Women 40+: Become Unbreakable (The Midlife Muscle Fix) w/ Dr. Vonda Wright

26:02And she put them through chair exercises. And over six weeks, they increased in function 150%. Now, a lot of that was by retraining neuromuscular pathways, but it goes to show us there is never a time.

26:14Dr. Mark Hyman:So take us through, like you created this six-week protocol. You've talked about strength as the antidote declining. You recommend a series of assessments and tests to look at mobility risk. Where should people start in terms of diagnostics? And also, what about the role of hormones? What about the role of food? What about the role of the strength training and other exercise to be unbreakable? So when people come to me and want to talk about their longevity and all the things that they read, many people come to me with health that is fine, air quoting fine. They're not optimized. Their labs are not amazing.

26:49They're living midlife labs with hyperlipidemia, maybe some insulin resistance. But they want to skip ahead. And this is natural. I mean, gadgets are cute to all the biohacking and longevity things that are research influenced, but not evidence based. So my approach is always to start by optimizing health. And for me, that is understanding the organs, understanding inflammation, understanding how the body moves. I do a movement assessment with 360-degree cameras. We do lactate threshold on a treadmill or bike to look at where your heart rate is in the zones. Because I work in a place with all the bells and whistles.

27:27So I can do those assessments. And when we are optimized, then we do the other things. But then how do I optimize them? Well, when we talk about activity, we talk about nutrition. But when we talk about activity, we already talked ad nauseum about weightlifting. weightlifting. So I use an acronym called FACE. I've always used this. Again, I'm a clinician. My patients need cues, right? So F-A-C-E are all the things we need to think about. So F is flexibility and joint mobility because none of us are trying to become the shuffling old person hunched over with very limited range of motion. So our tendons, ligaments, and muscles need to be stretched out to optimum length daily.

28:09And that's where Pilates and yoga is a fine practice. It can't be the only practice because the natural history of collagen fibers in the musculoskeletal system is to increase their covalent bonding and to become stiffer with age. And that's why.

28:26Dr. Mark Hyman:Tell me about it. Yeah, I know you went through a hard time. So that's F. A is aerobic. You know, I was a runner. I did marathons. I was all into the orange theory thing. Working in that middle heart rate, that was neither metabolically optimal, nor was it pushing myself like I was going to die, right? Now when I prescribe, and this is good for injury too, I prescribe base training and sprinting. Heart rate sprinting. It doesn't have to be physical sprinting. It can be rowing, climbing. And that's based on the research of, again, I work in this miraculous place, Inigo Sanmartino, who trained Tour de France cyclists.

29:06It's his protocols we use to say you're going to work at base training, which is lower heart rate. And then twice a week, you're going to.

29:15Dr. Mark Hyman:Is that what they call zone two? Yeah, I hate to use that word because sometimes in social media, it gets the wrong thing. But yeah, base training, zone two. It's the heart rate. And we actually test it. So I'm not guessing. We test with a finger stick where you convert from metabolizing fat to metabolizing carbohydrates. And that's called your lactate threshold. And it's that heart rate I aim people for because that's where your mitochondria are most flexible. They can use any substrate then, right? And then we sprint. And then when people have optimized like that and want to move on to peak performance, that's where I add in VO2 max training because that's hard, right?

30:00So F, A, C, C, carry a load. We've talked about it. But E is something I talk about a lot now. Equally ream and foot speed. I teach people the balance because it's the fatal fall that will kill you. And I teach people foot speed just like our speed. We have a speed coach. we're training Olympic athletes to sprint faster we're teaching mere mortals who have lost their their type 2 muscle fibers to move their feet faster whether they're the 50 year old woman who comes to my retreats or you're the 60 year old guy who wants to summit mouth everance for the last base camp for the last time i have all comers so that's kind of the fitness part right

30:40Dr. Mark Hyman:So it's all the flexibility, aerobics, carry a load. Equilibrium. Equilibrium, balance, all that super important. And that's a great way to think about fitness because it's not just about cardio fitness or strength training. It's about flexibility. It's about balance, stability. And I think stability training is really important. I noticed actually, you know, I started doing more stability training. And, you know, I find it easier to dance around rocks when I'm going down a hill. Like when I was younger, I could just like run down a hill and I was less able to do that. But when I started working on that core strength and that stability, it really, that's the thing that makes people fall.

