitness and rejuvenation, mitophagy. so rebuilding healthy mitochondria, supporting the clearance of poor functioning mitochondria, and then the development of new robust mitochondria. They've looked at urolithin A in the context of biological age clocks and have demonstrated in human. This is actually all human data that you can shave a couple of years off biological age using urolithin A.

1:00:40So I am super bullish on that compound. And I think it's incredibly cool that its origin is from plants, from these plants that have these elagic acids, elagitanins in them, and were acted upon by the microbiome. So just going back to polyphenols. And I want to just give another shout out. There's this whole field of study in phytochemicals called, you know, it's not field of study. There's this term called dark matter of nutrition that recognizes, it sort of reflects on the fact that we don't understand a lot of these phytochemicals. There's just like hundreds of thousands of them and they work together and they interact and they're super powerful.

1:01:27And we evolved with them. We evolved with our microbiome, changing their structure, making them bioavailable to us. And our cells, our organelles evolved to respond to them. And they sweet talk gene expression, DNA methylation. So I think more and more we'll understand that these compounds are incredibly important. So there's urolithin A. There's curcumin, green tea. If we're not green tea drinkers, it's probably worth it for us to consider just an encapsulated green tea because EGCG is such a badass polyphenol. I'm a huge fan of Himalayan tartary buckwheat. We can cook with it or, again, you can take it in encapsulated form because it is packed with a ton of these all-important polyphenols.

1:02:20And there's some exciting science on immunorejuvenation using Himalayan tartary buckwheat. You know, we can't escape fish oil. Fish oil is incredibly important. There's a whole subset of compounds from fish oil called pro-resolving lipid mediators. These are really important anti-inflammatory players. If we have enough of those omega-3s in our lipid membrane and we're healthy, we can make these pro-resolving lipid mediators. But if we've got an inflammatory process going on, sometimes we don't make them as efficiently, but we can buy them. We can buy these SPMs. I think those are really, really important.

1:02:59We need to be taking care of our microbiome, and we can do that most effectively with a good dietary pattern. There's a huge place for fermented foods. There's a handful of probiotics out there now that I'm bullish on. I'm a big fan of acromantia. people who live long and well have a lot of acromantia in their gastrointestinal tract and it's just it supports intestinal barrier structure and supports producing GLP so it you know it helps us with appetite and craving control etc etc so those are a handful of compounds I'm bullish on magnesium always always yeah for everything so yeah no that's a fantastic list.

1:03:44And it's something that, so I've been in the nutrition field for over 20 years and I have said over and over and over, like everyone is focused on macronutrients, micronutrients, and we're going to figure out that we actually didn't understand food whatsoever. And so as we look at supplements, yes, they're important, but there are compounds that are married together within our food that interact in ways that we don't even understand. And it's so exciting because we're now just on the cusp of starting to understand that like food isn't just fuel. It is information about your environment, modulation of the microbiome, you know, as you were talking about one strain of probiotic and all the benefits of that.

1:04:24And people right away are like, how do I supplement that? How do I get that? And if you're not eating the diet that we talked about at the start of this, like, good luck, take all the pills you want. But that's like, you know, having barren soil and throwing seeds on there and thinking anything's going to grow. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And speaking of acromantia, yeah, we can support our own endogenous acromantia with polyphenol dense diet. Going back to those pomegranates, the pomegranates that make your allithin A. I mean, we're so interconnected. And you're absolutely right. I mean, a well-designed forkful of salad contains thousands upon thousands of compounds.

1:05:01They interact with each other. They interact with our digestive juices. They interact with our microbiome. They're completely transformed and turned into something different that our body absolutely thrives on, including gene expression and including gene expression as looking at biological age. So yes, it's wildly important. And to your point, we're just beginning to tap into it. I mean, I love the term dark matter of nutrition because it really underscores the fact that we don't get it, but we are starting to. I think new technology, you know, the fact that we're able to look at lots of different compounds more readily and, you know, layering on AI to be able to interpret all of these interactions, you know, will certainly help us begin to tap into what's happening.

