The Surprising Truth About Longevity Medicine – with Dr. Darshan Shah

24:19A lot of athletes are using nicotine as well. The form that I use is called athletic nicotine and I love it for cognitive enhancement and performance enhancement.

24:28Shawn Stevenson:Fascinating, fascinating. So there are any other, because again, we tie that so closely to smoking. Are there any other like negative implications if you're utilizing even a nicotine supplement? I mean, I think the main thing is the addiction of it. And so other than that, the dose is always a poison, right? If you can control your dosage, you're using it for specific situations, I think that it can be valuable. But obviously overdosing and getting addicted to it is going to be a problem. Got it. Well, going back to one of the hallmarks of longevity, which is not dying. Not dying from things, especially things that are preventable, largely preventable.

25:10Shawn Stevenson:and the number one cause of death here in the United States and also worldwide, but we're the kings of it, is heart disease. You've got some information about potentially being able to detect heart attacks decades before they happen. Talk about that. Yeah, no, I mean, look, once again, we're living in a really exciting time right now that we can look at the arteries of your heart with a CAT scan and use AI to lay out every artery and see exactly how much plaque you have and where it's at, right? And so for decades, all we did was follow cholesterol levels because we're looking at that as a risk factor, right?

25:51We're looking at your risk factors and we're saying, how at risk are you of heart attack, right? But now we can see with incredible clarity with a non-invasive scan what's going on with your heart. This is called the Clearly Scan. and this is a game changer for cardiology because if you can do a clearly scan early enough and detect plaque enough, you know how aggressive you need to be with mitigating all of the risk factors for heart disease. The risk factors for heart disease are not just high cholesterol. They're also inflammation. They're also metabolic disease. They're also hypertension, high blood pressure.

26:29You have to work on all of those to reduce your risk of heart disease, not just your cholesterol level. And but prior, all we had was, you know, blood pressure and cholesterol. So we would throw medications at it. I could tell you I have patients that have total cholesterols that are really high, like 250, and they have zero plaque on there, clearly. And I can tell you I have patients with low cholesterol levels and they have a lot of plaque in their arteries. And there's reasons for that. Right. And so now with the ability to see with the scan beautifully what these arteries are doing, you can totally prevent yourself from having a heart attack.

27:07Shawn Stevenson:One of my biggest concerns over the years, again, really being acclimated to the research around cholesterol, again, for years. And looking at this number without context has been the habitual problem. And people come in into my office, you know, I was working as a nutritionist for many years. And they're like, you know, I've got this, you know, my cholesterol is high, you know, I'm on the statin, da-da-da. But I'm just like, there's so much more here to this. There's a picture here that your blood work will be telling if you're more educated on the blood work. And unfortunately, a lot of physicians are not educated on that connection.

27:41Shawn Stevenson:Because you just said that somebody could have a high cholesterol number, but not have these plaques showing up to that extreme degree, but their cholesterol could be lower, other people, and have higher amounts of plaque. There's other factors involved here that can make cholesterol dangerous. Let's talk about that. Yeah, yeah, sure. So the reason people get plaque is three reasons. And cholesterol is the last reason, actually. The first reason is there's some damage to the wall of the artery, okay? That's called the endothelium, and there's another layer called the glycocalyx. Once this gets damaged, it starts to allow cholesterol into the artery wall, okay?

28:23The reason you can damage the blood vessel is by overtraining, high blood pressure, a lot of stress can do it, metabolic health issues can do it. All of these are damaging to the inside of your blood vessel. So step one is don't damage the inside of your blood vessel, right? Step two then is cholesterol enters the blood vessel. And this causes the plaque that we talk about. Because once cholesterol enters in there, your body realizes that it's not supposed to be there and it sets off a cascade with your immune system called inflammation, right? So it's a combination of all of these factors that work together to create the plaque inside the artery wall.

29:06And why is plaque bad? Well, because your arteries are tiny. I used to do heart surgery and I used to operate on these arteries and bypass them on people. They're tiny. They're like, you have to use a microscope to sew into them, right? So a little bit of cholesterol accumulating in there can block that artery. But what can also happen, and this is why, you know, 50 % of all heart attacks are, 50 % of heart disease is diagnosed as someone's first heart attack, right? And that's because sometimes when you get cholesterol in the artery wall, you can also get a clot forming in that artery as well.

