I've Had 6 Back Surgeries And Almost Died: Here's What 40 Years of Medicine Actually Taught Me

25:09I wasn't my emotions. I wasn't my body. That there was something else that was inside of me that I felt like true, that I, I felt at peace. And so I didn't, I wasn't attached to this whole physical reality that we're in. That's beautiful. do you think that your experience um with like spirituality um psychedelics do you think those experiences kind of helped you come to that moment absolutely i mean i've been you know on the spiritual path most of my life and you know studied buddhism and used psychedelics and things like i began to really understand myself and my brain and my my mind and so it was really yeah really um very, very powerful and very deep experience.

25:54So I feel quite empowered and peace for how I went through it all and taught me a lot about how to think about life. Now that you've kind of had a second life, you're like a cat that has nine lives, coming out of that experience, how do you think that, has it changed your view on longevity, what that means to you, what a healthy life means to you? I know you had said that exercise is now like a non-negotiable. Is there anything else? Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, the things that really matter come to the forefront, like family, friends, community, your health. These are things that are just the most important things in life.

26:33And we get distracted and we get pulled in a million directions, but the reality is that every day is precious and we don't know how long we're going to be here. And to me, it's really about just savoring every day and being in gratitude every day and actually meeting the moment fully as opposed to just being distracted and jumping around and chasing something. So it's just made me way more at peace and also much more committed to the things that really matter in my life. Going back to the recovery piece, I know you had kind of given us some broad ideas about the things and the tools that helped you out, but I want to get more specific.

27:14I know you said you increased like your protein intake and you really learned a lot about that, sleep. Were there any other specific tools that you used coming out of that final surgery? I mean, yes. I mean, I was using all the things that I knew from a nutrition perspective to improve my overall muscle gain again, which was a higher protein to take. I used creatine. I also used a lot of biochemically rich foods that are anti-inflammatory. I also made sure that I was working on my microbiome because I was on a lot of antibiotics. I was taking a lot of prebiotics and probiotics and trying to restore my gut health.

27:55Those are the main things that I focused on, food, exercise, sleep. And I also did a lot of physical therapy, a lot of body work, a lot of dry needling, just really to kind of get my tissues and body moving again. So I really, at first I couldn't even do anything. I could just lay on the floor and put a band around my knees and open my knees up and that was it. That was my whole exercise routine. You know, I could lift a five pound weight and then now, you know, it's like I'm doing 50 pound weights or more. So I feel like it's just, your body has the capacity to kind of slowly rebuild itself after being even in a catastrophic situation like I was.

28:34And I think most people would give up. I think I have a very strong will and I have a very strong mind And I was like, I know that I can climb out of this. And the truth is that for most of the first six to seven months, I was still in severe pain. I was still really weak. I was still really quite tired. And no matter how bad I felt, no matter how sick I was, no matter how exhausted, I would just make sure I got my physical therapy. And I went to the gym and I did what I had to do despite, you know, feeling so badly. Like, it was absolutely critical. So I think, I think for people who, you know, often like, oh, I stubbed my toe, I'm not going to exercise.

29:11You know, like, I think, you know, there's always a way, there's always a way. You know, I, and there's always something you can do. And, you know, whether it's just sitting in a chair or laying on a bed or there's, there's ways you can move your body that actually will help you recover. So I think, I think people often are too quick to just give up. For me, it was, it was just really this sort of desire to keep. to get my body back. And it was, it was quite amazing to see like the transformation. It took, it took like a while. I was, I lost half my blood volume. I was super anemic. I took a long time to be able to make sure I had plenty of meat in order to actually to get my iron back up.

29:50Cause I was, I lost half my blood. And so I think, you know, just all these things work together to synergize. I took the right supplements. I took things to help, you know, my, my inflammation. So yeah, it was, it was a comprehensive plan, but I was able to actually repair myself. You've mentioned in that kind of recovery period that you navigated depression. I imagine like being your body, having one experience and then knowing in your brain, you know, the vitality you still have, the passion and the drive for life. How did you kind of navigate through those darker moments of your mental health?

30:27That's a great question. You

30:34And it was really interesting to see the distinction because you can be depressed, but there's also a part of you that's not depressed. How do I explain that? So the part of me that felt exhausted, depressed, no desire to do anything. But I also had this other part of me that knew that that was just, it was like having a sprained ankle. Like I knew I couldn't quite walk, but I knew it was going to get better. I knew that it wasn't me. I didn't identify with the depression. And it was physiological. So my thyroid was messed up. My hormone, my testosterone was very low. All the things that my nutrient, I was very anemic.