1:05:56A cool project that I did was to look at the genes. So in our study, we could see that we changed methylation on well over 600 genes. And I was able to take that list and overlap it in other studies. So the direct trial looked at a Mediterranean dietary pattern. And Himalayan tartary buckwheat, they released a trial. And so I looked at all of it to see if we were influencing, if any of us were influencing shared genes. And sure enough, we were. So these polyphenol dense dietary patterns, we were all kind of dancing in a Venn diagram. There was some overlap, not everything overlapped, but it's exciting to begin to kind of look at that.

1:06:39And there's only going to be more and more and more of that where we're able to just really exquisitely get in there and understand how these different dietary patterns are overlapping and how they influence health. Mm-hmm. Are there things that women who are wanting to conceive or are currently pregnant that they can be applying? Because as you've been talking about genetics and epigenetics, certainly what you do during pregnancy, it's not just about your longevity, but babies as well. Oh my God. Yeah. That's such a good question. So aging begins at the time of conception, actually. And if you want to design a healthy baby, of course you want your egg and sperm to be as exquisitely healthful as possible.

1:07:23And when we're thinking about gene expression and DNA methylation, there needs to be a very intentionally designed preconception journey that's as important for the man as it is for the woman. Both players are going to be contributing huge pieces of information to this offspring they're going to be building. So I argue for using the dietary pattern we used in our study as a preconception program with a few tweaks. In fact, in the book, I created a whole dietary pattern with the macros. I tweaked the macros a little bit for preconception, conception for pregnancy, for the postpartum period, because it's that important.

1:08:07So these polyphenols that we're talking about, this methylation-dense diet that we're talking about is essential for preconception, for pregnancy, for the postpartum period. All of these nutrients are wildly important because we want our offspring to have as healthy DNA gene expression as possible. And we can do it. We just want to set them up right. We can see challenges in pregnancy. We can see challenges in infancy that can push aging forward in an unhealthy way. And this information, using this food as information, can really kind of help optimize it and change it. I love that. And that's super empowering.

1:08:55And I love that you emphasize the male factor as well. Because here, even in this day and age, we still see fertility clinics that are like, let's just focus on the woman and saying nothing about the sperm and not looking into that. So it's so important for both to be on the same page. I want to shift gears. I want to talk about brain health and specifically Parkinson's disease, because we know that environment and lifestyle can shape your risk for Parkinson's disease. Can you talk to us a bit about what people should know if they have a family history of Parkinson's disease and what they should be doing to help with prevention?

1:09:33Yeah, that's a really good question. And we could even more broadly look at neurodegenerative diseases, you know, including cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's.

1:09:47So the gastrointestinal tract, like there's more and more, there are more and more studies coming out really implicating some of the dysbiotic microbes, actually some of the compounds that they can produce influencing the development of Parkinson's. You can see that inflammatory bowel disease tends to track with Parkinson as a precursor condition. So GI health, I mean, really a full functional approach. There was just a study released not too long ago looking at the toxins on a golf course being associated with increased incidence in Parkinson's disease. So toxin exposure, certainly chronic toxin exposures, and those are pesticides and chemicals of that nature.

1:10:35And is that pesticide? So we heard about the golf course. There's people who like Central Valley of California is like a hotspot for so many health conditions. For people who don't know, that's where we grow a lot of our food. Is it also consuming pesticides, the pesticides that you come into contact with your food? I think it's across the board. And I think metallotoxins can play an issue in there. So fish with a lot of mercury, for example, or being exposed to lead, which can bioaccumulate in lead, you know, lead saturated soil can bioaccumulate in the food grown or, you know, lead that's in an old home.

1:11:13That tends to be a more common source in kids. But if you're rehabbing an old home and you're pulling down some of that paint, likely you're being exposed to lead and you need to check for it. So toxins more broadly is something that we absolutely have to be thinking about regardless of where the exposure is coming from. So is our water clean? Is our air clean? What is the pollution like in the environment we're living in, in the city? yeah what kind of pesticides are being used what's what is the quality of the soil that our food is being grown in you know the quality of fish that we're consuming unfortunately toxins are a thing that drive disease drive aging actually to you know in keeping in that theme will drive disease forward and we need to be looking at them at least annually so for me for my patients for my family.