31:18Dr. Mark Hyman:And when you fall like a tree in the forest and go boom, that's when you break something. You know, like when you fall and catch yourself, you're not going to break something. And you can't catch yourself if your reflexes are slow, if you're not strong, if you don't have core strength. So all that's really important. There's other pieces that have to do with women's health that's really important beyond exercise, right? So the people's health span blueprint, which is really a systems approach to dealing with their diet, with hormones, with other things, supplements maybe. So what do you think in terms of the other pieces of longevity and health for aging?

31:53I would like all people in the critical decade, 35 to 45, to read enough about menopause hormone treatment to make their decision ahead of time. So the minute they start experiencing the most common things, they immediately go and they start. Now, I'm a firm believer that we are all sentient beings and we get to decide. But I refuse to let you decide based on fear. You must decide based on facts. And this happens every day in my clinic. It happened Monday in my clinic. I asked a woman, had she considered menopause hormone therapy? And she says, no, that causes cancer. Just like that. And I had to take the time to...

32:32So, number one, we must make our hormone decision. Not only estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, not only systemic, but vaginal estrogen is known to decrease the incidence of UTIs by more than 30%. Women die of UTIs and they're preventable.

32:51Dr. Mark Hyman:Bladder infections. Of course, bladder infections, not to mention all the sexual health benefits. And that is not absorbed. Every woman, no matter what your health history, can have that. Also, I mean, I'm as vain as they get. I like it in my face. You put it on your face. Well, I do. You know, I'm almost 60. I'm as vain as they come. If I'm going to lose 30 % of the collagen in my face, I'm going to help those girls out. Right? It's not absorbed systemically. So that's what I mean. We have to consider all avenues as step one in addition to the exercise. Well, let's talk about the hormones for a minute.

33:27Dr. Mark Hyman:I mean, there's different versions of them, right? There's the premarin, which is a pregnant mare's urine, which I wouldn't recommend. But then there's the natural or bioidentical hormones. And it comes in pills. It comes in patches. It comes in gels. It comes in creams. It comes in vaginal rings. It comes in vaginal tablets, vaginal cream. how do you how do you advise people to think about these different approaches should you do should you do oral should you do topical because you're saying you put on your face it doesn't get absorbed but it does get absorbed through your skin a bit like that's why these but the dose is so low it doesn't i mean studies have been done the dose is so low that it doesn't cause a bump systemically those studies have been done so let's take let's talk about system when you take it by mouth it goes to your liver and you take a lot more of it and then you get this big big effect First, let's talk about synthetic horse mare, right?

34:22They're gathering a variety of estrogens from pregnant horse mare versus what does bioidentical really mean? I mean, it's kind of a marketing word, but it means that the estradiol molecule that is synthesized for medicinal use is the same that our body makes. Let's just to clarify that. Then route, right? right? Primarin comes as a pill. Estradiol, systemically, can come as a pill, but then it has first passed through the liver. Most of us prescribe it as a patch because it's FDA approved. We know what you're getting. And then sometimes people have it compounded, but then when we compound in a compounding pharmacy as a cream, you have to be very careful that that pharmacy has a high-quality product because it's being stirred in a batch, right?

35:10But that is systemic. When I'm talking about vaginal estrogen, it's estradiol, but the dose is so low that it does not elevate systemic levels. And studies have been done testing blood levels with vaginal insertion of the cream, of the pill, of the little plastic thing called Invexi. Now, vaginal rings, which are put around the cervix, are such high dose that they are absorbed. So the nuance is in the dose that you're giving. The same for the face. You can put estradiol in a cream on your face, but the most common ones are estriol, which is one of the three kinds of estrogen. And again, the dose is so low, it's absorbed, but not systemically.