31:12I mean, all the things that were going on, inflammation in my body, all drive depression. So it was a physiological depression. And I was able to really just have this other part of me that was aware and that knew and that wasn't afraid of it. and knew that I would just have to keep going to walk my way through the rest of this recovery to get to a place where I could feel good again. So it took quite a while. It took eight or nine months to really just hard work and feeling like crap all the time to start to feel better. I imagine then knowing the reason kind of and knowing it was situational was one, helpful to, as you said, separate yourself from it.

31:50But then also two, do you think that contributed to your drive and your motivation to be like, I got to get through this. I got to show up every day. I have to exercise. I mean, it was really, it was really just, you know, being steady and consistent and focused. And, you know, it was a, it was a powerful, yeah, it was, it was really a powerful moment of just like, you know, locking into what I had to do and I just had to do it. And it, it, it just, I was lucky I had support and I had people helping me, but it was, it wasn't simple. Switching gears slightly now and thinking more about like longevity and future and our bodies changing and time passing.

32:30As you have gotten older, how has your relationship with your body changed? Yeah, I'm much more focused on taking care of it well. I think, you know, I don't think there's any realm for, you know, kind of going off the reservation or letting myself go. I can't go more than like two days without exercising. I make sure I eat really well. I take my supplements. I'm focused on, you know, basics, you know, stress reduction, sleep habits, all the basic foundational things. It's, they're sort of non-negotiable. And for me, you know, it just, it made me realize that at any age, you know, that we can recover, we can get healthy.

33:09And I've done this with so many patients, you know, over in their really, in their late sixties who are obese, diabetic, heart failure, kidneys going, you know, liver going. And these people can get better and they lose 100 pounds, lose 150 pounds. I mean, the body, it's quite amazing when you see putting in the right inputs in how resilient we are. But most of us are just burdening our bodies and our minds with things that cause us to be sick. And that's all optional for most of us. Okay. You've called yourself a bit of a guinea pig in the past. I know you're always trying new things. I've seen your house.

33:44I've seen all the fun experiments you get up to. I'm thinking back to when we were in Austin and you walked into the recording room with some device on your head. You were trying some sort of red light therapy. I want to quickly rapid fire mention some experiences, tools. And I want you to let me know if you do actually personally use it. Cold plunges. Absolutely. I use them. I think they're great for inflammation, for mitochondrial activation, for increased mental clarity, focus. I mean, so I think they really can be a useful tool. They're not great for everybody, but I personally use them and like them.

34:24What do you mean they're not great for everyone? What would be an example of someone they wouldn't be? Well, if you're ill or you're thin, if some women in their luteal phase or second half of their cycle, it can be challenging. And some women don't actually feel that great from it. So you have to pay attention to what your body likes and doesn't like. And when do you do it around your training? Do you do it before? Are you doing it after? You do it before in the morning or you can do it after four hours after. If you do it right after, you're going to reduce the muscle gain that you're trying to achieve.

34:53So you won't get the hypertrophy or the increased muscle size. So in contrast to that, what about the sauna? Saunas are great. You can do a sauna after workout. I do saunas again almost every day if I can. There's a lot of science on the benefits of saunas and increases heat shock proteins that that kind of gets rid of all the damaged proteins in your body. It helps your immune system, your innate immune system. It helps your heart variability and metabolic health, cardiovascular health. It helps a lot of toxins are excreted during sweating. So there's a lot of benefits to it. And so is it a dry sauna you're in?

35:29How long are you usually in for? I usually do like a couple of rounds of 15 minutes. So 15 minutes, cold plunge, 15 minutes, cold plunge. So if I can do half an hour like that, So, you know, sometimes you can do more, but that's kind of a fair amount of time. What about continuous glucose monitors? Do you use them? I have used it in the past just to see as an example, just to learn about it. I'm really metabolically very healthy. I have low insulin. I have low blood sugar. I have low A1C. I don't have, you know, any poor metabolic health markers. So I don't really need to track it. And I don't really eat much sugar or starch anyway.

36:03So I think for people who are learning about their health, who have metabolic issues, who are overweight, I mean, look, 93 % of Americans are in poor metabolic health. I'm not in that 93%, but that doesn't mean that everybody else is. And they probably would benefit from knowing what's going on, like at least a two or three week tracking of, okay, well, gee, I know if I eat a banana, my sugar spikes. Or, geez, if I eat, you know, apples, I'm fine. Or, gosh, I'm, you know, eating pasta and my sugar is fine. But if I eat bread, it's off the chart. You know, like, so, you know, you really want to know what's happening in your body.