1:12:14A broad investigation into toxin exposure is something that we'll do at least annually. And if something is identified, then you need to track it, find exposure source, remove it, do detoxification if that's indicated until that thing is cleared. And one of the cool things, so it needn't be quite as overwhelming. If you've got a good clinician helping you in this process, It needn't be horribly overwhelming. The dietary pattern that we researched, any good healthful dietary pattern is going to have built in nutrients that are detoxifiers that are going to help keep the body clean. So if you're eating right, chances are already you're doing a lot right to protect yourself from the toxins that you're inevitably exposed to.

1:13:02Do your best to get organic. But just anecdotally, recently, I had for the first time in my life, I've been measuring my toxins, my body burden of toxins for the bulk of my adulthood. I did my postdoctorate training in a lab. And so I had ready access to being able to measure them. So for many, many years, never had lead until recently. And so clearly there was some sort of an exposure source. The first thing I did was to measure my daughter's lead to make sure she wasn't also being exposed to it. She was negative completely. There was no lead identified. So I knew her. I know, right? I know. I know.

1:13:39Hallelujah. But that ruled out, you know, paint in our house. That ruled out water being an issue. That ruled out the foods that we were sharing being an issue. So I had to look. It was something, you know, exclusive to me. And I think it was some root vegetables that I was getting from a source that I was less sure of. So measured, did some detox, continued to track it, changed some of the some of the places I was buying my food. And, you know, now it's gone. But it was interesting, you know, and I posted on I actually tracked online with it and people followed me. And there was so much fear around it.

1:14:15But I'm like, look, you guys, this is the first time I have a history of labs. I know this isn't something I've been tracking with. So I can get rid of it. I can find the exposure source. I can eliminate it. I can get on with my life. I don't have to have a lot of anxiety around it. People are going to want to know how you're testing this, how you're measuring this, because you go to your regular old PCP and they're going to be like, CBC, CMP. Maybe you have to beg for a vitamin D, but they're not running these types of labs. Yeah, and it's easy. So the best way to measure metallotoxins, lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury is through blood.

1:14:52Insurance will cover it. Basic standard insurance will cover these markers. You just need to ask your doctor for them and really insist on it and get them annually. Now, some of the compounds we're talking about, pesticides, plastics, et cetera, derivatives from plastics, those are a little bit more sophisticated. You won't be able to get those necessarily. I mean, in fact, some of the standard laboratories like Quest does have a couple available, but they're a little bit tricky. Going to some of the so-called functional labs like Vibrant or Mosaic is probably your best bet. So going to a functional medicine provider or integrative provider of some kind, you'll be able to access those labs.

1:15:40When it comes to neurodegenerative disease like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, the cognitive decline that people are told, you're just getting older. Do you believe there are things that people can do? We've talked a bit about prevention, but to actually start reversing those symptoms through nutrition and lifestyle. Yeah, 100%. Absolutely. And we're getting more and more sophisticated labs to identify neuroinflammation earlier and earlier and earlier and earlier. So we can see those changes. Actually, even MRI. Two really cool podcasts, one with Hans Frickman, who is a co-founder and chief science officer at NeuroCode.

1:16:20NeuroCode is doing awesome laboratory work in early, seeing early changes to neuroinflammation. So that's a cool podcast people might be interested in. This is your podcast? This is on my podcast. We've got to link to these episodes. So we can link to that. Yeah. And another really cool podcast is with Owen Phillips, who is the co-founder and chief science officer at BrainKey. And BrainKey is using AI technology to interpret MRI in an incredibly sophisticated and really interesting way. And again, we can pick up perturbations much, much earlier than a standard brain MRI. Both of those are cool.