29:40and this kind of plaque is very dangerous plaque and typically we've never had any way to see if you have this dangerous plaque or not unless you got an angiogram which is a very invasive test so that's clearly a test again once again shows you with even better clarity than an angiogram if you have some of this dangerous plaque as well which makes it more urgent that you do something about it Yeah. So, you know, there's lots of reasons why people get plaque. You have to kind of manage all of those reasons. And like I said, just because you have high cholesterol doesn't mean you need to be put on a statin, you know?

30:19Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now all of these factors and being able to deep dive and do more comprehensive tests are now available, right? So if you're wondering, okay, so my cholesterol, these are my numbers here, but what is the context they're existing in? Do I have high levels of inflammation that could be interacting here? My metabolic health, do I have abnormal, you know, management of my blood sugar? Like, how does all this play together, right? And so our blood work, if we're getting something comprehensive, can really tell us a great story. And now we've got this testing that you're talking about with Cleary, clearly that you can actually get a look at what's going on inside and see from that perspective as well.

30:59Yeah, exactly. Every single person listening to this podcast, I don't care if you're, you know, maybe less, maybe if you're 21 and over, if you're listening to this podcast, should go and get their blood work done, right? And look, we live in 2025. You should be able to ask your doctor for it. If they're not going to do it for you, either find a new doctor or just go and get it done yourself. It's not that expensive anymore to do this. Once you understand what your blood biomarkers are telling you, you can avoid heart attacks or any of these diseases, you know. And so I put a guide on my website, actually, if you want to have people get a guide to their biomarkers, which ones they should ask for, what is the optimal range, and why it's important to get into optimal.

31:43And there's only like 15 of them. There's not a lot of them. you will dramatically affect the course of your longevity and your health span for sure and every

31:52Shawn Stevenson:person should be doing this for themselves absolutely just get a get a look at what's going on yeah instead of just wondering and questioning and what i use and i'm just going to share this with everybody is a comprehensive plant panel it's like over 100 biomarkers hormone levels immune system markers uh inflammatory markers the list goes on and on and obviously the cholesterol panels and the other general stuff, but so much more expansive. And it feeds you back also a biological age. And so I got to see, which was pretty cool. I'm eight years younger biologically than I am chronologically. And it's just using the most advanced technology to get this data all put together for you.

32:35And that's number one.

32:37Shawn Stevenson:Number two, also being able to keep an eye on your metabolic health with continuous glucose monitors as well. And so we both love levels for that and so that's the company that i've been working with when i'm getting my own blood work done and if you want to check out levels go to levels.link forward slash model and you can get two months for free when you get their annual membership and they just added in they give you a free 20 marker blood test annually as part of your membership right and so but i just did the add-on where i can get the even more expansive blood panel done so they're really doing some cool stuff levels.link forward slash model you know i love my levels app too is you can take a picture of your food and it's pretty accurate about how much protein is in it micronutrients like it's amazing and you know like sometimes you go to a restaurant like there's no way it's going to recognize what that is and it does it's great i mean but of course of course with the technology is there to do that stuff yeah so the other thing i tell people is with their biomarkers too is once you get your blood test done so i first of all like you're you're super advanced and you have a lot of knowledge obviously most people are really just kind of starting on down this path and but whatever blood markers you get done now you can upload them to chat gpt and it will kind of tell you what to look at now obviously it's not going to give you any intervention so you still want to talk to a doctor before you change anything um or take medications But I mean, the tools are all out there now for everyone to become the CEO of their own health.

34:11Right. And so I think it's so important for people to start doing it now because we've outsourced our health to, you know, who we thought was taking care of it for. And this is not a knock to all the primary care doctors out there. Right. But primary care doctors are basically you're outsourcing your entire health to this person that sees you once a year for 30 minutes. if that yeah if that and they're just trying to like make sure you don't have a disease you know and it's so there's so much more good information in those blood tests than people really realize

34:41Shawn Stevenson:yeah yeah and also again some of these companies providing personalized plans for you based off your unique blood work yeah it's very special this is for me is the right use of technology yes there's a lot going on with technology obviously and some stuff is you know i'm conflicted about because i think it's like really dumbing us down but we can free up some capacity for ourselves to learn right when i'm thinking about dumbing ourselves down i'm thinking about we don't have to remember stuff now like remember phone numbers whatever what happens to that space in your brain if you're not using it proactively for you know memory right that part of the brain is just going to basically, you know, kind of just degrade.

