#1 Longevity Expert REVEALS Surprising Warning Signs You’re Aging Too Fast

Most people are aging far faster than they realize, and it often comes down to their daily routine. In this conversation, Dr. Darshan Shah breaks down the myths about aging, the health markers that actually matter, and three practical habits you can start this week to improve your energy and longevity. Watch The Dr. Josh Axe Show every Monday & Thursday on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drjoshaxe 🎧 Early Access! Our podcast listeners get every episode early, and you can tune in and be a part of our exclusive listeners below → Spotify: https://bit.ly/DrJoshAxeSpotify Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3JDvWcS Order my NEW BOOK, The Biblio Diet → https://bit.ly/4oPEP3t Watch my free training on how to naturally balance your blood sugar and reverse your symptoms →http://DrAxeDiabetesClass.com Discover practical steps you can take today to start healing your thyroid naturally → DrAxeThyroidClass.com If you’re ready to start feeling like yourself again and balance your hormones, take my free class → DrAxeHormoneClass.com Uncover what’s really going on in your body with advanced biomarker testing for hormones, thyroid, and metabolism— plus a 1-hour consultation with a Senior Health Advisor! → http://MyBloodWork.com CONNECT WITH DR. JOSH AXE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjoshaxe/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrJoshAxe/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedrjoshaxeshow/ X: https://x.com/drjoshaxe/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshaxe Website: http://thehealthinstitute.com Sign up for my newsletter: https://bit.ly/4oE9Jf3 Ask me a question: http://speakpipe.com/drjoshaxe CONNECT WITH DR. DARSHAN SHAH Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/?hl=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DarshanShahMD/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@darshanshahmd X: https://x.com/DarshanShah_MD Website:https://www.drshah.com/ Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/extend-podcast-with-darshan-shah-md/id1773578243 Links mentioned in this show: drshah.com/biomarkers next-health.com Listen to my interview with Dr. Gez Agolli → https://youtu.be/JHj0RhXGFZs?si=6_g2Tkpp0sqs9dY5 DISCLAIMER This content is strictly the opinion of Dr. Josh Axe and is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice or treatment from a personal physician. All viewers of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. Neither Dr. Axe nor the publisher of this content takes responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading or following the information in this educational content. All viewers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement or lifestyle program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  The 2026 Chevy Equinox is more than an SUV. It's your Sunday tailgate and your parking lot snack bar. Your lucky jersey, your chairs, and your big cooler fit perfectly in your even bigger cargo space. And when it's go time, your 11.3-inch diagonal touchscreen's got the playbook, the playlist, and the tech to stay a step ahead. It's more than an SUV. It's your Equinox. Chevrolet, together let's drive.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  We've spent trillions of dollars creating the most advanced medical system in the world here in the United States. The problem that I recognized was that entire system was never really built to keep you healthy. It's a sick care system. It's not a healthcare system. Unfortunately, we've outsourced our health to the medical profession. We don't know what our biomarkers are, right? We have our doctor pick the biomarkers and tell us whether something bad is going on or not.

• 0:55Josh Axe?

  You know, when I think about our average lifespan, it's probably somewhere around 78 years old in the United States. Now, other countries, you know, you go to Okinawa and other areas, it's longer. But when I think about that, and I believe the Bible talks about we're designed to live 120 years. There are scientific studies saying, hey, we should live about 120 years. What are the biggest causes of premature aging today?

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Even if people are living to 80, they're spending that last 20 to 30 years frail, not being able to recognize their family members, and multiple chronic diseases. So even though we've extended life, I would say almost artificially with all of these medical treatments that we have, people don't have the health span too.

• 1:31Josh Axe?

  That's right.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  We know that you can live to 120 years old, being able to do all the things you want to do and enjoy life. So the question was, why are we aging so fast? I think there's probably four main causes. One is that...

• 2:07Speaker 03

  Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with Epglis, a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four month or longer dosing phase, about four in 10 people taking Epglis achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintained skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.

• 2:27Speaker 04

  Epglis, lebrykizumab, LBKZ. A 250 mg per 2 ml injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin, or topicals, or who cannot use topical therapies. Epglis can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to Epglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Epglis. Before starting Epglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection.

• 3:01Speaker 03

  Ask your doctor about Epglis and visit epglis.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979.

• 3:08Josh Axe?

  What if you were aging twice as fast as you thought? You know, many people today don't realize how their mitochondria and their cells and their organs are actually aging too quickly. And today I've brought in one of the world's leading doctors when it comes to longevity. It's Dr. Darshan Shah. He's opened multiple clinics across the world. He's a longevity expert and he spent his time as a surgeon for many years, but has now turned one of the leading voices in the longevity space. And today we're going to be talking about everything from peptides, the right type of peptides to slow the aging process and heal your cells. We're going to be talking about balancing your hormones. We're going to be talking about a lot of advanced therapies like stem cell, red light therapy, hyperbaric chamber, plasma exchange and so many others.