36:04And we know that from studies that measure blood levels.

36:07Dr. Mark Hyman:So really, you have to work with a doctor who's able to navigate this space, who's knowledgeable, and isn't just going to give you the standard treatment, which is permanent provera. And it's customized for each individual, depending on what their issues are, if they're having hot flashes, if they're having low libido, if they're having sleep issues, if they're having brain fog, if they're having vaginal dryness. There's different approaches. And I think it's important for them to understand that it's not just a one-size-fits-all treatment, and it's really customized. And that's something I think I've learned a lot from my own patients in how to do this.

36:39Dr. Mark Hyman:So in terms of other things that are included, like food or supplements, how do you think about those in terms of longevity, in terms of women's health and long-term healthy aging? I find that women in my generation and older were raised in the time where aerobics was king, queen, and we were taught to not eat. I question women in my clinic and I find that many of them have coffee for breakfast. They have a salad for lunch and they may have dinner with a couple glasses of wine. They share a bottle of wine across the table. So that adds up to less than a thousand calories and less than 60 grams of protein.

37:17And so we're not feeding this miraculous engine that we are, right? And so when I teach about nutrition, it's often starting with macros. What are we actually eating? Let's track our food and prove to you that you're under eating because women in my generation and above are afraid of gaining weight. We've been so conditioned, right? And they bought into the muscle weighs more. Well, muscle does weigh more, but you'll be leaner. Muscle is nature's strengths.

37:47Dr. Mark Hyman:You'll look better. You'll look better. Your clothes will fit better. And isn't that what you want anyway, right? So we started talking about macros. We educate what a protein actually is. I answer the questions that, no, I aim for 130 grams of protein a day because I'm a muscly girl. I'm short, but I'm a muscly girl. It's not a high volume of food. When you have a chicken breast the size of my hand, it's lean, has 40 grams of protein, and it's not even 200 calories, right? So that education is critical. So I focus on protein. I'm one of those people that you must have enough protein. Your carbs should be high fiber.

38:28You know, we're going to cut out the simple sugar. We're going to cut out all the white stuff we eat that you talk about all the time. And then I'm not an enemy of fat, but it has to be good fat, like avocados and healthy fats for us in a balanced way. But I find that there's so misinformation. transformation and we live in a society, I don't have to tell you or your listeners, with this over-processed garbage can approach. It's a lot of re-education.

38:53Dr. Mark Hyman:It is. I think it's important. And I think, you know, there's so much involved in women's health as they get older in terms of the quality of their diet, in terms of the role of alcohol and how it's increased risk of breast cancer, in terms of the gut health and microbiome, and that's role in hormone metabolism, and the role, like you said, of protein and muscle mass and metabolism and the role of higher doses of starch and sugar as we get older, more problematic for us because we become more insulin resistant. So there's a whole cascade of things that women should think about. Any supplements you're like, you got to be on this.

39:25Dr. Mark Hyman:I mean, women think, and I still think this is really striking to me because women are like, I need to take a lot of calcium. And my doctor says I need to take 1500 milligrams of calcium a day. And he gives them a prescription for 1500 milligrams of calcium. not realizing that's the total dose for the entire day and it less matters what calcium you take in and how much more than how much you put out like for example in africa they consume probably 300 milligrams of calcium a day but they they retain the calcium and they have no no osteoporosis there in the women partly because they're african but partly because they don't they don't lose the calcium.

