Toxic Aging: How Your Organs Can Age At Different Rates & 3 Hidden Threats to Cellular Health | Dr. Will Cole

26:42Every time you talk about living over a hundred years long and the science around that, the comment section on social media is I would never want to live like that long because what does everyone see? It's the sad, lonely, immobile, hopped up on 50 medications, no quality of life, elderly person. That is not what we're talking about. Not just adding some miserable existence, but it's actually thriving, having vibrant wellness to the end of your days. Yeah, yeah.

27:13Shawn Stevenson:Just imagine again, like I feel like John Lennon right now, but just imagine where midlife is like 70. And what's so crazy, just when you said that, I thought about something I just saw. Even recently we had on Cynthia Monteleone, who is a world number one ranked Masters track athlete, number one ranked woman in the 400. She ran 400 time over 40 than she did in her college days. She was a collegiate athlete. And that's what's possible. And because of her, I just saw a race with somebody who's 71 or 72. They were either 71 or 72, blowing the competition away, running a sub like 14 second, 100 meter sprint over 70.

28:03Shawn Stevenson:Right. It's just like, just imagine the potential that we have when you're creating certain conditions intentionally, because the conditions that are being created around us without our awareness are kind of stacking conditions against ourselves. And so there's so much that we can do. That's the bright side of this equation. But an important part of this, and this is why I want to have this conversation with you, is that it's going to depend on you. It's personalized. We have been fully engulfed in the one size fits all medical paradigm for a minute and has not yielded great results. So talk about that paradigm versus personalized medicine, personalized nutrition, personalized programming for your health.

28:52Yeah. And we talk a lot about this sort of history of mainstream medicine in the book. We talk about the Rockefellers and the Flexner reports. If you're into history at all, which I love it, the sort of orthodoxy of how we understand human health, the sort of the underbelly of that is actually quite shocking. So people should learn about that. but this sort of medicinal matching game, the paradigm that has trained every conventionally trained doctor. And most of my colleagues are conventionally trained doctors in functional medicine, but they've had to kind of leave, at least partly leave the mainstream model because the training is to diagnose the disease and match it with the corresponding pharmaceutical drug.

29:37It's this sort of medicinal matching game. And with chronic health management, that's basically it, right? Acute care is different. So let's be clear there. If someone's in a car accident, like I want them to go to the best ER trauma center that there is, right? And have life-saving surgeries and life-saving medical intervention. So this is not about picking one side or the other. But when you're talking about a both-and approach, it's yes, let's have life-saving surgeries and interventions when needed. But that's not what's going to save people struggling with chronic health problems. The United States is 4 % of the world's population, yet we consume most of the world's pharmaceutical drugs.

30:16Yet despite that, we spend the most on healthcare. We have the shortest lifespan of all industrialized nations, the most chronic disease of all industrialized nations. If we were sick as a nation because of a pharmaceutical deficiency, we would be the longest living country in the world. But we're not. We're the last as far as Western nations are concerned. So this sort of reductive, let's give them an ICD-10 code, diagnosis code, and then everyone with that diagnosis code gets put on the same pharmaceutical drug, a different brand name, a generic brand name, whatever, tinkering around with the doses.

30:52It is a scratch, barely scratching the surface on the tip of that iceberg, whereas two thirds of that iceberg is underneath the ocean and nobody's looking at it in the clinical setting. to say nobody's a strong statement, but it is few and far between. Now it's being explored in the scientific literature. I mean, there's a lot, we've been talking about it already. There's already so much exciting stuff out there, but there's such a gap. There's such a miscommunication or just a lack of, it's so archaic, I guess is what I'm trying to say. There's so much novel, interesting research, but then you have a system that is just a dinosaur when it comes to understanding how, why people are sick.

31:36And they're not, you're not going to, they're all, they're just running the basic labs, the basic biomarkers in the conventional model to give the appropriate pharmaceutical drug. So it's why it's superfluous to them to figure out why you have the problem in the first place. So the idea of looking at someone's food or idea of looking at somebody's gut health or environmental toxins, or even more shockingly stress and trauma and how that shows up in someone's physiology, it's superfluous because the end result is still going to be that pharmaceutical drug. Take this blood pressure. Take this statin drug.