• 3:53Josh Axe?

  And so if you're a person that wants to add years to your life and life to your years, you're going to enjoy this podcast with my friend, Dr. Darshan Shah. Darshan, hey, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  So excited to be here, so honored to be here, actually. Thank you for having me.

• 4:06Josh Axe?

  Well, it was a pleasure meeting you in London.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:08Josh Axe?

  I know we got to do dinner together and hang there a little bit, which was great. And I've just been so impressed by what you've done with your clinics. You founded the Next Health Clinics.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:16Josh Axe?

  And, uh, and you know, I've had several friends, we were talking about Gary Brekka earlier and others who have gone to your clinics to get everything from plasma exchange to ozone to different types of IVs and therapies. What got you into this field? Because I know you're a surgeon before.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So, you know, um, did surgery, trained in medical school and Western medicine. And spent a lot of years in the hospital during trauma surgery, taking care of people in the emergency room, ICUs. And, you know, thank God we have that system of Western medicine. If you get hit by a bus, you need like stage four cancer excised. We've spent trillions of dollars creating the most advanced medical system in the world here in the United States.

• 4:56Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  But the problem that I recognized was that that entire system was never really built to keep you healthy. It's a sick care system. It's not a healthcare system, right? I think we all kind of intuitively know this.

• 5:09Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  But we blame that system because the chronic disease epidemic in the United States is out of control right now.

• 5:16Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  And we're not finding solutions there. But once you realize that that system was never built to reverse chronic disease, to keep you healthy, then you kind of get this aha moment. And I had the same aha moment myself because 10 years ago, I got really sick with autoimmune disease, diabetes, out of control blood pressure. I was 50 pounds overweight and I, despite having incredible training, you know, I trained at the Mayo Clinic.

• 5:42Josh Axe?

  Wow.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  I did not know how to get myself healthy, you know? And so I decided to get healthy. And so I did a lot of the same things you trained in, functional medicine.

• 5:52Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Nutrition, exercise, and it was like a miracle. I, in eight months, got off 10 different prescription medications.

• 6:01Josh Axe?

  Wow.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I was like, this is how I want to be practicing medicine. So 10 years ago, I started a new clinic focused on health. I call it a health optimization and longevity clinic. Our main goal is if you are. Diagnose with a chronic disease is to reverse that chronic disease, get you off your medications. But also, a lot of people are suffering with functional medicine issues, gut health, maybe hormonal issues. And once again, western medicine never addressed those kinds of things. So, we also focus on functional medicine and really getting people to feel great again. That's the goal of our clinics.

• 6:38Josh Axe?

  Yeah, it's so great. It's so powerful. You know, one of the things I know that you've done and I've heard you speak on is, is, is blood work and testing.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, 100%.

• 6:45Josh Axe?

  And one of the things that I think is the most outdated part of all western medicine is a lot of the blood work panels that people are doing. Because I know my focus is trying to find what's the root cause, what are things upstream? And I feel like a lot of the things that they're testing for today are so downstream. It's like, you're, you know, we find something when you're incredibly ill already and sometimes it's too late or it's much harder to reverse now. What, what do you think some of the worst markers are that are almost useless today? That, uh, that are, that a lot of people are getting? And then what are some of those markers that you really like to do with your patients that are maybe different than the conventional testing?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Yes, it's such a great question that you put it that way. Because I remember for years, people would come to me, uh, when I was doing surgery and we check a CBC, a chem seven and a PT, PTT. Now, these are standard blood tests in western medicine. And basically, if your chem seven, which is your electrolyte levels in your blood is off, you're like knocking on death's door.

• 7:44Josh Axe?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  If your CBC is off, like you're bleeding to death. The, and those are just markers to make sure you're not dying from something at that moment.

• 7:53Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  There's zero to do with health, you know? And so, um, I think, you know, what we do in functional medicine is we test for things like inflammation, metabolic health, cardiovascular risk, um, even vitamin and deficiencies and abnormalities. Those are the kind of tests that are really what people should be getting on a yearly basis as early as in your twenties, you know? And, and I think that, um, what we do at our clinics, and I know you do this with your patients, we do comprehensive testing to make sure you're not headed towards disease. Like, we want to catch. Stuff decades before you get diagnosed with a disease and that's that's where we focus our energy.

• 8:32Josh Axe?

  Yeah, you know, I love that. And you know, it's it's even surprising to me personally that like I've done blood work. And sometimes stuff shows up in me that I'm just surprised. But I'll give you an example, like I did blood work. So I came off about three years ago, I had a spinal infection, didn't walk for a year and was really sick and I had to take antibiotics for a month. And didn't want to, but I had to. It was one of those situations. And um, and so when I did post blood work a little later, two things really showed up on me that were really deficient. And number one by far was vitamin B two.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:04Josh Axe?