40:05Dr. Mark Hyman:Whereas we may take in 1500 and we lose a lot. So I think the whole idea of supplementation with calcium, vitamin D, can you talk about that? Because I think it's gotten a bit confusing for people. And I still hear doctors doing this and I think it's actually dangerous to prescribe that much calcium. So I'd love to hear your opinion about that. I don't prescribe calcium at all. In fact, I teach people what foods have calcium in them, Because if I can help my people eat dairy or salmon with the bones in it or sardines or mushrooms with the calcium, it's not that hard to get 12 to 1500 milligrams of calcium in your food if you're eating a whole foods diet.

40:45For specialty diets, sometimes it's harder. But when we take calcium thinking that we're building our bones or we're not going to fracture, A, it doesn't work like that. And B, it's not the density of our bones that prevents us from fracturing. It's the quality of our bones, the tensile strength, meaning every time you step on a bone, it bends a little. And if our bones are brittle because the inside of our bones are weak, we're more likely to fracture. And calcium is mainly in the cortex. So I don't prescribe calcium. I teach people how to get it from their whole foods. If we do need to supplement, then there's a couple whole food supplements.

41:31They come in little wedges. They're fun to eat. But that's just how I choose to approach it. I think people need vitamin D for their immune system, for their brain. It does help absorb calcium, but I'm not sure it does much for its bones. I mean, big meta-analysis have been done by orthopedic surgeons, frankly, in China, who did, yeah, I don't remember, six figures, high five figures of people and found that there was no difference in fracture risk between those on calcium, on calcium with vitamin D or nothing. So I think I do prescribe vitamin D because when I measure it and it's low, I think it does a lot of other things in the body, but I don't do it principally for bone.

42:13Dr. Mark Hyman:Yeah. Some of the data is kind of confusing because it seems like vitamin D alone may not do that. When you give calcium with it, it may help a little bit. It does cause soft bones, right? If you get osteomalacia with low vitamin D, a lot of people are very low. And that can cause bone aches and pains. And a lot of people have aches and pains and they go probably see you for these aches and pains. And that can be often low vitamin D. I love that you brought that up because we don't talk about osteomalacia at all. You're the first person that's ever brought that up. The difference between bone density, the minerals and the tensile strength, the softness, the osteomalacia.

42:48I love that you brought that up because that's what matters, right? That's what really matters. So I have a very short, basic supplement stack until people get optimized and we're doing the whole longevity thing. So vitamin D for the other things. I like omega-3s. I think they have great anti-inflammatory, great for the brain magnesium frankly for sleep it helps it's a miracle for me but it's also important in about 300 enzymatic pathways in our body i take mine at night helps me sleep with the progesterone helps me sleep and then you know what i i have been optimized and so now i'm really interested in my senescent cell load those are zombie cells those are inflammatory cells that accumulate as we get older yeah they're spewing out cancerous cytokines and i've worked with a researcher in Vail named Johnny Huard for 20 years.

43:41And he has measured the decrease in load with a simple supplement called fiscitin, which comes from berries. And I'm not saying it's the end-all be-all, but he's one of the few labs that has collected data that we can think about and read about.

43:57Dr. Mark Hyman:Mark? Yeah. I mean, fiscitin comes from strawberries, but it's really basically kills these zombie cells, which accelerate inflammation for sure. You know, about the foundations and I think it's important because people get all excited about this or that supplement or this or that biohacking technique. And if you don't get your exercise, your diet, and your sleep and stress and relationships sorted, the rest of it is just window dressing. But then it can give you a marginal benefit if you do those things in addition to everything else. So it's not like they're bad. It's just that you can't take a pill and hope you're fine.

44:29Dr. Mark Hyman:It's like taking a stat and then going in at McDonald's and think you're going to be fine. It doesn't work like that. I wish it did, but no way.

44:45Dr. Mark Hyman:So when you think about kind of a practical sort of approach for women's health and as they age, what are the diagnostics that are sort of non-negotiables for you when you're evaluating women and where they are in their health trajectory, where they are in their longevity journey and hormonal assessment? And what are the things you think about, whether imaging or lab testing or other testing? As soon as a woman is done, if she chooses to have children or if she doesn't, at 40, when most women have not yet entered the throes of perimenopause, I want a bone density test. Or better, an ultrasound called REMS, which tells us bone quality.