35:24Shawn Stevenson:And right now we have the opportunity to proactively utilize technology for our betterment, but we got to be intentional about it, you know? And so we have access. One of those benefits is right now what everybody is doing, who's a part of this conversation, they're proactively listening and learning to something to empower them. Right. And you could use that same time and, you know, I don't want to throw out any names, but like you could be up into the, you know, Kanye beef or whatever. You know what I mean? There's infinite stuff for you to be, you know, concerning your attention with that's here today, gone today.

35:59Shawn Stevenson:Or you can study things that are more life affirming and sustainable. And you've never, none of us have ever had such close proximity. They get to learn from the person who is the number one longevity doctor, right? And this is affirmed. This award is given to you by your peers and they get to learn from you. Oh, no, they got to do is push a button. That's priceless, man. Yeah. Priceless. Yeah, it's pretty, I mean, look, we live in an incredible age of information. The internet, artificial intelligence, podcasts, Like this, all of this information is all free for people now, right? And I think when you, as using biomarkers as an example, right?

36:45Don't just like get them and then, you know, put them in chat GPT and say, what do I do, right? Learn what they each mean. Because once you learn what each one of those numbers means, like hemoglobin A1C, HSCRP, you start putting this model in your head of where you need to focus your attention and you kind of gamified for yourself too, right? Like you're like watching your numbers get into the optimal range. And so I think that learning process is so empowering because now you actually know how the machine works, right? Your body works and the learning is just so self-sustaining too, right? You just keep wanting to know more.

37:25Shawn Stevenson:What do you feel is the most surprising thing for people as far as like something that is impacting their longevity in a negative way that most people have no idea about? I would say when you get your blood test back, there's probably three things I see that people are always surprised about. Number one is their hemoglobin A1c. This is a three-month average of their sugar. And most people have this in the range of suboptimal. And what I mean by suboptimal is that you want to optimize your blood test number. 5.2 or below to me is optimal. Most people are much closer to prediabetes or in prediabetes already, which is 5.7.

38:08The second thing is their testosterone level. Both men and women are always surprised. And it's mind-blowing to me how low testosterone levels are in the general population when I see blood tests right now. And third is their inflammation marker, HSCRP, highly sensitive C-reactive protein. um many people have this way over two or three actually and so we see a lot of surprises there as well optimal for that number is as close to zero as you can get it and so i think those are my three biggest categories of surprises um and um you know once you know what those numbers are you start making changes or going down a discovery path to see what's causing it powerful powerful

38:53Shawn Stevenson:Yeah, there's a, I mean, to put it bluntly, epidemic when it comes to testosterone. Epidemic. And of course, you know, we know some of the culprits now is really affirmed in the data, just the environmental input of these kind of estrogenic compounds, right? Xenoestrogens. We're just swimming in this stuff. And also it ties back. Testosterone is related to your hemoglobin A1C, right? Right. And so what's going on with your blood sugar, aromatization can be robbing. Even if you're making the testosterone, it can be getting converted into estrogen. Exactly. Right. Like and so all this stuff paints a picture and you can start to find out what what the issue is.

39:37Shawn Stevenson:And I love this so much, man. And that's one of those things, too, where my being mindful of your blood sugar management and seeing that long term. it's kind of like your blood glucose right now is like a snapshot versus something that's more extended, maybe like a long-term movie. What would be a good analogy for hemoglobin A1c versus a snapshot? Yeah, exactly. I think because it's a three-month average, it's giving you all of those habits added together over time, right? And so I guess a good analogy would be like, I don't know, watching the entire game versus just one inning, you know what I mean?

40:15Like when you watch this one inning, you only see like what those specific players did during that one inning. But when you watch the whole game, you get a really good feeling of the entire team and how it's working together, all of it. And so, yeah, you want to, but you also want to look at the snapshots too, right? Because the other important marker is fasting insulin level. So this is the first thing that changes when you start developing metabolic disease. Fasting insulin is the first detection of it. It's not fasting glucose, it's fasting insulin. Hemoglobin A1C changes after things are already broken, actually.