32:07Take this antidepressant. Take this whatever. Yeah, it is missing. We're missing the mark, and we see that with the statistics. But look, and this is my take on this, is that you cannot depend or wait for the system to change. You can keep waiting. You can keep waiting. There's pockets of change. There is pockets of change, right? There's amazing physicians. Like 15 years ago, when I got into functional medicine, it was heresy, the heresy of heresies. To say you could, John, reverse type 2 diabetes was heretical. You're going to kill people. How could they? You false promise. You quack. How could you tell them reverse type 2 diabetes?

32:48It's genetic. There's nothing you can do about it. But now it is like, what PCP? That's like the most non-news. Of course, you can change your lifestyle. you have agency on your health. The industry has changed in 15 years. Because of podcasts like yours, these long form conversations, mainstream medicine has been forced to say the obvious thing out loud is that you have a lot of agency on your health. And that's just type two diabetes, let alone all the other things we have agency on. So I think there's certainly pockets of change and the industry's shifting in many ways. And now mainstream institutions like the Cleveland Clinic have functional medicine centers.

33:25That wasn't around 15 years ago. They're spending millions of dollars on integrative and functional medicine because the data speaks for itself. And we have to do something different to see something different. And it's like Maya Angelou said, when you know better, you do better. So it's like we can't unlearn as a society that we have agency in our health. But the industry is largely captured. So you cannot depend on it for your health. This is your responsibility. And you don't have to depend on the system for what's ultimately your responsibility.

33:56Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. Yeah. Whether it's from injury, age-related wear and tear, or even chronic diseases and infections, our stem cells have to kick into action to help us heal. There's a specific compound that's been identified in turmeric that's getting a lot of attention right now for its impact on our stem cells. This compound is called R-tumorone. And a study cited in the journal, Stem Cell Research and Therapy, details how our neural stem cells proliferate 50 to 80 percent faster when exposed to varying levels of R-tumorone. The study concluded that, quote, R-tumorone thus constitutes a promising candidate to support regeneration and neurologic disease, unquote.

34:44Shawn Stevenson:How powerful is that? In addition to the remarkable power of our tumerone, turmeric has many other phytonutrients that support stem cell function. A little-known reality is that stem cells act upon inflammation. And many people are experiencing a chronic state of systemic inflammation that's literally draining their body's supply of stem cells. One of the most notable anti-inflammatory compounds ever discovered comes from turmeric too. That nutrient is called curcumin. And curcumin is shown in numerous studies to reduce inflammation, including in a meta-analysis cited in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology.

35:24Shawn Stevenson:Plus, a randomized placebo-controlled trial conducted by scientists at UCLA fell in that curcumin appears to reduce inflammation in the brain and even improve memory and attention span. And of course, we could take this advice and start adding more turmeric to a variety of dishes, including curries to scrambled eggs or whatever the case might be. But keep in mind that the results seen in these studies are from therapeutic amounts of turmeric that would only come in supplement form. And the turmeric supplement that I've been using for years is certified organic with no binders, no fillers, and has an outstanding money back guarantee.

36:05Shawn Stevenson:It's the turmeric complex from Paleo Valley. And right now you're going to get 15 % off of their incredible turmeric complex. When you go to paleo valley.com forward slash model, that's P A L E O V A L L E Y.com forward slash model for 15 % off. I absolutely love their turmeric complex. It's always there on my superfood shelf for whenever I need it. So definitely head over there and check them out, support reducing inflammation, support your stem cells, and even support your cognitive health with the turmeric complex. Go to paleovalley.com forward slash model for 15 % off. And now back to the show.

36:50Shawn Stevenson:I want to talk about this personalized point, because this is what you do. This is what you do. You're looking at, and again, it's far more comprehensive than, as you said earlier, like the standard cookie cutter blood test, which is pretty much just to be able to diagnose, do you get a statin? Do you get lisinopril? Do you get metformin? Those kinds of things. And the truth is, as you state in the book, that our biology is as unique as our fingerprint. We're all so different. And sometimes the differences can be radical. And if we're not paying attention to those small factors, which could be make or break when it comes to our health, you know, when we talk about like heavy metal exposure, you might not be, you might be completely unaware.