36:38Everybody's different. And you have to sort of find out what's right for you. What about wearables? I believe there is at least one that you use. Can you share? Yeah, I have wearables. I think they're important to track. You know, I think people can get obsessed with them. They can kind of overtake your life. and people get, you know, kind of all anxious about their numbers. But as a way to see what's happening, what's impacting you, like, for example, you know, I went and had sushi last night and I had a little sake and I don't really drink very much, maybe once a month or every couple of months.

37:07And, you know, I had a little bit of sake, but it definitely affected my sleep. And I'm like, oh, you know, that's interesting. I see that my score from 93 to 70. And I'm like, oh, okay, that's not good. So has Mark Hyman hung over today? Maybe. I didn't see. I was very restless. I had a very restless night. So I don't know if I'm hungover. I only had enough to get hungover, but I'm very sensitive to it. What about biological age testing? Yeah, biological aid testing is a big, complex field. And there are many, many ways to check your biological age through epigenetic clocks, through something called the need and pace, through calculated derivative calculations, through Oregon age.

37:49And there's just so many different clocks. They're all different. There's a lot of science going on to determine what are valid, what are not. If you use the same clock over and over again and you see changes in your health, you'll see. I got 10 years older on function, health, biological age, which is a calculated number based on your biomarkers. So if there's inflammation, other things, it'll go up. So I got 10 years older after my surgery. But then over the last year, I've been able to get 10 years younger by reversing it. So as long as you're doing the same measurement, you can kind of rely on the delta.

38:25It's really about are you impacting it for the better or worse. Another hot topic that everyone's talking about right now, especially online, is peptides. Do you use any peptides? Yes. I think, you know, peptides are really not something, quote, new. They've been peptides that have been around for a long time. Insulin is a peptide that's been used since the 20s, 1920s. You know, GLP-1s are peptides, so Ozempic, those are peptides. and there's other peptides that are FDA approved, for example, for female sexual arousal disorder called by Lisi, also known as PT141. So there's a lot of peptides that are in the market that are FDA approved, that are prescribed by doctors, that are part of medicine.

39:07What's happening now is sort of this upsurge in interest in peptides for many different uses. The data is limited to mostly animals. There's, you know, safety data, there's, there's animal data. There's not a lot of large clinical trials. So it's really, you're really kind of experimenting with yourself, but I can tell you like there are, that I do use them. Like for example, I use thymus and alpha one often when I travel, I don't get sick or if I'm getting sick, I use that. BP-157 is another peptide I'll often use for injury or repair of tissue. Um, there, and there are, there are mitochondrial peptides, there's growth hormones to cretogogs that help growth hormone release, there's ones that help testosterone, there's ones that help libido, there's ones that help inflammation, there's ones that help fight infection.

39:57So there's so many different peptides, thousands and thousands of peptides that the body makes. And these are things that the body uses to regulate itself. So they're not new, but there's this interest in them and the way they're being prescribed is new. And the problem is there's compounding pharmacies that now make them, that can be high quality. There are gray market sites which sell it,

40:22Dr. Mark Hyman:which is not great, which is kind of unregulated and those are getting shut down. There's a black market, which is sort of totally underground like in a peptide market from China and stuff. So I think you want to work with a doctor, you want to work with someone who understands peptides, you want to work with a compounding pharmacy that's reputable, and you want to do this judiciously and understand that you're experimenting because we just don't have the data on how these things work long term. Are they safe? You know, the animal data is limited. We need more human data. So that's really key.

40:54And the problem is these often are not patentable. So there's not a lot of interest and investment in them like Ozempic was because they modified it to make it longer and they put it in a pen and they were able to kind of tweak it so it's like proprietary. But it's, yeah, it's important to understand that there are many risks to it and there's not a lot of data. and if you want to use them, be aware of this and also use them with a trained practitioner who can help guide you. One of the things I talk about constantly with patients is the idea that the body isn't broken. It's just not getting what it means to do its job.

41:28That's really the whole promise of functional medicine. We're not playing whack-a-mole with symptoms. We're asking what do the underlying systems need to actually function. And one of the tools I keep coming back to in my own routine is my sunlight and sauna. Infrared therapy is one of the most underrated recovery inputs out there. And I say input intentionally the same way I talk about sleep or nutrition. Not a luxury. It's a condition your body can use. What separates Sunlighten specifically is your Pulse IQ technology. It delivers red light plus near, mid, and far infrared wavelengths independently.