40:48So hemoglobin A1C is telling you like, things are really not going well for the last three months, like really not going well. And so another marker I talk about a lot is fasting insulin level.

41:00Shawn Stevenson:You know what's so crazy is that we're just now getting that as part of the conversation. Yeah. When this was a part of it all, the whole time. I know. The whole time. We've been able to check these markers now for decades, but no one talked about them, you know? And the average panel wasn't looking at that. Yeah, no. A lot of these markers, you can't even, if you ask your doctor to say, if you ask your doctor, I want a blood panel done, they wouldn't even check these things. They would check what's called the CBC, a complete blood count, or a chemistry profile, okay? All of that stuff is, if that stuff is in the red range or the bad range, like you have a bad problem already.

41:38A lot of people are not checking hemoglobin A1C, HSCRP. You know, all these things are not normally being checked. So you have to ask for them. So on my website, drshah.com slash biomarkers, there's a list of all the biomarkers. Just take it to your doctor and say, I want these.

41:53Shawn Stevenson:Awesome. Yeah. What a great resource. Now, something that can affect all of these biomarkers that we've talked about that is kind of insidious and even hidden in a way is stress. Yeah, for sure. I want to talk about the connection with stress and our lifespan. Yeah. So for me, stress is really something that we really need to kind of understand. How is your mental stress affecting you physiologically? Right. And so the whole concept of de-stressing, I think it's something that we spend way too much attention on because it's hard. We live in a very stressful environment. obviously we want to reduce the amount of time that we're exposed to stress.

42:38And the one main reason for that is because psychological stress can turn into physiological stress by the secretion of cortisol from your adrenal glands, right? And we know that if you have high levels of cortisol for long periods of time, it can lead to metabolic disease, it can lead to inflammation, all these problems. So when does psychological stress lead to cortisol release? It's after about 20 to 30 minutes, right? And so whatever you're doing, that's stressful. You're having a stressful conversation. You're on your computer banging away trying to do something and you're not in a flow state and it's stressful.

43:14If you could just break up those periods of time into 30-minute chunks and take a little break and kind of let your cortisol reset, you can really mitigate the negative physiological consequences of stress. Right. And so what do I do with that one? The hack there is I have an egg timer on my desk and I just put it to 30 minutes. And every 30 minutes I get up and I do something different. I'll either, you know, I'll do I'll do a little walk around the office or I'll do some jumping jacks. So I have some weights at my by my desk and so I lift some weights. And if you can break up that stress, it'll be extremely helpful.

43:56Shawn Stevenson:Oh, man, I love that. You know, one of the greatest metabolizers of stress are relationships. Absolutely. But they can also, on the other side, be one of the greatest contributors to our stress. And so it's not an accident that you proactively engage in healthy relationships and get people together. And that's one of the experiences that we had recently. There was a time before last that I saw you. We came to hang out at your house. And you invited over this amazing group of people. It was myself, my wife, Dr. Kelly Starrett, Juliette Starrett, Dr. Casey Means was there with her husband. And it was also Rob was there, who's big in the health and wellness space as far as like a background kind of producer guy.

44:46Shawn Stevenson:And also your amazing wife was there. And we just had this incredible experience. And it was something that was called a Jeffersonian dinner. Yes. Talk about that. Yeah. So Thomas Jefferson, you know, he couldn't hear very well out of one ear. So he was kind of deaf in one ear and his other ear was not that good either. And so when he would have people over, he made sure that only one person talked at a time. And so he would then ask a question and only one person could answer the question at a time. and then he would, if two people were talking or having a side conversation, he would take his ear and just kind of pull it forward and stop the whole conversation to get it back into one person talking at a time.

45:32And it's so powerful when you can do that, right? Because everyone's attention is focused on one person and that person gets to say something deep about what they want to talk about. Like we asked some questions going around the table, like what are you most excited about coming up in your life? How have you contributed to the conversation on longevity and health? And people really think about what they wanna answer. And so it's not just a random conversation. It's very thoughtful. And everyone puts their attention on one person. I love doing that. I do that on almost every single dinner now.