37:37Shawn Stevenson:Like, why am I struggling with headaches and brain fog, right? It's just like, well, here's some medication or, you know, you need to deal with your stress or whatever the case might be when you can actually find out the data and then act accordingly. So how important, what does that look like for you and what you're guiding people to when it comes to personalization? Wow, I mean, there's so many interesting examples around this, but I think I'm thinking of, what comes to mind is, let's talk about anxiety and depression, right? I think that's a good example to look at bio-individuality of how everybody's different.

38:10So you're, first of all, in the West, we separate mental health from physical health. Somehow it's separate from the body. The mental health is physical health. Our brain, our nervous systems are part of our body just as much as anything else is. But let's understand this, what the brain and the nervous system is doing. What's driving anxiety and depression for one person may not be driving it for the next person, but yet everybody's given antidepressants. Everybody's given SSRIs. And you look what happened at this horrible Clancy case that's capturing the attention in the United States. I don't know if you want to get into it or not, but it's kind of controversial every time I talk about it.

38:48But women specifically that are going through postpartum, women specifically that are going through perimenopause, women specifically of all ages of their life are struggling with nervous system dysregulation, brain issues, hormonal problems that is showing up like anxiety, depression, brain fog and fatigue. And they're told, just take this antidepressant. See you later. That is so, I would say, criminal of how we're treating women in this country. They're under-researched. they're not researched enough. Most research in medicine and healthcare is done on men. But beyond that, this sort of, even for men and women, no matter who you are, if you're going through anxiety and depression, you're all, no matter what gender you are, you're treated the same.

39:31And the reality is there's so much nuance and context is lost. I mean, first of all, they don't even measure things. I mean, the brain is like the psychiatry is the only field of medicine that doesn't measure and quantify the organ that it's treating. So that's beyond, I mean, that's a different topic. But even if they were looking at some basic labs, they are just scratching the surface. They're really not looking at it. They're just labeled and then given the medication. So for one person, it could be low thyroid, not just low thyroid, which I'll catch that with a TSH or T4. But are they looking?

40:02Is it an underconversion of T4 to T3? Is it autoimmune thyroid and running a TPO or TGA to see if it's Hashimoto's or Graves disease? Your brain is rich with thyroid receptor sites. You're going to have depression and anxiety if you have low thyroid function. But the anxiety and depression is the proverbial check engine light. We know the check engine light's on, but why the heck? What's underneath the proverbial hood? What's dysfunctional? What's imbalanced? What's deficient? What's misfiring? What's dysregulated? Ultimately, on a cellular level, because remember, going back to that, whatever organ we're talking about, it's a collection of cells of that organ that is not communicating.

40:39It's lost recognition of self and it's crying out for help. But because of this mismatch, it's not, it's X differentiated. So that organ is dysfunctional. It's aging faster. And that's, so for some people, it's the thyroid. For some people, it's the immune system that's attacking the thyroid. For some people, the thyroid's fine. That's not what's aging faster. For some people, it's something like low iron, which every cell of your body needs iron to oxygenate, to create ATP. The amount of women that I see that have low ferritin, even if it's not lab low, which is a whole different topic, but the lab's reference range is based on a statistical average of people who go to labs.

41:18So people that go to labs aren't the healthiest group of people. Comparing yourself to people with health problems is no way for you to find out why you feel the way that you do and you know your body. So in functional medicine, we have to look at optimal, not average. So all of this, the context of the thyroid numbers and the nutrients, you have to look at the functional range, not just the labs reference range. But ferritin, your brain needs ferritin. Your hormones need ferritin. You need to look at a whole iron series. For some people, it's not their nutrients and not just iron, but we have to look at selenium.

41:50We have to look at magnesium. We have to look at vitamin D. We have to look at lots of different nutrients that impact somebody's mood. These things are not being ran in the conventional model. For some people, it's underlying gut problem. The gut's the second brain, which your listeners know this, but 95 % of serotonin and 50 % of dopamine, those neurotransmitters made in the gut, stored in the gut, don't pass through the blood-brain barrier, but they work upon GM motility. They work on crosstalk to the vagus nerve, which is another big thing. Where's the vagal nerve tone? Like what's going on from a nervous system regulation?