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43:09It's a simple daily ritual that helps nourish your body from the inside out. To try the Radiant Skin Duo, visit peaklife.com slash hymen and receive 15 % off. That's p-i-q-u-e life.com slash hymen. I know you just did a really great, valuable episode with Dr. Tina Moore where you also went into this as well too, specifically about GLP-1s, which we can also link in the show notes as well too. The next one we have is IV therapy. Is that something you personally use? Yes. I mean, I think, you know, IV therapy was a really key thing for me in order to actually recover from my chronic fatigue. I use a lot of glutathione, vitamin C, B vitamin cocktails.

43:50I use a lot of things to help me detoxify. So IV therapy was quite helpful for me. I think, you know, there's lots of IVs that people can do. There's different therapies that you can do. There's minerals, there's vitamins, there's amino acids, there's phytochemicals, there's phospholipids, there's glutathione, there's chelators. It's a whole field of intravenous medical therapy. It's been around for quite a while. It's not in traditional medicine, but I found it very helpful in a subset of patients who really do much better when they get IV therapy as part of their overall plan, but it's not just a standalone treatment.

44:27Is there something people should be mindful of if they are going to explore those kinds of therapies. Yeah, again, you want to make sure you're working with a reputable doctor, that they check your blood work. In other words, if you get a high-dose vitamin C IV, you want to make sure you check something called G6PD, which if you have a genetic variation, it can make high-dose vitamin C quite harmful. So you need to know what you're doing. You need to have a practitioner who's trained in this. You need to do it in a reputable clinic or center where they follow sterile technique, where they source materials from the right pharbonic pharmacies.

44:57So it's important to do it right. Next Health is actually a great company that we're affiliated with through my practice. I don't have any direct involvement, but we work with the Ultra Wellness Center and our patients to help get therapies that we don't offer there. Because they're in many, many cities. We're just in Massachusetts. And so we're collaborating with them. And they do a lot of IV therapy, and they have a really great model. The next one is Red Light Therapy. And I do know you use this because I remember after your bike accident, we would meet with you and it was fascinating to see how quickly you'd recovered.

45:35And I remember you mentioning at that time that was a huge marker in it. So can you explain your experience with red light therapy? Yeah, I mean, red light therapy reduces inflammation, activates mitochondria, increases ATP production and tissue repair and healing. And so I used it when I was in an accident. I had a lot of bumps and bruises and scrapes. and it really accelerated wound healing tremendously. So I think for many, many purposes it can be helpful, but it's a great regime technique, and photobiomotilation is a well-established medical procedure now, and there's a lot of literature about the benefits of it.

46:08So do you just have the panels? How often are you using it? How long do you use it for? Yeah, I have a big panel that goes over most of my body, and it usually goes for 20 minutes or so. You don't even have to do it that long. It could be very helpful. The next one is stem cells. Yeah, I mean, stem cells are something that are, again, part of medicine that are undergoing a lot of research. They're being used in clinical practice in America. They're also being used in other countries in a different way because it can expand the cells, which we can't quite do, although some of the laws are changing around that now.

46:43So I think they're basically part of what we call regenerative medicine, which is using things that are the body's own repair systems to optimize your health. So, for example, it will help to, you know, activate your own body's healing system and induce inflammation and increase tissue repair and kind of create, you know, an improvement overall health. So I think for select patients, it's expensive, but it can be helpful. I've had it in joints. I've had it in, you know, intravenously. And I think, you know, I am willing to experiment myself. I don't recommend all my patients. But I've noticed a difference, and it does help improve my overall well-being and health.

47:24The last one we have is exosomes. Exosomes are part of stem cells, or the active little packets of information and repair factors that are basically produced in stem cells. And the exosomes are excreted by the stem cells and then gets distributed throughout the body. So you can actually just take the exosomes directly. The benefit of that is you're not getting any of the DNA of the stem cells. You're not potentially creating an inflammatory reaction. you're using your own stem cells, you know, you're often, well, they're older or if you're using empilical stem cells, you know, sometimes there's a risk of an immune reaction.

47:56So there's always, you know, some downsides, but the exosomes are quite safe and are actually, you know, very helpful for inflammation. I remember when I had COVID and I had severe brain fog and I couldn't focus, I couldn't think, and I was just struggling for weeks after. And I did some intravenous exosomes and it went away immediately. It was like quite amazing. I want to switch gears now and I want to talk more about like the wellness industry. So you mentioned you've been in the industry for almost 40 years now. Is that what you said at the start? Yeah, well, I've been a doctor for 40 years.

48:27I've been doing this for 30 years, functional medicine. Yeah. So I'm sure you've seen many things over the decades and you've seen it go from like functional medicine not being as popular and it being more of a niche movement to it becoming now a massive industry. I want to hear your thoughts on where it's going, what worries you, etc. So to start out, what's something that you're seeing in mainstream media, the culture, on social media that's making you cringe? Well, that's a great question. I mean, just to be transparent before I answer that is, you know, I am in the industry. I have co-founded Function Health that is helping people access their own biology and bringing it online.