45:27So that we know what we are before we lose 20%. because I do that on every buddy mark. And I have 22-year-olds with porous bones because they never laid down enough bone. Or people don't understand the osteoporosis of pregnancy or lactation, which our body is equipped to handle, but only if done right, right? So early, by 40, let's see what our bones are doing. When you get your mammogram, let's get a body composition to know what percentage fat we are and how much muscle we have, not to be judgmental, but to give us an opportunity to know what to fix. Let's draw the basic lab panel. Know what our organs mean.

46:09Wait, wait.

46:10Dr. Mark Hyman:So just for the bone density, it's a DEXA scan. For the body composition, in other words, how much muscle and how much fat and where is it, you can also use exactly the same machine. Yes. It has to be ordered a different way. Yeah, it has to be. You have to ask for it in a different way or you're only going to get fine and hip. But you can also tell bone quality by an ultrasound, which is not widely available in this country as it is in Europe. So those are labs. We need to look at our full lipid and advanced lipid panel. We need to look at our fasting glucose, our insulin, our home IR. We need to know about our metabolic health, right?

46:50We need to do our cardiac labs, the genetic proportion, and those that are acquired. And if you've never had it done, we need to have it done. And if they're high, then you and your cardiologist, I don't know how you feel about this. I'm not an expert in it. But, you know, there are ways to look at your calcium if you're really high in the

47:08Dr. Mark Hyman:coronary calcium score, yeah. To see where you are. And we need to look at your ferritin and what your blood cells are doing and your energetics. I think those are baseline. And yet, when I'm preparing people for surgery and I say, let's talk about your medical problems. I know you've come up against this. I am often told you don't have any medical problems. If I say, when was the last time you had a conversation with a doctor besides me? Right? Just because you haven't been diagnosed, maybe you don't know. But I think all of those around 40 are critical. But you know what else, Mark? Tell me what you think about this.

47:45I see so many midlife men coming into my clinic. All of a sudden, they're doing everything they think they should and they're popping multiple tendons or they're exhausted or they just don't have the energy and they can't perform on the basketball court and I measure their testosterone yeah because a normal testosterone range is 250 to a thousand but we don't know what you were when you were 30 so I tell I have four sons I'm like guys let's go measure it now so we know what to correct to. Well, you know, I, I'm very focused on diagnostics early and often.

48:23Dr. Mark Hyman:And that's why I co-founded a company called Function Health. And we do all those things you mentioned and more nutritional status, hormonal status, thyroid status, and obviously the advanced lipid testing, metabolic testing, toxin testing. And, and you find so much going on in the population that's just ignored or missed or not checked until they have some serious disease. And, and being ahead of the game is always more important. You can still, at any age when you start, you can still make amazing progress. And I've had people in their mid-60s or 70s who've really reversed their head. I mean, I just had a patient of 73 who finally lost like 100 pounds and is exercising 107 straight days in the gym and is eating healthy and taking his supplements.

49:07Dr. Mark Hyman:I'm like, it took him a minute to get there, but that is possible for the human body to recover. And, you know, I think we want to make sure you don't kind of wait too long. And the imaging is important. We do, you know, full body MRIs, but also you can get a body composition on MRI. You can get even bone density on an MRI. And that can really tell you what's going on with your whole system. And then you can really get a sense of where you are because most people don't even know. And it's much easier to be proactive than reactive in terms of the amount of work you have to do to change something.

49:40Dr. Mark Hyman:Yeah. And your work also is really interesting because you focus on also what research needs to happen and where are we missing the ball here? Women's health research has been traditionally neglected. And where do you see the real needs being to answer the questions that have to get answered? Because we don't know everything yet. We know very little, Mark. And the reason is that historically, the research dollars that are allocated to things that predominantly affect women over 40 is about 1 % to 2 % of the total research dollars. And yet women over 40 are a quarter of the 25 % of the population.