46:03Shawn Stevenson:Yeah, it was an incredible experience for sure to say the least. And also the cherry on top was, I had no idea that this was gonna happen. The dessert that was served was you blew me away man it was from my my cookbook yeah uh the eat smarter family cookbook and it just was just like are you kidding me man you know it's so awesome because i didn't know it at first and i took a bite i was like this tastes so familiar you know and the presentation you know the the energy the people as well why why was this something that you chose to do as far as like investing in relationships and getting people together like this?

46:42It's a rock in my life. I know that I am the happiest and I am the least stressed. And I have the best health when I am surrounded by people that are smart, that I really, I have like a genuine love for, you know, like I want to be around them. And I have great conversations that are meaningful and deep, you know. And to me, if I go more than a couple of weeks without something like that, I do get depressed. And so this is how I stay happy and I just stay vibrant in my own mind is having these kind of conversations.

47:20Shawn Stevenson:Yeah, yeah. We need each other. Even the most introverted among us, we need each other. We evolved in community. And today we know, and this was just actually published as of this recording, just very recently, looking at one of the biggest contributing agents, one of these, again, seemingly invisible issues to early death. And it was on social isolation and loneliness. And so this was a data set of over 2 million people. And it was a longitudinal study. So they're tracking them. This might be six months or even up to 25 years. And they found that people who felt lonely frequently, chronically lonely, had a 14 % increase in mortality.

48:08Shawn Stevenson:So premature death from all causes. But social isolation was more than twice that. So we're talking about somewhere around 35 % increased risk of early death when people are socially isolated. So the distinction is even if you can feel lonely around other people, but being around other people is still preventative. It's still nourishing. You're still getting these inputs. Yes. And some of these inputs are, again, most of them, they're invisible. Right. This change in our chemistry being around each other is something that we can't see, but we feel it. Right. We have an increase in oxytocin. We have a decrease in cortisol.

48:44Shawn Stevenson:Again, if it's people that you connect with and resonate with, we're also doing microbial data sharing. Yeah. Right. Our immune systems get a little light work, a little light, a little lift up, you know, being around each other. What happens when you're not around other people? You're not getting these inputs that you vitally need. And this is something for us to be more intentional about. Yeah, absolutely. It's so well said. And I think, you know, if you look at like all the pillars of health, right, some of them are obvious. Some of them are not so obvious. And, you know, this is one of them that's not so obvious is social isolation and community is a major pillar of health.

49:21And it's easy to forget because, you know, there's not hunger telling you that you need to when you're hungry, you know, you need to eat something right when you're tired, you need to sleep. But for this particular one, there's nothing they're telling you like I need to get out there and like be around other people more, you know, so and got to remember it.

49:40Shawn Stevenson:You're one of those people. And generally, you know, we all know somebody who's like a great connector of people. You put people together. You don't even know how much I love Kelly Starrett and Juliet. You don't even know. All right. And it just so happened we were all invited together on the same date. And like Juliet is one of those people that checks in on me. Like just it'll be like a random Tuesday. And she's like, hey, Sean, good morning. Just wanted to say I was thinking about you, send you lots of love, that kind of thing. That's awesome. Right. and not to mention Casey Meese like we've you know we're just like tight you know and so just being able to to get together this group of people that are so cohesive yeah and it's just very special man it's so valuable and my wife and I were just on a high oh I love it leaving there you know like and it lasts it kind of like stays on you yeah for you know days after it does yeah for sure yeah I'm very grateful and I didn't even know you guys all knew each other I was like right That's what I'm saying.

50:36These are all great people. They're really smart. We're all in the health and wellness conversation. Let's get together, you know? And so everyone kind of recognized everybody for the most part in some way or the other.

50:47Shawn Stevenson:Yeah, it's awesome, man. Yeah. Can't wait to do it again. I know, like yesterday, man. We got to get together. But, you know, with this being said, this is one metabolizer of stress. You mentioned essentially just walking away, breaking up that monotony of like being on your screen, working or whatever the case might be because of that buildup of stress. Right. So is there anything else? You said something along the lines of, you know, not really even believing in this like de-stressing paradigm. Like, can you talk a little bit more about that? Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is no one's going to live a life with no stress.