49:07And, you know, there's something I believe is important that people get to empower their own data. I, you know, have this podcast. I have sponsors. I, you know, I'm definitely part of it. So if I just want to be transparent about that, as far as the things that makes me cringe, I think, you know, what I think I kind of see is this set of over-indexing on the things that are secondary to health, not primary. And so the basic things of good nutrition and exercise and sleep and stress reduction and management, taking your basic supplements is minimized while things like, you know, peptides or exosomes or stem cells or red light therapy or whatever is overemphasized.

49:58And I think that's a problem. So that kind of makes me a little concerned where people are looking for a quick fix. Like, oh, just take a shot, but don't bother learning about nutrition. Don't bother working out and building and maintaining your muscle. So I think it's important for people to really understand that if they don't deal with the foundational things, all these other secondary enhancements around health or biohacking, it doesn't make any sense. And it's kind of a waste of money. You know, at a McDonald's every day and doing red light therapy, well, it's not going to help. One of the questions we were going to ask you is, is there such thing as people kind of going too much the other way now of over-testing, over-supplementing, over-restricting their diets, and kind of maybe losing sight of, I guess, those main principles, I guess.

50:48You've answered that question for me. I think it's true. I think the diagnostics are different. I think people need to know what's happening under the hood. And I think we're finding things that people have not known about their health and are saving lives. It's real. And I've been doing extensive diagnostic testing on tens of thousands of people for decades. And there's so much that is being missed that is directly impacting people's quality of life, their health, and the risk of future disease. And there are things that are modifiable, that are fixable, that are treatable. And they're often totally ignored by traditional medicine.

51:21So I co-founded Function Health in order to empower people with their own data to make it very affordable. It's a dollar a day. you get a really deep dive on your health a lot of you know a lot of the competitors say they're doing like 100 plus biomarkers or not they're doing derivative biomarkers so they're calculating a triglyceride hdl ratio and counting that as a biomarker we're doing literally 160 different blood tests for 365 dollars and and that's for a year membership and then of course you're going to add on things you can do imaging but it empowers people with their data and so i think that, you know, for me, I want, I recognize that traditional medicine is not going to solve the people's problems that I believe function health with the help of AI and with all of a person's data, including their history, their family history, their EMR, their lab testing, their wearables, imaging, you put all that together, their genomics, their stool testing.

52:16It creates a picture of health that's never been possible before. It still is important for people to focus on the foundational principles of diet, exercise, sleep, stress management, and optimizing their nutrient status and announcing their hormones. But there's so much more that can happen when you really know what's going on with your body. And people are walking around with all sorts of stuff that they don't need to, that if they knew what was going on under the hood, they could really address and fix. I'm fully with you that it's been so great to see the awareness of the wellness industry grow and we are very involved in it.

52:51We believe in it. We're very passionate about it. But I do know there's also the rise with that of many different trends or maybe individuals who are not doctors that are claiming they're experts on things. So when something new emerges, when are you personally willing to experiment with it, be the guinea pig of it? So how do you decide when there's enough evidence to experiment on something that's new and maybe cutting edge? And when does it kind of cross the line into maybe just like a trend or hype? Yeah. I mean, there's different bars that I set for myself or my patients. So I may be willing to try things that are a little on the edge because I'm willing to be a guinea pig.

53:32I think for me, it's like, what is the evidence? What is the basic biological mechanism and plausibility? Does this make sense? Is there some data on it? Is it safety data? Is it animal data? Is there some directionality to it. You know, what are the risks of it? You know, if there's something that's, you know, higher risk, then I, it's, it's no different. For example, I will happily take vitamin D and I know there's no really downside risk unless I overdose. I know it has a lot of benefit. I know there's evidence to it. Same thing with creatine. I know there's no, there's really no significant downside if you're, if you're healthy and can exercise with that and it'll help your brain, it'll help your muscles.

54:11So there's things that I use that I feel are pretty solid. And then there's things that are emerging that, you know, we just don't know about. And for example, peptides are one of those things. So will I experiment with those things? Yes. But again, I'm very aware that, you know, what's the risk reward? If something has a high risk, then I'm probably not going to do it. For example, metformin has been talked about as a drug to help with longevity. Now, I really look carefully at the research. And while it does do a really important thing, which is help with insulin resistance and blood sugar control.