  And the second was mitochondrial dysfunction in health. And I think those two are obviously very related. And and it was and I was just, I was really tired. I was fatigued. And even though outside of that, I would say I felt fantastic. I just had this low grade, just very just tiredness. And I literally started taking a B two supplement. And I felt fantastic.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:23Josh Axe?

  Absolutely fantastic. And there's a lot of people out there that have a single biomarker, a single nutrient. It could be selenium, it could be B two, it could be, uh, you know, vitamin D, of course, or magnesium. And they feel so sick because of it. And have you experienced that or seen that often, you know, pretty often in patients you've you've worked with?

• 9:42Speaker 01

  All the time, you know, and it's like one of these things where um, usually the conversation comes up around supplementation and, you know, people have heard maybe from their doctors even that you're just taking supplements is a waste of time because you just pee them out, you know, and you look at their blood work panels and their vitamin D, I just saw this yesterday, vitamin D level of fifteen.

• 10:03Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  I mean, in the toilet, I'm like, you need to be on a vitamin D supplement.

• 10:08Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  And the minute um, I put someone on a supplement for vitamin D, vitamin B twelve, whatever have you that you find in the markers. Like you said, not only do they start feeling better, but you and I both know chronic deficiencies of vitamins over years and years add up to a much higher risk of chronic disease, right? And so we need to address those sooner rather than later. When I tell a lot of my patients, like symptoms like tiredness, brain fog, people ignore those for Years, you know, before they realize that they need to treat something.

• 10:39Josh Axe?

  Yes.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  And that ignoring the symptoms for years can lead to chronic disease so much quicker.

• 10:45Josh Axe?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's no doubt about it. You know, one of the other things I've noticed too, even within functional medicine is you get a vitamin D test back. And sometimes it's just you're not taking enough vitamin D. But sometimes it's a liver issue, your body's not creating enough bile and it's not absorbing enough fat. And that's where I think having a really good practitioner is so valuable to know, okay, we gave you vitamin D. It only creeped up a little bit, even though we were giving you 20,000 IUs a day and you've been out in the sun. There's an absorption issue here, so we need to start focusing on maybe taking TUDCA or OXPA or or lipase and change your diet as well and do some things to really support the facilitation of liver health.

• 11:25Josh Axe?

  And so there, there, there is so much that really goes into helping somebody get well and having, having great practitioners you work with.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're so right about that. I mean, you know, I talk about supplementation as a kind of a temporary cure for the most part, just to get you back up to where you need to be.

• 11:40Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  While you're fixing all of these like digestive issues, et cetera. And look, maybe you don't need to be on the supplement forever, right?

• 11:47Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Um, vitamin D is a classic example that sometimes people can keep their vitamin D levels. Once they organize their diet, they organize their sun exposure, they can stay at a pretty good level. But sometimes you just can't, you know, like we live in modern society in 2025, we spend a lot of time inside right now, you know, and so it's sometimes needed to get yourself to a level that will keep you healthy for the long term.

• 12:11Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 12:13Josh Axe?

  Do you have unexplainable illness, hormone dysfunction, weight loss resistance, brain fog? And you're tired of being dismissed when you know something isn't right? Well, get my at home testing of targeted biomarkers, including hormones, thyroid and metabolism, plus a full hour with one of my senior health advisors to help you understand your results. The truth is your doctor's probably reading your blood work all wrong. They're missing the cellular issues behind the symptoms. This new testing flips the script. The future of interpreting test results is here. I'm currently offering a simple at home blood test that actually tests for the right things. And just as importantly, it comes with proper interpretation of your results.

• 12:57Josh Axe?

  If you want to check it out and grab one before they're gone, just go to mybloodwork.com now.

• 13:05Josh Axe?

  You know, one of the things I've seen people in your clinics for is for chronic infections.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:10Josh Axe?

  You know, you've been using a type of filtration system, blood filtration called plasma exchange, which is pretty amazing. I'd love for you to just walk us through, like, when do you like to use plasma exchange? And maybe also a secondary part of that. The next question, I do want to get into ozone and talk about that a little bit more as well. But let's start with plasma exchange. Where have you seen the best results with using that sort of therapy? And then what specifically is that therapy?

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Okay, so plasma exchange is a therapy that is actually FDA approved since 1970, but like a lot of great technology is locked up in the hospital system, right? And so what we've done is bring it out of the hospitals into the clinical practice where in the hospitals you use it for like acute poisonings or acute autoimmune crisis. And what happens is you hook yourself up to this machine, you have an IV in one arm, it removes the blood from that arm, and it puts it through basically a giant centrifuge. So if you've ever seen like PRP, where you take a vial of blood and you centrifuge and it separates the blood, red blood cells in the bottom and a yellow plasma on top. We're doing that for the entire blood volume. And so why do we do that? We do that because inside of your plasma is

• 14:19Speaker 01

  where a lot of the toxins live, right? So when you separate your blood volume, 250 cc's at a time in this circuit, what happens is we can take that entire plasma volume that you have, it's about three liters, and put it in a bag and basically throw it away. Okay? So it's like an oil change for your body. In your plasma, you have inflammatory cytokines, you have high levels of any toxin, maybe heavy metals, maybe you have toxins from mold, maybe you have toxins just from environmental exposures, maybe you have autoimmune disease and you have immune complexes in your blood. All of that stuff lives in your plasma. And basically what this treatment is doing, it gives your body a break. You

• 14:59Speaker 01

  know, our body is constantly trying to eliminate these toxins, but sometimes the overload of toxins in our bloodstream, we just can't keep up with.