51:24No one's going to have a day with no stress. There's a scale that you can, you know, go online, take a test. It's called the stress inventory score. There's a lot of like things that are pretty positive on there too. Like I'm getting married. I'm in a new relationship, you know, but these are all still contributors of stress, right? Even though they're positive stress, if you don't kind of understand that stress is always going to be around us all the time, it's hard to like make any progress because you're not focusing on what is the treatment for that. And the treatment for that is breaking up the stress into smaller chunks, especially if it's work-related or conversationally related.

52:04The treatment is doing things like what you're talking about, being social more often. It's also like taking a vacation. Like, you know, I think there's a 70 % of Americans don't even take all their PTO days. It's crazy to me, you know?

52:18Shawn Stevenson:Whoa. Yeah, yeah. Or like having time for self-care. Like, you have to intentionally build in these routines into your life. Otherwise, the consequences will add up into negative physiological consequences, not just through cortisol, but also through things like drinking, being sedentary. Stress makes that happen too. Okay. Got it. Got it. Yeah. We're not going to find some bubble that we can exist in without stress. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So it's arming ourselves and understanding the situation we're dealing with. And there are simple things that we can do. Right. There's simple things we can do.

52:54Shawn Stevenson:Simple things, right. I got to ask you about this since I have you here. I mentioned microbial file sharing earlier. And obviously, or maybe not so obvious. And so right now we know that there is a huge connection between gut health, microbiome, and longevity. And again, having you here, I get to hear it from the guy. So what's going on with gut health and longevity? Like what is this association? and what are some things that we can do to fortify the health of our microbiome so that we could fortify our lifespan? Yeah, great question. Okay. So right now, we're still at the very beginning of our knowledge on this.

53:35We know there's a connection between our gut health and pretty much every other system in our body, whether it be your brain, your heart, obviously your liver, et cetera. There's definitely a connection there. And by gut health, I mean the status of your microbiome, right? We don't know exactly what microbials, other than a few of them that we are focused on, really make a big difference. We just know that you need to have diversity, and there's certain keystone microbials that you need to have in your gut that will promote health in the long term, okay? We also know that our gut microbiome is extremely important for a few other factors.

54:16Number one is that it prevents you from becoming metabolically unhealthy. Number two, it acts as an additional barrier to toxins getting into our system. And also number three, there's chemicals and communication molecules being made between our gut and every other system in our body. That if you don't have good diversity or just really poor microbial populations, that communication is lost. GLP-1, everyone's talking about these now, is one of those communication molecules that our gut actually makes, okay? So, and without a gut-healthy gut microbiome, we don't make a lot of GLP-1. That's why there's this obesity crisis, right?

54:58So what can you do as a second part of your question? Like, how do we keep our gut microbiome healthy? It's actually fairly simple. Number one, don't destroy your gut microbiome by ultra-processed food, pharmaceuticals like non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or antibiotics. Obviously, if you're really sick, take an antibiotic. But don't take an antibiotic just because, you know, you're kind of feeling maybe you're sick. And thirdly, alcohol can also wreak havoc on your gut microbiome if you drink it in excess as well. And other things such as, I mentioned ultra-processed food already, right?

55:38Yeah. So avoid those things. Once you do avoid those things, your gut will naturally become healthier, okay? Now, there's a few additional things that you can do to keep your gut microbiome super healthy, and that is fiber intake is extremely important. Collagen intake is also extremely important. And so you need a varied diet, you know, to keep your gut microbiome healthy. There's some probiotics, I think, that are useful as well. There's this one called Acromantia, which is a keystone bacteria that helps us make GOP-1. That's very helpful. And yeah, I mean, that's kind of a good starting point right there.

56:19Shawn Stevenson:Awesome. Awesome. So you mentioned diversity as being one of those hallmarks. Yes. And we see in our modern society that our diversity of microbial species is significantly less than folks who are living more of what we would consider like a kind of more indigenous experience, hunter-gatherer, adjacent individuals that are being studied today. They can have four to even 10 times more diversity. So we have a lot of species of microbes in our culture in our own bodies that are going extinct or they're on the endangered species list. And so getting them back up to par is focusing on increasing diversity.