54:44And it works on a particular enzyme called AMPK to activate it, which is good in longevity. It also inhibits something called mitochondrial complex one, which makes it hard to build muscle. So if you're taking metformin and you do strength training versus taking a placebo and do strength training after 12 weeks, the metformin group won't have built muscle and the other group will. And so to me, you know, there's a risk there. Now, I don't want to impact my ability to maintain or gain muscle as I age. So for me, I would never take metformin. Even though a lot of people are doing it for longevity, I don't think it's a good idea given that that particular mechanism and mitochondria is so important.

55:27So that's kind of how I look at things. I try to understand what is going on, what are the risks, how do I navigate this, and what makes sense. For example, getting an IV of vitamins is very low risk other than just the injection site or, you know, getting an infection or bleeding, which can happen, but it's very rare. So I think I do a hierarchy of risk. And if something has got a potential benefit and risk is low, cost is okay, you know, I'll do it. If something's going to cost me$100 ,000 and it's safe, I might not do it. You know, there's not a lot of evidence, but if it costs me, you know,$100, I might do it.

56:03You mentioned their metformin and overhyped is not the correct medical professional word, but you kind of mentioned essentially it was overhyped at the moment or you saw, I guess, reasons to not do it. Is there something to counter that that you think is underrated right now that people are not pursuing enough or science isn't leaning into enough that you think they should? Is there a treatment or modality that would be helpful for people? Yeah, that's kind kind of overlooked and not as popular at the moment. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, helping people really understand how to reset their gut is important.

56:45And I think it's not well understood in traditional medicine. People don't really know how to do it. Functional medicine has a whole methodology called the 5R program. It's really about resetting the gut and the microbiome. So it's really important to like really help people get the right, kind of gut health in order to help their overall health. So that's kind of one thing I think is, is quite important. It's often ignored. Um, I think there are some other treatments out there that I think are quite interesting, um, that need a lot more research. One is called phospholipid exchange and in, you know, all of our toxins end up in our cells, our mitochondria are very stressed by our lives and it's very hard to, to repair, rebuild our cells and tissues.

57:27This is more like cellular repair methodology that's been developed called the PK protocol. And I've used it with a number of patients. I've used it myself. It's quite profound, I think, in terms of its ability to detoxify all the environmental chemicals we're exposed to, to rebuild our cell membranes, to improve our mitochondrial function, to reduce oxygen stress, inflammation. And I found it very clinically useful. It's not something that is patentable. There's no big pharma company behind it. Nobody's putting a lot of money into researching it. But I used it with patients with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and all kinds of health issues, chronic fatigue.

58:05And it really can be a powerful modality. So I think that's something that I think is out there that doesn't have enough data or research to really should be focused on. So we've kind of gone into, we've been talking a lot to Dr. Mark Hyman. And I want to switch gears now and I want to learn more about Mark. Who is Mark when he's not being Dr. Mark Hyman? So I want to know, what are you up to when you are not busy working? What are you doing in your spare time? What am I doing? I'm living. I'm trying to enjoy life. I exercise. I like to ride my bike. I like to yoga. I like to be with my friends.

58:41I like to cook. I like to read. I like to dance. I like to travel. I like to ski. I do a lot of things. I like to spend time with my family. My new grandson I just saw is very cute. Congrats, yes. I never really lack for things to do or to enjoy. I think community is very, very important to me. So connecting with people, building relationships, having the time to really invest in the people you love is really important. And I think that's something we neglect in our society. We don't spend time and prioritize that. In Europe, it's much more about social connection and time together and enjoying life.

59:25And we're all just so driven and focused on everything and on our devices. And I think for me, I just had an amazing trip to Greenland with a whole bunch of friends. And we got to dance and play and have fun and see part of the world that no one had seen. And, you know, nobody had their devices on all the time. There was no service. We were out there in the middle of nowhere. And I felt like so happy, you know, just to be. It was just a time to be. That's beautiful. So you mentioned there that you were with some of your closest friends. We want to know what is something that your closest friends might tease you about?

1:00:02We had a very fun thing on the boat where we were going to do the 10-day detox for the whole boat. About 150 people. And then after the first day, there was mutiny on the boat. And people were freaking out that they couldn't have their wine or their bread or whatever they wanted. And so there was a whole buffet line. And there was just the healthy food. And there was like the not Dr. Hyman approved food. And so I had these signs in front of all the food that said not Dr. Hyman approved. So basically, people were making fun of me the whole thing about Dr. Hyman approved. And it was pretty funny.