• 15:08Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  And so this gives you that Time period where you can kind of catch up.

• 15:14Josh Axe?

  Yeah, I've seen it particularly there are a few people I know that were exposed to mold.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 15:17Josh Axe?

  For instance, and seeing the sort of results there.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:19Josh Axe?

  Cause I mean, this is something I'm, you know, and you're seeing the same thing. I'm seeing more and more people with mold issues.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Right, me too.

• 15:25Josh Axe?

  More and more. I mean, it's, and I think a lot of these infections too, they're co-infections. Right. It's like somebody has Epstein-Barr and that was activated by long COVID or mold. And then they have Lyme disease and all these infections that are just sort of overtaking. The great thing about plasma exchange is you're filtering out a lot of those pathogens.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:42Josh Axe?

  By, by, by that therapy, which is amazing.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:46Josh Axe?

  You know, you said something that I think is really interesting too. You brought it out of the hospital system.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:51Josh Axe?

  You know, when I was, had my spinal infection, one of the things I was looking for was a hard hyperbaric chamber to get into. Do you know how hard that was for me?

• 16:00Speaker 01

  It's so hard. I know.

• 16:01Josh Axe?

  It's like, you know, in the hospitals, we're like, oh, do you have an open wound? No. Okay. You can't even like, we're only doing it for those people. I'm like, but there's research on brain trauma and strokes and autism and chronic infections. Like that's, I read these medical journals saying that if I got in a hyperbaric chamber every day, it would cut down the antibiotic time by like 70%.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. So true.

• 16:26Josh Axe?

  And, and I was like, well, I've got to get in the hyperbaric chamber every day. I had to go to Sarasota, Florida. Like they didn't, they didn't even have them in a number of places. Like again, they, they were, cause they were all in the hospital.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So you know, um, I actually trained in hyperbaric medicine at the Mayo Clinic. That's where I was.

• 16:43Josh Axe?

  Wow.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  I trained for surgery and we would put all, so many of our patients in the hyperbaric chamber, especially after spinal infections, spinal surgeries, because they just healed so much faster.

• 16:54Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  And their infections cleared so much faster. And so one of the first things I did when I started Nax Health was I actually bought a company in California, in Los Angeles that had hyperbaric chambers, Beverly Hills Hyperbaric. I bought.

• 17:08Josh Axe?

  Oh, wow.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Because I was like, I'm going to start offering this to more people than just people that are really sick. All they did was charge insurance after you were sick and insurance rarely paid for anything. And I. New, just like you knew, hyperbaric oxygen works post surgically for any type of surgery, but also even if you've suffered like stroke, maybe you're suffering from even chronic infections, it can really be helpful. So now at every next health, we have a hyperbaric chamber. So you know, we you're wearing Nashville and we have one right down the street. We're going to put two or three in all of our locations here. And we really want to bring these technologies out of the hospital system to where people can benefit when you're not in the hospital.

• 17:48Josh Axe?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I mean, you know, hyperbaric chambers to me are one of those things that just almost everybody can benefit from. I mean, it has so many benefit, longevity benefits to, I mean, there's another one. And so, um, so it's powerful. You know, I'm opening up my, my, my brother in laws and I are open up a claim that it's South Nashville and Franklin and South Franklin, Tennessee. And very similar thing. It's like, we want to be able to offer things like hyperbaric because, you know, and I would love for you to speak to this, like, what is hyperbaric, what do hyperbaric chambers do exactly?

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Right. They have two mechanisms of action primarily. Number one is they force kind of oxygen into the tissues under pressure. So basically, we have like two atmospheres of pressure. So it's like being underwater and you have much more pressure and that forces oxygen into tissues. What it also does is create a little bit of oxidative stress that allows your cells to reset and your mitochondria to reset as well. So both mechanisms work really well. And then thirdly, what we do is we give people hyperoxygenated oxygen to breathe while they're in the chamber as well. And so usually you'll have a mask or nasal cannula and you're getting additional oxygen too. So all three of these work synergistically together to all the, all

• 19:00Speaker 01

  the things we talked about, help improve wound healing, help improve your longevity, all of it.

• 19:05Josh Axe?