56:59Shawn Stevenson:So how do we do that? Is that maybe by increasing the diversity of what we're eating? Yeah, absolutely. This is increasing the diversity of what you're eating. Eating the rainbow, you know, having more fiber in your diet is also extremely important, but that's exactly how you do it. Increasing diversity of what you're eating. Got it. Fiber and fiber types. And fiber types, yeah. So, okay. So what do we want to do as far as, is there like maybe something for us to strive for, you know, each week, maybe, you know, I don't know, 20 different plant inputs. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good place to start.

57:33I mean, there's some books that write about 100 different plants per week. I'm like, there's no way I can even find 100 different plants. I just start eating the flowers. Right, blend the flowers up. Yeah, but I think definitely at least 10 to 20 different plants per week is a good idea as far as diversity goes. But look, the reality is it's hard to kind of do that, right? So I just think just having a thought in your brain that every plate of food you eat should have some vegetables in it. And maybe definitely trying to diversify the types of vegetables throughout the week is also a good idea as well.

58:14Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. I just did that yesterday, actually. Because you can get into a rhythm or a rut eating the same things again and again and again. Especially, I think a lot of people do this a lot for breakfast. Like they had the same thing, getting this opportunity for some diversity, you know. And so actually my wife made the night before some, a recipe from the East Martyr family cookbook, which was the, it was the Greek salad bowl. Yes. And this bowl includes things like quinoa and arugula and this phenomenal dressing we've been making for, you know, I don't know, maybe 15 years. It's my favorite dressing.

58:54Shawn Stevenson:and just all these even the dressing itself and making the dressing which is super easy to make yourself has like fresh basil and all these different spices and so being able to get this input in cucumber tomatoes all these things that you normally wouldn't see in a conventional breakfast yeah right because i didn't have it the night before because i eaten a little bit earlier i was you know on the run but i was like i'm gonna have that tomorrow for breakfast yeah and i got in this diversity of plants that I normally wouldn't do in that breakfast meal. Yeah, no, that's awesome. Yeah, I think, you know, one way to kind of put more diversity into your food choices is to buy a good recipe book like yours, you know, and once you start experimenting with different recipes, you're going to naturally buy something you've never bought before, you know, and put into your food the next day.

59:44Shawn Stevenson:What are you most excited about right now? What am I most excited about right now? Well, we're kind of on a rocket ship with NextHealth, my clinical practice of, you know, I call it health optimization and longevity medicine. We're opening three locations next month. We're opening probably 30 locations in the next 365 days. And we're going to be the biggest practice of clinical longevity medicine in the world by, you know, in a year. And I'm super excited about it. And when I say biggest practice, I mean we have four-wall clinics that people can go to and use these technologies, meet with a medical practitioner, get their blood tests done, and we put it all together for people under those four pillars.

1:00:32And so I really feel like we're creating a new system of health care. Our previous health care system was really just sick care. we want to create a new parallel system that is true healthcare that keeps you healthy keeps you vibrant keeps you functional for as long as possible um and i think that's the definition of longevity you know that when we you asked earlier in the podcast the first thing you asked me that i really feel like having a place to go where you can experience those four verticals is what we're trying to create yes you're doing it about it you're doing it it's awesome it is so

1:01:06Shawn Stevenson:awesome and inspiring. Can you let people know where they can find a clinic and also just where they can connect with you and get more information? Yeah. So if you go to next-health.com, there's a list of all of our clinics and where we're coming. Right now we're LA, we're New York, we are going to be in Newport Beach, Chicago, we're Nashville as well, Montecito, Santa Barbara area, but we're going to be everywhere in the next few months. And so just, they can find the clinics on the website i'm at dr shah.com is my website for me personally and um i also have an instagram presence of course at darshan shah md and you also have a amazing podcast yeah that by the way thanks to you you know when you interviewed me uh you kind of gave me the push to make it happen and i did you did and you this is the thing about you and i share this with you certain people like yourself if you give them you know this kind of nudge to do this particular thing you don't just do it you do it exceedingly well like i'm talking top tier out of the gate because of the person that you are the knowledge that you have um the the warmness that you have as well but also just knowing how to create a system around things right and having good people and just the studio setup and the placement and just like it was all like you've been doing this forever basically right out of the gate.