1:00:43Once they found out what the 10-day detox actually was, they got a little cold feet, I guess. Well, yeah. Well, yeah. Probably wasn't marketed the best way to know. We want to know, what's something that you would say you're terrible at? Singing. I can't play an instrument. I like to sing, but it doesn't sound great. And I don't play an instrument. I could probably play a few chords with the guitar, but I wish really I was able to do that. It makes me so happy to hear the musicians. Yeah, music is an amazing thing. What is something that people assume about you that's actually completely wrong?

1:01:19That's a great question. I actually don't know the answer to that one because I don't pay too much attention. I think people project onto me a lot of things. And I think people, you know, idolize some idea version of me and they don't realize I'm just a regular human. And, you know, I think they don't realize that I also eat ice cream. And cookies. I still like that answer, though. It's a good one. What's something you've become less serious about as you've gotten older? Less serious? You mean less focused on or less? You could take it either way, but let's say less focused on. I was quite obsessed with bringing functional medicine to the world.

1:01:59And I'm not any less obsessed about it. But I did it in a way that neglected my own well-being and drove myself really hard for a long time. And so I'm in a place now where it's much more important for me to just be at a pace that is sustainable and that I can focus and do good work but not have it consume my whole life. So in some ways I'm less serious about just working 14, 16, 18 hours a day. You know, settle for eight. I imagine too when you're passionate about something when it's had an impact on you personally I remember talking to you you you had said because we had I kind of asked you like you could have maintained being a doctor and practicing functional medicine but at some point in your career you decided to become more public you decided to write a book you decided to start sharing it more broadly and I kind of asked what that turning point was and correct me if I'm wrong but you had kind of mentioned you you were just so um it had such an impact on your life you almost wanted to like scream it from the rooftops am I correct yeah I mean you know when I got sick and I was so ill and then I discovered a model of medicine a way of thinking that provided a different map for the body and helped me recover and help my patients recover I was simultaneously both excited and and angry.

1:03:29And I was angry that I didn't learn this in medical school. I was angry that the system was so resistant to this way of thinking. And I know it's true. Yes, we need studies. Yes, we need more research. Yes, we need better data. But I can tell you from treating thousands, literally tens of thousands of patients with this approach, that it works. It doesn't work all the time for everybody completely. And yes, there's things that are hard to manage and deal with. But for most of the things people suffer from today in the modern world, we have a much better roadmap with functional medicine and a much better way to help people recover from things that are often, quote, incurable.

1:04:13And we're doing a whole podcast series called The Incurables, where people had things that were impossible to recover from, like MS, and they get better. so these are you know these are things that are really important people understand that there's there's actually a methodology and so when i first sort of realized this i was like i i have to tell the world like i can't just do this and sit in my office i have to write a book i have to tell the story and then i have to write another one and another one and the more i learned the more i learned and then you know i was learning about metabolism so i wrote also metabolism my second book and then I was seeing all these people with mental health issues and neurodegenerative issues get better from autism to Alzheimer's to ADD to depression to OCD to bipolar.

1:05:02I was like, what the hell is going on here? And I wrote a book called The Ultra Mind Solution, which was really important and part of our brain shaping academy is about how do we take all that and bring that back into our discourse around how to help people with any kind of psychiatric or neurodegenerative issue because we now have the knowledge of how to do this. And I wrote this book just out of seeing the phenomenon. You know, like Albert St. Georgie, who's the guy who discovered vitamin C, said discovery consists in seeing what everybody else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.

1:05:38So, you know, when I see a patient with MS, I'm not thinking this person has MS. I'm thinking this person could have Lyme disease, could have mercury poisoning, could have gut issues, could have infections, could have a lot of things that are causing it. And my job is to really not just take it at face value. So that's really the thing that's driving me is I think we have to move forward to get people the solutions to these problems that they really have mostly been badly treated by traditional medicine. Not that they're not trying to do a good job. They are. They're using the best tools they have, but it's the wrong, it's the wrong tool.

1:06:20Like you can't, you know, you can't open a can opener with this. I mean, you can't open a can with a spoon, you know, like, I mean, maybe you can, I don't know, but like, I have to like jam it in, but I think we just, we just don't have the right tools. And so functional medicine is a whole different set of constructs of lenses of a map for the human body. that's really focused on the laws of biology and the tools are agnostic it can be anything but it can be drugs it can be surgery it can be a vitamin it can be you know probiotic whatever food is medicine but it's really understanding how to apply those from a root cause perspective so we just talked about something that you have become less serious or focused on i want to counter that with what's something you've become more serious or focused on um as you've gotten older for my personal health or for my work in the world um whatever comes to mind first well the first thing that came to mind, I mean, other than doubling down on strength training, which I'd never did my whole life until I was 59, is for me, no, I'm 66, and I've spent my life trying to bring functional medicine into the world.