  Yeah. You know, there's, this is a, this is a quote from many years ago from Otto Warburg, but he said, you know, the, the cause of cancer is lack of oxygen in the cell. And I know Joanna Budwig, you know, she was a, if you're familiar, she did something called the Budwig Protocol. It was a cancer therapy where she mixed flax meal and something called quirk, like a cottage cheese like substance. And she believed those fatty acids, the phospholipids specifically would help.

• 19:30Josh Axe?

  The meal to help heal the cell membrane.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Oh, amazing.

• 19:32Josh Axe?

  And so when you help heal the cell membrane, it would allow greater oxygen exchange, part of her theory. But my point there was, is that, you know, the two of the leading people in the, you know, in the 1900s, when it came to cancer therapy, were both like, hey, if we want to heal cancer, you want to heal the body, that oxygen exchange is absolutely critical, critical in getting more oxygen in the cell.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:51Josh Axe?

  And so hyperbaric chamber is really great for that as well. So my point was, it just, it's beneficial for so many things. I know my mom had cancer, and part, one of the things we've done for her is, you know, got her in a hyperbaric chamber regularly. So anyway, just, just so many benefits there.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 20:08Josh Axe?

  I'd love, I'd love for you to talk about ozone. This is another therapy that I know you're using very frequently.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, we use Ebu at our, um, at our clinics.

• 20:16Josh Axe?

  And talk about the difference between like the standard, the 10 pass and the Ebu maybe just for everybody.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So, um, standard ozone, you can get, basically what you're doing is you're exposing your blood to ozone, right? Oxygen, um, O3 gas. And, um, what that does in the standard therapy is you just have a certain amount of blood volume that you are exposing yourself to. Sometimes you can even, some people even inject it, et cetera. But what a 10 pass does is that you do this for about 200 cc's of blood 10 times. You're getting a much larger volume of blood exposed to ozone. And what the ozone molecule does is it actually attacks infectious organisms and basically kills them, right? And so, um, there's very few therapies that directly kill infectious organisms, especially for chronic infections like Lyme, um, mold, et cetera.

• 21:03Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  And it can be really, really helpful for actually eliminating those organisms.

• 21:08Josh Axe?

  Yeah, it's so powerful. I've had so many Lyme patients I've recommended to ozone. You know, the, the one, the one thing though, I will say for everybody is that it's really good to work with a practitioner if you're doing things like plasma exchange and ozone, because if you have too many pathogens built up at one time, you really need to ease your body into it, or the reaction is severe. So you just, it's not like, I, because some personalities are like, give me it all at once. We're like, no, we really need to ease your body into this.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:34Josh Axe?

  Uh, as part of the, as part of the healing protocol.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  You see some pretty, pretty bad reactions on people that go right. Right into it full bore and they're not, you know, they're not prepared, um, both nutritionally, mentally for the treatments, et cetera. So you have to work with a practitioner that really understands how these things fit together.

• 21:53Josh Axe?

  That's so great. I, I want, I want to walk you through, I want to go through just a few different conditions and health issues and, and for, and I'd love for you to share the therapies that you've found to be the most advantageous.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 22:04Josh Axe?

  And it could be everything from certain type of diet, uh, supplements. It could be a, you know, a more advanced therapy like we're talking about.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:12Josh Axe?

  When you see patients with hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's thyroiditis, women specifically, what are some of the therapies you've seen the best results with for them?

• 22:21Speaker 01

  So, you know, I, I would say that Hashimoto's thyroiditis is basically in, due to an overactivation of your immune system, right? So anything that is anti-inflammatory is going to be super, super helpful while you're also getting treated for the actual thyroid disorder, right? And so dietary changes really help. Um, most of the dietary changes focus around eliminating gluten from your diet. Some people need to eliminate dairy from their diet. We actually measure food sensitivities. We use what we call the weed zoomer, dairy zoomer.

• 22:53Josh Axe?

  Mm hmm.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  And so we really try to use a really good focused elimination diet on our patients.

• 22:59Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  I've also seen plasma exchange be very beneficial because it removes those autoimmune antibodies from your plasma that are circulating. So that can be really helpful. We also use, um, hyperbaric oxygen for people as well. Um, anything that's anti-inflammatory can come together to really help reduce Hashimoto's.

• 23:17Josh Axe?

  That's great. How, how about low testosterone in men?

