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Can You Really Live to 150 Years Old? | Dr. Mark Hyman

Jun 7, 2023 1h 13m 19 insights
<p><em>New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers.</em></p> <p><em>---</em></p> <p>Everyone from the Buddha to the Stoics have exhorted us to remember that we're going to die. So what are we to make of Dr. Mark Hyman? He's a physician and a student of Buddhism who is just out with a new book, called, "Young Forever." In it, he argues that your biological age can be reversed even as you grow chronologically older. So we decided to have him on, learn about his approach, and gently grill him on some of the things that made us most skeptical. </p> <p>This is the second part of our new six-part series, Get Fit Sanely series, where we are trying to help you to make sense of the noise around getting fit–and to do so without losing your mind.</p> <p>A little bit more about Dr. Hyman: He is a practicing family physician, the Founder and Senior Advisor for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, and a fifteen-time New York Times best-selling author. He also has his own podcast, called <em>The Doctor's Farmacy</em>.</p> <p><br /></p> <p><strong>In this episode we talk about:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Whether there's a tension between Mark's approach and Buddhism</li> <li>Whether it's realistic for people alive today to think that we could make it to 150 or 200 years old</li> <li>Mark's contention that he is in better shape at 63 than he was at 40</li> <li>His take on intuitive eating</li> <li>His top line recommendations on exercise</li> <li>The benefits of cuddling</li> <li>His response to critiques of functional medicine</li> <li>Whether his longevity routine is something regular people can do</li> <li>The research on cold plunges and saunas</li> <li>His advice on alcohol</li> </ul> <p><br /></p> <p><strong>Full Shownotes:</strong> <a href="https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dr-mark-hyman-609" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dr-mark-hyman-609</a></p>
Actionable Insights

1. Eliminate Processed Foods & Sugar

Drastically reduce intake of sugar, flour, and ultra-processed foods, as these are major drivers of aging, inflammation, and chronic diseases, and are designed to be addictive, disrupting natural hunger signals.

2. Boost Phytochemical Intake

Consume a wide variety of phytochemical-rich fruits and vegetables to activate beneficial longevity pathways, reduce inflammation, increase antioxidants, and improve mitochondrial and microbiome function.

3. Incorporate Healthy Fats

Include healthy fats such as omega-3s, olive oil, avocados, nuts, and seeds in your diet, as they are crucial for overall longevity and health.

4. Optimize Protein Intake for Muscle

Increase your protein intake, especially as you age, aiming for 30-40 grams of high-quality protein (like animal protein with leucine) when refeeding, ideally within two hours of strength training, to build and maintain muscle mass which is critical for longevity and functionality.

5. Implement Daily Fasting

Practice overnight fasting for at least 12-16 hours to inhibit mTOR, activate self-cleaning and repair mechanisms (autophagy), improve mitochondrial function, reduce inflammation, and enhance insulin sensitivity.

6. Embrace Diverse Exercise Regime

Consistently engage in a balanced exercise routine encompassing cardiovascular conditioning (30 mins, 3-4x/week, including interval training), strength training (30 mins, 3x/week), and flexibility exercises (15 mins, 3-4x/week) to activate longevity pathways and mitigate aging.

7. Nurture Social Connections

Actively cultivate deep social connections and a strong community, as loneliness is detrimental to health, being as dangerous as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, and social networks profoundly influence gene expression and overall longevity.

8. Reduce Stress with Meditation

Implement stress-reducing practices like meditation, as chronic stress can lead to numerous harmful biological effects and negatively impact overall health and longevity.

9. Ensure Sufficient Sleep

Prioritize getting adequate sleep, as it is a critical period for your body’s repair, healing, renewal, and brain detoxification, directly impacting overall health and longevity.

10. Apply Hormetic Stressors

Deliberately incorporate beneficial stressors like overnight fasting, intense exercise, cold plunges (1-2 minutes), and saunas (30 minutes, 4x/week) to activate longevity pathways and strengthen your body.

11. Take Foundational Supplements

Consider taking a basic multivitamin, vitamin D, and fish oil daily, as common nutritional deficiencies can hinder biochemical reactions essential for health and longevity, and this regimen can be inexpensive.

12. Minimize Alcohol Intake

Reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption, as increasing evidence suggests it is not safe at any dose and can be detrimental to long-term health, brain function, and cancer risk; drinking two glasses of wine a day is considered a disaster for long-term health.

13. Cuddle for Longevity

Engage in cuddling, as it can cause epigenetic reprogramming, which is a process that can help turn back the biological clock and promote longevity.

14. Prioritize Health Span

Shift your focus from merely extending lifespan to enhancing your ‘health span,’ ensuring you live better and add more life to your years rather than just more years to your life.

15. Embrace Mortality for Presence

Actively reflect on your mortality and finitude to enhance the vibrancy of the present moment, prioritize your life, and align with fundamental truths, as emphasized in Buddhist teachings.

16. Practice Intuitive Eating Mindfully

While intuitive eating can be beneficial, ensure your body’s biochemistry and metabolism are healthy first, as dysregulated signals from stress, fatigue, sleep deprivation, or an ultra-processed diet can lead to unhealthy choices.

17. Build Metabolic Resilience

Strive for metabolic resilience through healthy habits, as it allows your body to better handle various stressors and provides more flexibility in occasional dietary choices without adverse effects.

18. Engage in Breathwork

Incorporate breathwork practices into your routine, as it is mentioned as part of a personal longevity regime.

19. Investigate Advanced Longevity Tools

For those interested and with resources, explore advanced longevity compounds like NMN, NR, NAD, quercetin, urolithin A, or treatments such as hyperbaric oxygen and plasmapheresis, always considering the cost-benefit, risk-benefit, and consulting a doctor due to their experimental nature and expense.