1:02:27Shawn Stevenson:So it was super fun to even experience this and to see this. And my first revelation that, oh, it's out is actually, I came out of an interview that I was doing in West Hollywood and I see this gigantic billboard for your show. I was like, I know that guy. And I took a picture, I text you. I was like, yo, the show is out. He was like, yeah, man, yeah, man. So it's just, it's amazing. So people can find your show. Extend, yeah. Extend, the Extend podcast where they're listening to this podcast. Yeah, what we really try to do is, there's a lot of medical information out there. My whole goal with the podcast is to make it so that people understand it.

1:03:04And it's easy for people to have take-home value. And that's another thing I got from you. I always learn something that I'm gonna do after I listen to an episode. And so that's the whole goal. And yeah, Extend is the name of the podcast. We're on episode 65 already, which is amazing. And thank you for coming on the show. It was awesome. Every year we got to do this.

1:03:24Shawn Stevenson:Yes, for sure. For sure. Well, this has just been a joy. I love talking with you. It's always inspiring, always getting new insights. And I just appreciate you so much. I appreciate you so much, man. Thank you for being a great friend. Awesome. Yes, my guy, the one and only Dr. Darshan Shah. Thanks. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. Again, we get to learn from the very best people in the world in their respective fields. And Darshan is really leading the charge in longevity medicine. As he mentioned, the importance of getting a blood panel done.

1:03:56Shawn Stevenson:We don't have to solely rely on guesswork anymore. And also the technology, the innovations in understanding our blood work and the story, the important messages that our body's providing us at all time. It's never been more accurate and easier for us to get this information. This is something that you no longer need permission to do, to have someone gatekeep and keep it from you. You can access this information wherever you are right now. There are clinics all over the country that can collect your blood work and then you can utilize the phenomenal levels app and this amazing team to actually read this blood work and to give you valuable information.

1:04:38Shawn Stevenson:I recently did this and I was able to get all of my hormones analyzed, my immune system markers, metabolic health markers, nutrient levels in my body, everything that I could even think of and more, and also to be able to put it all together in easy to read and to understand readouts of all these data points and to see the ranges that my body is in, in all these various aspects. And I was really surprised there was one nutrient that my body was lacking was in the lower end on and something that impacts so many other factors. And of course, getting this biological age back is really awesome, but I could be even younger, already younger biologically than chronologically, but I could be potentially even younger by addressing that one key nutrient.

1:05:26Shawn Stevenson:And so invaluable information. Sometimes our body is already telling us things and we just need to get it affirmed like what is going on, what is going wrong. And sometimes it's just, there might be something going on that's leading to a problem in the future that we can circumvent and avoid by getting this information. So again, head over to levels.link forward slash model. That's L-E-V-E-L-S dot L-I-N-K forward slash M-O-D-E-L to take advantage of the Levels membership. If you get the annual membership, you're going to get two additional months for free. And as Darshan shared, The Levels app is amazing.

1:06:10Shawn Stevenson:It is absolutely amazing, all the value that you get through Levels. And you also get access to CGMs, continuous glucose monitors. And they're also now providing you with, as part of your Levels membership, an annual biometrics test for 20 of the most important biomarkers. But you can also get an upgrade. You can invest in an upgrade to get that comprehensive test like I did. to get over a hundred of your biomarkers checked off and studied. And the data is delivered right to your device, your computer, your phone, in a way that you can understand what your blood work is actually telling you. So incredibly valuable.

1:06:54Shawn Stevenson:And again, make sure to check out Dr. Darshan Shah's podcast, Extend as well, where you're listening to podcasts. He has some phenomenal guests. I was over at his studio recently and got the experience and to see what he created. and it's just really amazing. He's such a big heart and just an amazing person. And I'm grateful to be able to share this conversation with you today. Listen, we've got some amazing, I'm talking about amazing guests coming up here very soon and also some powerful, powerful masterclasses. So make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon.

1:07:28Shawn Stevenson:And for more after the show, make sure to head over to themodelhealthshow.com. That's where you can find all of the show notes. You can find transcriptions, videos for each episode. And if you got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well. And please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome. And I appreciate that so much. And take care. I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.