1:17:01Like our tools are becoming more and more and more refined. And it's a super exciting time in medicine. As you'll hear, if anybody listens to the podcast I did with Hans Frickman, you know, he talks about Dale Bredesen's work. So you know who Dale Bredesen is, of course, and his recode protocol turning around cognitive impairment or inhibiting the onset of dementia in APOE4 people. So the promise is there. You know, early intervention can shut down the development of these conditions even when the genetics are present. So I'm very bullish on, A, our ability to measure and pick up these changes earlier and earlier and earlier, and B, some of the interventions that we have at the ready.

1:17:55And again, we're looking at diet and lifestyle. In fact, the drugs used in Alzheimer's, they're just not particularly effective. Parkinson's is a little bit different, obviously, having access to dopamine and keeping dopamine around when the Parkinson's symptoms are present is important, is an important part of therapy. There's some cool research happening around Parkinson's disease and using glutathione. Actually, David Perlmutter has done amazing work in that arena, using diet and lifestyle interventions, gut work, because there is this microbial association in Parkinson's disease. There's some cool work happening in that arena that people can get their hands on.

1:18:44So if someone's listening to this right now and they're like, I have a family history of Parkinson's disease. What are some actual things that they could put into place? So you mentioned like gut health broadly. So, you know, if you have gut symptoms, definitely get that checked out. But are there other things people could be doing? Well, you know, I would have to say if I came from a family with a history of Parkinson's disease, I would want to work with a functional provider. I mean, it would be that simple. You want to do a full systems approach and make sure that you're dialed in across the board.

1:19:15You know, what's your vitamin D status? Let's look at gut health. I mean, it's pretty hard to escape having some kind of gut imbalance living in the U.S. at this point in time. So some intention towards gut health has to happen. What's your dietary pattern? Are you eating the optimal dietary pattern for you? You know, again, the toxins exposure like we've talked about already. You want to do a broad sweep there and just make sure that you're eliminating those toxins that might be present and that you're just inhibiting exposure to new ones. And you can do this within the context of a sane life.

1:19:55You don't have to be really obsessive about it. You can live a good life and take care of yourself in this arena. But I would do it with a functional medicine provider. If you need to have somebody who's insurance covered, you can find them. More and more functional providers are taking insurance. And I would probably go to the Institute for Functional Medicine and look there for a provider in my area. And, you know, and start there. Our dietary pattern, we were focusing on biological age. Aging, by the way, is the biggest risk factor for the development of all of these diseases. So I think if you need to do something on a super budget, you know, and you don't have access to a functional provider, grab the book.

1:20:38and start to eat epi-nutrients. Just if the idea of changing your dietary pattern causes anxiety, there's an appendix in the back of the book, a 30-page appendix of epi-nutrients. Start there. Go back there with a highlighter and just highlight everything that you're already eating because you're already doing a lot right and see what you can add. And then slowly begin to incorporate some of the other elements of the dietary pattern into your life until you're doing it. I mean, that would be a simple, cost-effective, doable way to bring healthy habits into existence in your life and the lives of your loved ones.

1:21:24Epinutrients. Some people have never heard that before. Can you explain that to people? Yeah. Epinutrients. Epinutrition. So these are nutrients that we know influence gene expression. So they influence the epigenome. The epigenome, again, is that biochemically active part above the DNA. So the DNA, we can't change. It's what we got from mom and dad. But we can actively change the expression of our DNA through epigenetics. So epi-nutrients are known to be able to influence gene expression. And there are a lot of epi-nutrients. In fact, we could argue that toxic foods, the pro-inflammatory foods, could be epi-nutrients in a negative way.

1:22:10They'll allow pro-inflammatory genes to be turned on, etc. So we want to be eating those awesome, healthful epi-nutrients. and just really making sure every fork full of food that goes into our mouth is providing that information for optimal gene expression. Well, this has been a fantastic conversation. We're going to link to all the things that you said today, but thank you so much for taking the time. That was great. Really great. Good questions. Class is now in session and the UPS store is here to help you ace arriving on campus. Our certified packing experts can pack everything you need from desktops to decor.

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