42:24I mean, that's just some. I could go for an hour just telling you from a differential diagnosis standpoint, what are the pieces of the puzzle that cause anxiety and depression? And what drives it for one person isn't driving it for the next person. But the commonality is the cells are dysregulated. But what cells are dysregulated? What cells are confused that's impacting her or them, him, to struggle with anxiety, depression? So that's how bioindividual you can get. And it's the wild thing is this is all showing up mostly on conventional labs. It's just not looked at because they don't need those labs to give you that pharmaceutical drug.

43:04Damn, damn.

43:06Shawn Stevenson:You mentioned the thyroid there as well. And one of the things you guys talk about in the book is this was considered to be one of those organs that doesn't have much regenerative capacity. You know, largely just can't. Like you lose your thyroid, you know, tissue function. it's a wrap but we have new evidence that is to the contrary yeah you know our body can regenerate even our thyroid yeah yeah and even i mean people were pissed off about type 2 diabetes 15 years ago now there's research showing type 1 diabetes which actually is a little bit more less common but even that like the thyroid the pancreas's ability to regenerate when it has the right input on a cellular level the body's amazingly the capacity to heal is profound if you give the body the chance to do so.

43:54Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about what we can do, because this is a big part of the conversation is reducing our exposure. All right. And I know that this is going to be Captain Obvious for some people, but for others, they might not be aware. You know, you mentioned earlier about the microplastics and nanoplastics, increasing the risk of cardiovascular events. And we'll put the study up for everybody to see. This is a pretty well-known study at this point for most people, but again, we're finding microplastics, nanoplastics in the cardiovascular system. And this is also correlated with significantly higher incidents of things like heart attacks and strokes.

44:33Shawn Stevenson:So it's not just, oh, we found plastic there and we think it might be doing something, maybe, I don't know, but we know. And so one of those things might be being more aware of, you know, your habits with your shopping, for example. Let's talk about some of those things so we can start to stack conditions in our favor yeah some things we can do yeah yeah well you have to live in a bpa-free plastic bubble and don't leave the house shout out to john travolta was he the boy in the plastic bubble right wasn't it him shout out to john yeah yes for sure so i yeah what can you do to minimize your exposure all right so i would take inventory.

45:15Look, you have to meet yourself where you're at, right? And I think going back to something I said earlier, stressing about this stuff, like stressing about healthy things isn't good for your health. So let's just start there. You have to do the best you can, meet yourself where you're at. And then guess what? The things that used to stress you out and overwhelm you, once you create a habit and consistency and you start feeling better when you're less inflamed and dysregulated, the things that used to overwhelm you don't overwhelm you anymore anymore and you can lean into it from there. So lean in, don't get paralysis of analysis.

45:47You do not have to have it all figured out to start moving the needle in the right direction. So this is a word of, of, I was gonna say wisdom, but that's not a word of advice and compassion towards everybody on this topic. But I would go through every room of your house and look at the products you're using. I mean, what are you using on a daily basis? It's one thing to say, well, we it's things here and there i'm not talking about that stuff i'm talking about what are you using on a daily basis because the bioaccumulation the the test over time and it's not just one thing so if you start in like a little bit there you improve a little bit there a little bit there a little bit there nothing has to be perfect there that wields a lot of influence over time and you get some weeks and months and years under your belt of living less uh exposed to these environmental toxins.

46:40So I think looking at the kitchens, one thing that comes to mind first is what are we cooking our food in? What are we looking at? Non-stick cookware, conventional non-stick cookware, things like Teflon. If it's non-stick, guys, if it's water resistant in any area of your life, chances are it's going to be filled with PFAS. It's going to use some forever chemicals, microplastics to make it non-stick. Convenience, we pay a price with convenience oftentimes. times. And it's, we have to make decisions as individuals. What do we want to expose ourselves to? And just have informed consent and have a personal decision on that.

47:17But how can you have informed consent when you're not an empowered consumer? We don't even know. We're just buying it because it's at Target and Walmart. But it's like, what are we really, what are we buying? By the way, really quickly, you mentioned Teflon, right?