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Ah, great question. So whenever we see, you know, so one of the things that we try to empower our patients with is, we mentioned blood tests earlier and testosterone is a perfect example. Most people live a very, very long time with a low testosterone and they don't know it, right? And so what we really try to empower our patients with, no matter what age you come in, it doesn't matter if you're in your twenties, your thirties, your forties, is we get a full baseline biomarker panel and one of the blood tests there is testosterone. And the critical thing to realize with testosterone is your testosterone levels. Decrease over time, but they also go up and down based on what's going on in your life. If you're having a stressful month, maybe you're traveling a lot, maybe you are not

• 24:06Speaker 01

  getting good sleep, your testosterone levels are going to tank, right? So just because you have a low testosterone level at one specific blood test, it should be an indicator that you have to get your lifestyle in order. So lifestyle is number one, right? And so, strength training, getting good sleep, eliminating processed foods from your diet, stress management techniques, all of those can help your testosterone level improve, right? Now, there's certain supplements that can improve your testosterone level as well. So we try things like ashwagandha and other supplement, vitamin D optimization first as well. Now, look, that is not going to work for everybody, right? And so, it's critical, in my opinion, and then we do this for all of our patients, is we check quarterly.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  And then if you're still low despite getting all your biomarkers in order, and we've done all the right things, and you're still not feeling good, and you're still low, and low to me is for most men, anything 300 or lower is really low. Then we recommend testosterone replacement therapy. And we know testosterone replacement therapy, if you look at all the latest research, is preventative to Alzheimer's, is preventative to cancer, is preventative to heart disease for most men. And so, not only will you feel better, but you're going to prevent chronic disease. And so, we have a really good discussion on testosterone replacement therapy. And there's different ways of doing this. There's ways to stimulate your own testosterone by using medications like enclomiphine.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  There's ways to replace your testosterone through either injections or pellets. We don't really like the creams too much, but, you know, people sometimes want to stair step into it with the creams. So, just, you know, you just got to have the talk and discussion. Once again, like you keep saying, is work with a skilled practitioner, there's all the options. And the other thing I think is important with testosterone replacement too, is, you know, I think there's a tendency now to just think that it's super simple. You can go online, buy some testosterone, fill out a form, and start injecting it. Yeah. That's available to people, but if you're doing that without the big picture context of what's going on in your overall biology and you're not monitoring your cholesterol levels, your metabolic health, et cetera, while you're on testosterone, you're not doing yourself any favors.

• 26:18Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  So I think doing it with a skilled practitioner, once again, is critical.

• 26:22Josh Axe?

  Yeah, yeah, that's good to hear. You know, my, my, my philosophy when it comes to hormone replacement therapy for men and women has, has always been also with sort of the, the understanding of, of Eastern medicine and the way that they would explain it is, one, when you take exogenous hormones, we know your body stops producing it.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:42Josh Axe?

  Okay, or it decreases the amount significantly. And so, um, in Chinese medicine, they would say though, that stops the flow of qi in that area and would have some sort of negative side effect. For women, they would absolutely say it increases the risk of certain types of cancer like breast. For men and testosterone, it's a little bit different. All that being said, that's why I really try and focus on dietary therapy supplementation, even things like peptides first. But I do want to say this, when I look at some of the research and I've worked with people who we've, I have had recommended at some point to do hormone replacement therapy, it tends to be because I found that if you have a man who is not, testosterone's in the tank.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:27Josh Axe?

  Let's say it's 150, it's somewhere, somewhere it's low. They're not motivated, they're tired all the time. They're moody, they're, they just sort of like lack that versus if they did get on testosterone therapy, they start lifting weights.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:39Josh Axe?

  They start having confidence again, those things, that, that mild, that minor side effect that's likely happening from the lack of what I would call blood flow or movement in that area in the testes, some of that area is going to be outweighed by the fact that now they're going out there and lifting weights and doing things in confidence and that sort of shift that happened. So I would like to share sort of my perspective on that too, because I do think hormone replacement therapy can be great for people. But I, the thing that I just have a hard time with is that, and this is not what you do at all.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:09Josh Axe?

  But a lot of, the majority of these clinics out there today, it's come in, here's your testosterone shots.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 28:16Josh Axe?

  Here's your hormone. They're not changing diet, they're not recommending supplements, they're not doing anything to keep them on a lower, it's like the highest dose possible immediately. It's just not.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  And they're not monitoring.

• 28:26Josh Axe?

  That's right.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Like, you know, it's, it needs to be in, look, we're all born with testosterone as one of our hormones, right? There's other hormones like cortisol, there's thyroid hormone.

• 28:36Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  There's so much interplay between all of these different body systems that if you're just looking down one hormone and just doing that and not even monitoring anything else, you're causing other problems you don't even know. And so I think it needs to be done in context of your overall body systems, for sure.

• 28:53Josh Axe?

  Yeah, yeah, I, I love that. Um, let's talk about mitochondrial health, because this seems to be.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  My favorite topic.

• 29:00Josh Axe?

  This seems to be at the center of longevity, such an important discussion. And so I would love to hear from you, what are mitochondria? Why are they important for longevity? Why are they important for health?