1:07:28I think it's happened in an incremental way, but it's not really still accessible to people. And I think that the thing I'm most excited about is how function health can really bring democratized health care at scale based on root cause medicine to millions, if not billions of people, and using AI to help navigate massive data sets into a coherent map of your body and what's happening now and what you're for in the future and how to work with all that in a way that really will transform medicine and health care in a way we've never seen before. So to me, this is as big a discovery as the internet, as discovering bacteria or just penicillin.

1:08:13I mean, this is a huge, huge paradigm shift in medicine. It's like as big as the earth is, not flat, paradigm shift. So to me, it's never going to happen from inside the institutions that hold on to it. It has to happen from the outside. And that's really what function health is. It's like a way for people to access health care and health and their own health in a way that's never been possible before in human history. So that's what I'm most excited about. So I want to kind of wrap up with a couple final questions here. After more than 30 years, nearly 40 years of practicing medicine, what do you understand about health today that you didn't understand when you first became a doctor?

1:08:54I mean, it's quite simple. I think when I first became a doctor, I sort of learned the body as a bunch of different discrete organs and specialties. And now I see the body as a network, as an interconnected web of functions that are in this beautiful dance and that get imbalanced when there's different insults. And that's really how we need to think about health. So that, for me, that's the biggest shift. Piggybacking off of that, you, correct me if I'm wrong on this, but you began as a family physician in rural Idaho. That was your beginning, right? Yes. Once you graduated? Okay. Yeah. So were you around 30, 32 at that point?

1:09:3530. I was 30. I was 30. 30. Wow. Okay. If 30-year-old Mark Hyman were sitting across from you right now, what would surprise him the most about what you believe today? Around medicine? It could be a personal realization. I mean, for me, the biggest thing I would say that would surprise the 30-year-old would be that I would have been able to be part of something that is just transforming all of healthcare and medicine in a way that I never dreamed possible. I think it would have astounded me to think that I could be part of a movement and even a company like Function Health that can really transform medicine and healthcare in a way that is as big as anything we've ever had in medicine.

1:10:23You've recently become a grandfather, which is a big chapter in an individual's life. Has that changed what you want longevity for or what you think about your legacy should be? Yes. I mean, I think it's important to think about how do I keep myself healthy so I can show up and be there for my grandson? And how can I be a model for how to live and how to be in the world and how to love and how to just be a good human? And so for me, keeping myself in good shape and keeping my body working and taking care of myself is this huge priority because, you know, now at this point in my life, I get to enjoy all the blessings that come after living a full, good life.

1:11:13And I have tremendous abundance and friends and community and family, and I want to be able to show up for it. So, you know, for me, you know, like it kind of reminded me last night, like I had the sake, I liked it, it was okay. But like, I don't really need to do that anymore. Like I just, it's probably not worth it in terms of the cost, you know? So I think, I think it's just, it's just trying to just think about what are those things that really matter and how do I want to spend my time and what's precious. Okay. I have two more. First one is of everything you've accomplished so far, what are you most proud of?

1:11:47I am most proud of the persistence that I've had to stay true to what I believe and what I know is true, which is that we got the wrong map for the body when I was in medical school. And there's a different map, there's a different understanding of human biology, that we have these laws of biology that were really not taught to us. and and to me that's the thing i'm most proud of that this whole field has advanced that has moved forward and then now people are no functional medicine there are people all over the world doing functional medicine and and it was sort of a non-existent thing when i was 30 years ago and that you know also that uh you know to take function from nothing an idea a few years ago to a substantial company that's changing people's lives.

1:12:38Amazing. Our final question is, what are you still most curious about? What am I still most curious about? I mean, I'm just fascinated by human biology. I'm just fascinated by the mystery of how we're built and how we're made and how we work and how things relate and connect to one another. And I just, I'm just sort of flabbergasted by the magic that's really the human body. And I just, I still kind of want to learn all the time. How do things work? Why is this happening? What about this biology? Just kind of going on the rabbit hole of, it's kind of nerdy rabbit hole of like, you know, functional medicine and biology.

1:13:21Well, after grilling you for over an hour here, I just want to say thank you for your time, for your honesty, your openness, and for your willingness to answer all my questions, Mark. That's all I have for you today.

1:13:34Dr. Mark Hyman:If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to The Dr. Hyman Show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. And we'll see you next time on The Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health, where I am Chief Medical Officer.

1:14:05Dr. Mark Hyman:This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness Center at ultrawellnesscenter.com and request to become a patient.

1:14:38Dr. Mark Hyman:It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed healthcare practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the public. So I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible. Thanks so much again for listening.