47:32Shawn Stevenson:This non-stick cookware. Teflon was like at the OG with this. It was banned. It's banned now. It's over a decade ago, but it's still being found in our bodies, these forever chemicals, right? And again, this was decades of use before this was banned to be used in our culture. And people still have them in their house. I mean, they're just, there's still microplastic and forever chemicals in a lot of these nonstick. Yeah, and you're right. If they banned something like a BPA with a plastic, They'll get another BP bifacinol that's similar enough, but it's just passing. Like, what's the workarounds, the regulations?

48:11They're going to get something else that's not good for you. So do the best you can, again, and give the rest to God. But I would say there's studies that show that just a single scratch in a nonstick coated pan, a conventional one, will release over 9 ,000 plastic particles. That's just a single scratch. The degradation of these nonstick cookware over time, like they wear and tear and the heating of them over time. is a problem. There's so many nonstick that's clean, that's eco-friendly nonstick pans, even cast iron skillets, like using things like that, being mindful of the products you're using your kitchen.

48:45And then you can go, I mean, the laundry detergents, like the idea, like the day when someone smells very strong, like a laundry detergent, it's so far removed from my daily life that it's assaulting to my senses. But yet people are so used to being bombarded by these artificial scents, right? They're endocrine disruptors. Many of these are endocrine disruptors. They're dysregulating the cells of your endocrine system and nervous system. And then, of course, the personal care products, like the beauty products. Educate yourself on that. That's why women are exponentially more impacted by autoimmunity in part.

49:21Yes, it's estrogen and progesterone's impact on inflammation. That's part of it. But it's multifactorial. I think certainly women are exponentially more using more products on average than men, which is why they're exponentially more impacted by autoimmune conditions and fertility problems too. But men are catching up. I mean, we've had a 50 % drop in sperm count in the last 50 years. So it's multifactorial, but it's because of these environmental toxins. I mean, our genetics haven't changed. So please answer. If someone's a contrarian about this, Please tell me why. What's the answer? And you can't just say it's idiopathic forever.

49:56There's a reason why.

49:57Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Oh my goodness. Again, we're looking at removing the source of the toxicity is to the best of our ability. But what about when it's in our bodies, right? Yeah. When our cells are swimming in some metabolic goo, are there any things that we can do to support this process? because our bodies, again, you mentioned earlier about the word toxin becoming like this controversial inflammatory thing. This is something that toxins have been around forever, right, in the environment and also in our bodies. We produce metabolic waste that can be toxic. The same thing holds true with detoxification.

50:38Shawn Stevenson:Our bodies do this all the time. This is not new. And there are things that you can do to support your body's ability to detoxify. So are there any things that we should be mindful of in which you are encouraging people to do with this new project that are accessible? Yeah. And look, you are right. Using the word detox or detoxification, it's so a hot button topic and has been for years. My whole career, I'm sure you're like, as long as we've been in this space, it's like, well, their body already has a detoxification. detoxification. So the idea of doing a detox, I think the context around that term, sometimes it's communication issues of social media and like how people communicate this.

51:24And sometimes, yeah, things are not worded in the best way. But exactly what you just said is what we need to do. We're bombarded with so many environmental toxins. It should not be controversial to support these detoxification pathways. And the idea that we are exposed to so much more, and look, this is not controversial to me because when I see environmental toxins high on a on a baseline lab and then low on a normal lab, if their detox pathways were just left as is, unsupported were enough, why are their levels so high? Like just do you have, do people are, some people in the comment section on social media where all problems of humanity are solved in the comment section on social media, they are so committed to misunderstanding people like you and me.

52:08It's like, bro, just no, this is not controversial. It's getting people healthy. It's like be on the right side of history. But the improving somebody and supporting someone's detoxification, start with the base stuff and then lean in from there. So, of course, food is first, right? I mean, that's common sense. Nutrient density provides the raw materials, the cofactors, the micronutrients and the macronutrients to support your body's ability. Well, many people aren't starting there. They're not even focusing on nutrient density. When you look at the standard American out there, their nutrient less inflammatory foods that don't love their body back.