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, great. I love talking about mitochondria. And many people will be surprised to hear that mitochondria are little organelles inside of our cells. Now, when our, when we started off in evolution, our single cellular organisms do not have mitochondria in them. Single cellular organisms made energy through glucose, right? And we know that when you take in glucose and you don't have aerobic respiration, you can only make a few ATP molecules, which is energy. The mitochondria then came into the single cellular organisms as a separate organism, basically, and they started living symbiotically together. And why do they do that? Well, because

• 29:54Speaker 01

  mitochondria can take glucose and make 32 ATP from it, much, much more energy. And this allowed the single cellular organisms to become multicellular. So it's part of evolution. And mitochondria actually has its own DNA because of this, right? So you have the nuclear DNA, mitochondria has its own DNA. And so mitochondria are basically now the powerhouses of our cells. They're a separate organelle that now lives synergistically within our own cells. They work together to allow all the cellular processes to occur that make us human. And unfortunately mitochondria, they get tired over time, right? So over time, as we age, we have mitochondria not functioning as well. But also you have less mitochondria inside of your cells.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  It's just normal aging process.

• 30:42Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  But the the normal aging process right now is massively accelerated because our mitochondria are working really, really hard to keep our cells' energy up to detoxify our cells. We're exposed to so many toxins now that our cells are working overtime, so our mitochondria are working overtime. So we have to do things to keep our mitochondria healthy. And if if they're not healthy, we need to also help our mitochondria turn over. And turnover means that the old mitochondria need to be kind of eliminated and new mitochondria need to form. And so mitochondrial health is not just a buzzword, in my opinion. It is one of the core reasons that we age, why we're not feeling good.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  And if you learn a little bit about what can get our mitochondria healthy again, to turn over again, you can really accelerate your health journey.

• 31:32Josh Axe?

  Yeah, yeah, it's pretty amazing. You know, when I started studying the mitochondria, and I'll say this too, like, I know, you talked about evolution. I know I have more of a creationist point of view. But with all that being said, I think that, you know, the fact they're kind of like bacterial in nature.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:49Josh Axe?

  I mean, they're microbes. I mean, that's that's crazy.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  It's crazy, right?

• 31:52Josh Axe?

  You know, and they operate, you know, there is, when we were going through COVID and a lot of people were getting issues like long COVID, I started reading up on this, you know, things like cell danger response and how the mitochondria are sending these flares and acting and how they're part of the whole, the whole process as well. But mitochondria really are amazing, you know, when, if anybody out there who is interested in ancient forms of medicine, like Chinese medicine, like Ayurveda, I really think mitochondria are the closest thing we have to what we would call sort of qi within the body in terms of or producing ATP, what's actually Producing that and so it's um.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  And if you really dive into like what mitochondria do, I mean, they're actually using light to create

• 32:38Josh Axe?

  That's right.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Some of the energy, right?

• 32:40Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Our body is using light inside of our cells to help create energy. And it's just mind blowing and like, you know, you look at the ATP synthase, the little um, the little um, protein that's in the mitochondrial membrane, it actually turns like a motor.

• 32:56Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  It's it's mind blowing how this thing works.

• 32:58Josh Axe?

  I was I was on on social media watching this video too of conception when you know, the sperm and the egg. And light is for like, like, like that conception, there's a light, there was this burst of light that's pretty incredible. You know what's happening there and so it's uh, it's powerful. Well, practically, what are some of the biggest needle movers for people who are saying, I want to support my mitochondria? And by the way, let me say this too, the conditions I think that I tend to see and you probably tend to see that are most mitochondria related. And feel free to add to this, but chronic fatigue syndrome is at the very top of the list. But I would even say things like hypothyroidism, you know, is at the top of the list, but really fatigue, you're tired. These are your body's batteries.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Brain fog.

• 33:38Josh Axe?

  There, there you go. Brain fog is another one. So, so, so there's some examples of things, but practically, what are some things that people can do to really sort of recharge their, their mitochondria?

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, great question. So what I would say is your one key fact that people should know is that your mitochondria actually like little bursts of stress. Not, not psychological stress.

• 33:58Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Physiological stress, right? So going into an all out sprint, okay, like a high intensity workout can help you to recharge your mitochondria and turn over the ones that can't produce enough energy. If you can't, if a mitochondria in a cell cannot produce enough energy for you to go into an all out sprint, that mitochondria is turned over and a new mitochondria is made, that's a more youthful mitochondria. Other things that work as similarly is hot and cold exposure. So doing a cold plunge, uh, doing a sauna session, those little bursts of stress for a specific time period can help um, your mitochondria become healthier too.

• 34:35Josh Axe?

  That's so powerful. I love that.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:37Josh Axe?