50:18And so I think almost any question that has only been studied in a population of men and women or population of men, which is the way research is largely done, needs to be redone for women. For instance, and some of this has been done, we need to go deeper identifying cardiovascular disease in women. Men present clutching their chest. Women present with microvascular disease. And let's really figure that out. Let's figure out in a dose response way how much we can improve bone density in a woman. Because that's what people want me to tell them. How much do I have to do? Tell me the recipe. And I can't tell them it's this or that because the studies haven't been done.

51:03Or autoimmune disease affects women at a much higher rate than men. So there's so much to research. But you know what I've been calling? I speak for a lot of women's groups, calling the philanthropic women in this country to do. We're going through the great wealth transfer. And I think that it's unreasonable to expect that all research dollars are going to come from the NIH. There's too much work to do. And so we do a pretty good job with funding cancer research, children's research, maybe heart research. But I'm actually, I make a call. like we were talking about the Milken function we were both at, to philanthropic women benefiting from the great wealth transfer to set up funds to fund women's research, because less than 2 % of all venture capital is spent on products for women.

51:54There's so much work to do, and it's unreasonable to sit back. If women want to be powerful and lead, then let's lead not only with our ideas, but with our finances in a mission-driven way.

52:07Dr. Mark Hyman:That's a very good point, I mean, I think there's a lot of wealth transfer happening and there's a lot of need for research just beyond what the government can provide. And I think there are a lot of answers that we don't have yet about aging, about longevity, about women's health and much more. So I'm excited about where we're going. In terms of your work, what are the things that you're most excited about coming down the pike. I'm really excited. If I can help change the national zeitgeist from the inevitability of vitality to frailty, that's work worth doing. And that's been really my whole career, knowing that as an orthopedic surgeon, by saving mobility, which I do by putting metal in bones or by doing fascinating surgeries, what I'm actually doing is saving people from the ravages of chronic diseases.

52:54Dr. Mark Hyman:Because if you can't walk, you're going to get sedentary death syndrome, right you're just gonna die from sedentary fat first right okay wait you just you just said something there that was a big big sentence sedentary death syndrome yeah never heard of it oh my god what is it i wish i had made it up but frank booth made it up he was a professor at columbia in missouri and i met him when i was straight out of my fellowship sedentary death syndrome are the 33 chronic diseases that are negatively impacted by sedentary living by the 20 hours a day we sit on our butts working or sleeping. The simple medicine of walking, getting our heart rate up, lifting weights, I mean, the evidence is irrefutable, can change the trajectory of your health.

53:40And if not, it's sedentary death syndrome for you. And I see it everywhere in airports. I see it. And I have this, you can hear it in my voice, this desperation to change the National Zeitgeist. So I'm going to keep doing the work I've done for 20 years. From a technology standpoint, I did some of the original work at University of Pittsburgh on platelet-rich plasma. I drew my own blood, spun it off. I am excited about harnessing the power of our own biology in regenerative medicine. I'm going to be the first to tell you, having had my own stem cell lab, we haven't figured it all out yet. We don't know the cell surface markers.

54:21We don't know the dose. We don't always know how to prevent things we don't want, but I think we'll get there. I truly believe in the power of our own bodies. And so in my own clinic, I use those autologous products, meaning I draw blood from you and I pull off those things. But now, surgically, for knee surgery, most of the time, I do not make any incisions because our technology is so amazing that I now do knee surgery through needles. It's called nanoscope. We can do so much that we used to make big incisions for through tiny, tiny needle. So what does that do? The recovery is faster. There's no anesthesia, which mucks up our brain, and that people do not need narcotics.

55:04So for me as an orthopedic surgeon, that is really exciting to join the longevity work to the regenerative work to the technology.