52:42does not have the raw materials, the substrates, the information, the cellular food is information for ourselves, which you've been talking about for years in your book, is like, how can we use food as information to let ourselves know what to do, or the engines, the fuel that your body needs to clean house. So focusing on nutrient density, which we can get in the weed, but I'd say one food group that I think the research is clear on its ability to allow our cells to be renewed are foods that are xenohormetic in nature, which are these hormesis for people that don't know. It's the dose makes the poison, the adage of that.

53:23Well, if the dose makes the poison, the dose also makes the medicine, right? I mean, so things like fasting, ketogenic diet, which is fasting mimicking a diet, sauna therapy, cold punch, high intensity interval training these are hormetic therapeutics or hormetic things they're adversity mimetics they're things that simulate stress in nature which again our genetics haven't changed in thousands of years our cells start to remember i need to be more resilient i remember who i am i remember who god created me to be and the brain cell can say i'm a brain cell the heart cell can say i'm a heart cell i can they could start to reprogram and regenerate and function the way that they were created to function.

54:03So back to food real fast is that these xenohormetic compounds, if you wanna focus on specific foods for detoxification, I would say colorful things and bitter things. So why does a bright, dark red pomegranate or a blackberry or blueberry, why do they have those flavonoids, those polyphenols that make it the color? It's because those plants have gone through tough times. And the deeper, richer the pigment, it's the plants making these compounds as a defense mechanism because of the life that it lived. So that's why organic produce tends to be higher in these compounds because they're not sprayed with herbicides and pesticides.

54:42So they have bugs biting them. They have maybe harder life. So the harder that plant's life with the cells of that plant, then tell when we consume them, tell this ourselves, remember who you are, become more resilient. So you upregulate these regenerative pathways, these cellular regenerative pathways, like autophagy, the cellular recycling, or the renewal of the cell, or mitophagy, the mitochondrial, the cellular energy factories being renewed. So color is one. And it's also things like dark chocolate, cacao, the bitterness of that. So it's not just the color, but it's the bitterness. So think of like a bitter tart berry or a bitter tart, I guess it wouldn't be tart, but like a bitter cacao, a bitter extra virgin olive oil, like the tougher that olive tree went through, the more these polyphenols, which again, these xenohormetic, it's a way that the cells of the plant can communicate to ourselves to become renewed.

55:38And then teas like black tea, puerh tea, oolong tea, green tea, the catechins, the EGCG, these polyphenols are communicative to our cells. So I start with food and then we can dig into other stuff like sweating, like these other adversity mimetics that I mentioned are all ways to whip your cells into shape to remember what they are. You walk your talk.

56:00Shawn Stevenson:You came in here with this big old, it's over there, the jasmine tea. Yeah, jasmine tea. Yeah. And it's the bottle that you put it all into that you whipped up yourself. I thought it was like, you know, it was like some baby formula, P-L-A-L-E or something. Or you thought, people think I'm like doing some urine therapy. I'm chugging my own piss. I'm not. He's lost. He's gone all the way. Will's gone all the way. I wouldn't put it past some of the people in our space, but no, I'm not drinking my pee. It's just some green tea. Oh man. I want to ask you about this specifically because in this conversation with food, this is our channel as a human being on this planet to get in the micronutrients necessary to run these processes of detoxification, let alone running everything that our bodies do in the first place.

56:49Shawn Stevenson:We need these micronutrients to be available. So talk about the micronutrient piece. Oh man. And when you look at, I look at labs all day long, those micronutrients are deficient in those people. Some of them I mentioned already, but these vitamins, minerals, things like vitamin D, which every cell of your body has a vitamin D receptor site. So we want it to be 68, 80 on labs. Most people are deficient on it. It's the sunshine vitamin, right? So part of that's our relationship to light. so light itself it's a different topic but it's one of the reasons light and our exposure to dirty man-made light and not god light is one of the reasons why our cells have lost track of time and we have accelerated aging just from light so sunlight's a big conversation because yes it's vitamin d but it's also beyond vitamin d what is how does it shift our sleep wake cycle and our circadian rhythm.

57:42So our cell clocks, we have like this SCN, like this part of the brain that regulates our cell clocks, but it's communication, the brain's communication with our peripheral cellular clocks. Light is information for our cell clocks. So yes, vitamin D is part of that conversation, but it's also the light itself, the frequency of light and light and darkness, I would say with outside in the sun, but then we are so divorced from that inside with man-made light, looking at our screen, on our screens too late at night, it's throwing off our sleep-wake cycle. So our REM and deep sleep, our rate variability are thrown off because of relationship to light.

58:23But vitamin D is part of that conversation. So looking at vitamin D, magnesium, we run a magnesium RBC test on every new telehealth patient and most people are deficient. But I would say electrolytes as a whole, we need a lot more electrolytes than people think. So sodium, potassium, and magnesium, and the ratios of that from mineral-rich foods are important because they're, what are they doing? Electrolytes work because it's helping with cellular communication. It's helping with the electrical conductivity of our cells. our body's electric and electrolytes are needed. It's in the name, electrolytes, needed for the electrical conductivity, which is more complex than just electrolytes.

59:08It's also getting out in nature and being bare feet in the grass and other things like this that help with shifting polarized man-made EMFs and kind of connecting us to non-polarized God EMFs from nature. But electrolytes are a big part of that conversation. So grounding plus electrolytes impact so many different things on a cellular level. And then I mentioned iron, a full iron panel looking at that, that's deficient. Selenium, a lot of people are deficient. Iodine, a lot of people are deficient. So these are the biggest things. And then water-soluble vitamins are part of the deficiency that impact.

59:47Your body's peeing a lot of it out, but I just think we need more than we think we need because of the stress our cells are the stress that our cells are under so things like folate riboflavin b12 specifically even these precursors to nad um like a nicotine nicotinamide riboside and amm have their place because these are all b vitamins that are methyl donors methylation is a very important cell of their biochemical pathway so would i say they're deficient? No, but they're suboptimal because you basically need to overcompensate for a stressed out system. So I'm taking a bit higher folate, higher B12, but I'm not saying mega doses.

1:00:28I'm not saying go beyond your own threshold. Start off low and slow for B vitamins, but your cells need B vitamins. And we see that with higher homocysteine levels, which is an inflammation marker. All of these conversations around micronutrients are because our cells are confused and giving our body nutrient density, whether from food or targeted supplementation in both, it's going to help with the cell to repair itself.

1:00:56Shawn Stevenson:So we're going to, I would assume, target foods that are rich in these nutrients first and foremost, and also look to supplementation too. Yeah. Food is first. You can't supplement your way out of a poor diet, but you start with nutrient density with food, but because of how we treat the earth, the soil microbiome, the nutrient density of food, it isn't what it once was. And then on top of that, our body's more stressed. So I'm convinced that even if we had optimal, like regenerative farms and things like that, which of course I'm going to be supporting and support local regenerative farmers and organic farmers wherever you can.

1:01:29But even then, I just think that we, our cells are bombarded with more stuff. And I see it on labs. I see people that just focus on food, right? And this is all based on data on what I see for 15 years. People that just focus on food. Yes, that's enough for some people, but some people, they're doing the food bit and they're really focused on nutrient density and their numbers still aren't optimal. So at that point, it's like, is it the food's fault? Maybe because of our soil. Or is it just because living in this modern broken world, we need to basically overcompensate for what our cell needs.

1:02:03Basically, the debt, the cellular debt is so great that you need to overcompensate and just to get a minor surplus. us.

1:02:11Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. Yeah. You talk about this in the book too, how exercise is a bona fide part of longevity medicine, you know? And so with this being said, what else do readers have to look forward to in this book? Because it's really well put together. It's two masterminds coming together to create this, this new project. What can readers look forward to? well um one thing you mentioned the exercise we dig into the things that are beyond the basics and put it all together so people can understand how to reverse cellular aging so the stanford researchers that i talked about earlier they're looking at protein the proteins and they are working on a direct-to-consumer lab i believe is what i heard but we can look what we have access today is understanding dna methylation there's the symphony age test and other labs it will enable us to look at 100 ,000 plus DNA methylation sites.