55:14Dr. Mark Hyman:That's really kind of a beautiful painting for the future of medicine, which is bringing together all these elements of foundational lifestyle of medicine with some of these renewal, regenerative repair techniques that are using innovations like stem cells or other innovations. And I think they can be very helpful. It's still a little bit the Wild West, but it's coming along. If you're looking at kind of a woman who's like out there thinking, I don't know, I'm overweight, I have an exercise and I'm just sort of frustrated and I don't know what to do. And I'm in my maybe 50s or 60s. You know, where do I start?

55:53I'm going to start you really simple because people easily become overwhelmed. I'm not negating anything I've said. But for a person you've described, it can start as simply as going back to our root mobility. You learn to walk at one. you are going to go back to your roots and you're going to walk every day at a brisker pace than you're used to and you're going to do it after your biggest meal so that metabolically you're sucking the sugar out of your blood that you just ate whatever you ate you're get you're increasing your cardiovascular health and you can do it i mean you know how to walk number one number two when i start going down a nutrition pathway i can get people nodding their head about the protein and about good fats.

56:39But you know what, Mark? It's like taking someone's first child to tell them that we cannot eat added sugar. And this is how we're, and, and, oh my, it literally is an addiction. And, and I understand it. I gave up sugar when I was 47 and you literally stand in front of the pantry, not knowing why you're there. Cause your brain is looking for a hit, right? But so I would start with those two things. And once you do that for seven days, you have a streak and you gain confidence that you can do something. And then we can get into the more complicated things. Because people, I mean, I've been taking care of people for a very long time and they get overwhelmed and confused and discouraged and stop.

57:25So that's why I start so simply.

57:27Dr. Mark Hyman:And your book, Unbreakable, lays all this out, right? Oh, my gosh. Great detail. It's a woman's guide to aging with power, which is, I love that. I think we just have to reshift our mindset around aging to see it as a time of vitality and energy and high function versus just frailty. And I just want to close with this guy I met. It wasn't a woman, but it was a guy I met who was 95 years old. And I met him at this lunch thing at my parents' house years ago. and he was jumping around the room, super spry. He had a girlfriend that was 20 years younger than him. Good for him. I'm like, what's your secret?

58:10Dr. Mark Hyman:He's like, well, whatever I did yesterday, I do today. If I played singles tennis yesterday, I played singles tennis today. And I think that's a very powerful message because if you don't actually do those things that put those investments in every day, you will decline. And the older you get, the faster you decline. So when you're young, if you don't exercise for a month, you can get away with it because you've got all this hormonal and other trophic support. If you don't do that when you're 60 or 70, it's a steep, rapid decline. And then, you know, it's a long way back. So I think it's possible.

58:46Dr. Mark Hyman:I've experienced it. I didn't want to experience it having to come back from that. But I can tell you that with a little dedication, a little science, and a little determination and the right understanding of what to do, that anybody at any age can get strong. My father was 79. No, sorry. He was 89. Yeah. 89 when I got him a trainer for his birthday because he couldn't really get up out of a chair well. And I was like, oh God, here we go. And dad, you need to get a trainer. And he did. And it was amazing to see the gains he made at 89 years old. So it's never too late to get young. I believe that.

59:24Absolutely. Every day.

59:25Dr. Mark Hyman:Well, thanks so much for being on the podcast, Vonda. I look forward to seeing you on the circuit. We're going to be in Saudi Arabia together and be fun. And I'll keep learning from each other. And I wish you the best of luck. And everybody good. Check out your book, Unbreakable. It's available wherever you get your books, Amazon. And where else can they find more about you and your work? You know, two places, both on Instagram, where I post every single day education and life stuff. And my website is Dr. Vonda Wright, D-R Vonda Wright. It's easy. Just google it. You'll find me Amazing well, thank you so much for being on the podcast and I look forward to seeing you soon.

1:00:05Thanks so much mark. Bye-bye

1:00:07Dr. 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. 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.

1:00:38Dr. 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.

1:01:11Dr. 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.