1:03:07And then that is used to look at over 100 or so different clinical biomarkers to understand the 11 organs it's looked at. In the Stanford study, we can understand what's the different ages of somebody's different organs of their body. And it's pretty close apples to apples as that Stanford study that I talked about earlier. This lab is in partnership with Yale and True Diagnostics. And then we look at that plus cardiomanabolic markers, inflammation markers, nutrient deficiencies that I've been talking about earlier. So we talk about that in the book. So yes, people can have access to those labs.

1:03:40We help people around the world with telehealth. But beyond that, I just wanted the book to stand on along on its own. So people never saw a functional medicine doctor, what could they do on their own? So I adapted questions that we ask telehealth patients as not a replacement of a lab, but good clinical pearls, good things you can get out from a health history or you learning about your body and the things you've normalized. So we have the cellular report card, the cellular age report cards. You can check in with your body and the things you've normalized that are maybe not normal, they're just common.

1:04:13And ubiquity doesn't necessarily mean you should normalize it. Many people are struggling with these things that the body's giving you little clues, whispers from your cells saying, pay attention to me. This is not normal. I need some attention here. So we're walking through people, people through these 11 organs that are in the Stanford study for people to have agency, these aha moments of like, whoa, I didn't realize my brain cells were telling me I need to pay attention to them. Or my ovarian cells or my gut cells are saying, I need some attention here. So, because again, not to look for problems where there aren't problems and become some OCD hypochondriac.

1:04:48It's just having discernment and awareness on what your body's telling you. So you can do something about it. These are things you can heal from in reverse and do something about it. Your body's, as we said earlier, amazingly resilient if you just give it a little chance, a little reprieve from this mad world to do something about it. And then we gave prescriptive protocols based, like I should say this, bio-individual unique protocols based on that person's assessment of what area is their weak point, like you said, the weakest link. So maybe one person's weakest link is their gut. They're not going to need necessarily a different recommendation.

1:05:26So we wanted to get as bio individual as we could in book form. It's no replacement to health history in my case, you know, us helping them, but it's a good start. And I would say another thing that's different in the book that I think is different than other, which I know you'll appreciate this, than other, you could say more longevity science centric books, is we're talking about what I think is one of the biggest drivers of cellular confusion. And it is chronic stress, unresolved trauma, spiritual disconnection, and then something that you talk so eloquently about, a disconnection with other humans, relationships.

1:06:07So those mental, emotional, spiritual things are also contributing to cellular confusion. And it's not just the physical stuff, it's the mental, emotional, spiritual stuff too. We have to have a both and conversation. You're not gonna see that in many longevity, whatever books, but it's a big part of our Dr. Axan and I's life that we had to cover it. And the science is very clear on that too. So you cannot separate that mental, emotional, spiritual health from physical health. It's all one in the same.

1:06:35Shawn Stevenson:Yes. Facts. Facts. And where can people pick up a copy? Thanks, man. Everything is at drwillcull.com. We have the links for all the books there. You can just head to books. It's on the homepage. Heal Yourselves. But of course, you can get it. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, independent bookstores. All the places where you get books and stuff. Make the bookstores back. Bring them back. Come on. That's what I want. I used to spend my Friday. I wrote a lot of my books in a Barnes and Noble. I love the books, the cafe, coffee shop at Barnes and Noble. Even the independent bookstores, man. So support your bookstores.

1:07:12Yeah, it's a vibe. It's a vibe. Many dates with my wife at the bookstore.

1:07:15Shawn Stevenson:Many, many dates. And this is so special. You know, again, it's just giving us guidance back to ourselves and empowerment. And I appreciate it so much, man. Thank you a million times. And again, every one of these topics we could do an entire show on. Totally. But putting them all together comprehensively in this book is really special. And, you know, I appreciate you, man. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. Of course. The one and only Dr. Will Cole, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. If you did, you already know what to do.

1:07:47Shawn Stevenson:Sharing is caring. Share this episode out with the people that you care about. You can send this directly from the app that you're listening on, right to somebody via text. Or, of course, you could share this with your social media family. take a screenshot of the episode share it on social tag me i'm at sean model tag dr cole i know he loves to see the love on social as well and listen we got some epic epic masterclasses and world-leading experts coming your way very very soon so make sure to stay tuned take care have an amazing day and i'll talk with you soon