  I'm gonna let you keep going, but I do. I want to mention just a few things I find fascinating there. One is, you know, like different organs and areas of the body are more mitochondrial dense. We know our muscles and our heart, for instance, are very mitochondrial dense. And so this is where it comes into like, you know, if you're weight training and lifting weights at the right level and not injuring yourself, you're you're producing more and more of these mitochondria. So that's a prime example of what's happening. And you can do this by you can build organs, you can build more mitochondria in every organ cell and tissue of your body, which is pretty, which is pretty amazing. But a lot of people are, you can also overdo it, right? So there's this balance of like, when it comes to

• 35:20Josh Axe?

  hot and cold, I've seen this with cold plunging. I think that there's a lot of women like with hypothyroidism and those sort of issues, doing it too much or too long or too cold. Their body temperature is already very low to where they maybe need a splash of a cold shower. They don't need to get in 40 degree water for every day for two minutes. They're making themselves worse. So so walk us through that a little bit to this sort of hormesis and sort of like, what's the right dosage? Or, and I know maybe it's, it's of course going to be different for everybody. But what are your thoughts on that?

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just very N of one. Like you said, it's, you know, it's really, cold plunging is not for everybody. And there are other ways to stimulate mitochondrial neogenesis besides cold plunging. If you're one of these people, say you're hypothyroid and your body's running cold all the time. Anyway, definitely cold plunging is just going to increase your cortisol levels, is going to create more stress. It's not going to be a physiological benefit to you. It's more going to be a negative physiologically. You really got to listen to what's going on with your body. I interviewed someone for my podcast, actually, a woman who kind of coaches women through cold plunging and cryotherapy. And one of the things that she really believes is that

• 36:36Speaker 01

  is checking biomarkers, checking someone's temperature before they go into a cold plunge. And she understands that cold plunging is not for everybody. But one of the things that If you are nervous about cold plunging, this can also be a problem is, you know, a lot of people go into cold plunge really, really tense and stressed out. Right. And when you go in stressed out and you add an additional stress to that, that shoots your cortisol levels through the roof. So instead, what you want to do is learn to regulate your stress. So she really advocates doing breath work.

• 37:05Josh Axe?

  That's great.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Going in really, and then that's so powerful because now you're turning a sympathetic stress into a parasympathetic feeling before you go in and you're learning to regulate between parasympathetic and sympathetic. And I believe, and you know, I think this is getting more and more, um, and kind of in the forefront of what I believe now is that one of the key problems causing sickness is an imbalance between our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. We live at this heightened sympathetic state. So using the cold plunge, for example, as one of the ways that you learn to regulate between those two can be really powerful.

• 37:44Josh Axe?

  That's really smart. And I love that you're sharing that too, because your body's about to go into a stressful situation.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:49Josh Axe?

  Physiologically, and now you do breathing and you train your body, hey, you can stay calm. You can actually be in a more of a parasympathetic states under stress. And this can translate to you're in relationship stress, you're having work stress, you're at a traffic jam.

• 38:05Josh Axe?

  Being able to balance that nervous, that, that is, that is a powerful.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  It's so powerful, right? Yeah. And like, you know, I think about that too. Like, you know, this is not just going to cryotherapy. This is like you said, like when you're in an emotional situation and just under giving yourself that moment to rebalance and to use breath work, for example.

• 38:23Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  And just get yourself back into a more regulated state. Doing that over and over again throughout a day can create much better HRV, for example.

• 38:34Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Um, all of that. And so we don't do that enough, right?

• 38:37Josh Axe?

  Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. You know, we, we started off, I want to jump back here and then we'll come back to some of this too. I, I want to talk about biomarkers again.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:45Josh Axe?

  We talked about a lot of the biomarkers where you're not really finding things too much later on. Are there some biomarkers you like specifically for?

• 38:55Josh Axe?

  Mitochondrial health or any others that are maybe, maybe that are absolutely some of your favorites. You always like to check.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay. So I actually have about 10 biomarkers that I think everyone should follow for their own biology. I think, you know, unfortunately we've outsourced our health to the medical profession. We don't know what our biomarkers are, right? We have our doctor pick the biomarkers and tell us whether something bad is going on or not.

• 39:19Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  And, you know, we need to re empower our patients and just people in general need to re empower themselves with the knowledge of what are some of the key critical biomarkers.

• 39:29Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  So I'll give you one as an example, and it ties into mitochondrial health is biomarkers of your metabolic health. Right? So your metabolism, I say, lives in your muscle. And why does it live in your muscle? Because most of your mitochondria, like you mentioned earlier, are in your muscle. Your mitochondria is what is using the glucose that we dump into our bloodstream. And when you lift weights or you exercise, you're using more glucose and your mitochondria is using that glucose to create energy. And so if you're not using your muscle and your sedentary all day long, you have way too much glucose that turns into fat. You're not using it for energy. You're not promoting mitochondrial health. So how do you know? How do you know how much you're, you're able to handle glucose or not? There's a critical biomarker there called hemoglobin A1C.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  This is a three month average of how much glucose is roaming around in your bloodstream. If it's high, you could diagnose with diabetes and the number for diabetes in the United States is 6.5. The optimal level, in my opinion, is below 5.2, even getting towards five as a goal. It takes decades to go from five to 6.5.

• 40:34Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Right? But most people don't know when they're 5.4, 5.6, 5.7, which is pre diabetes.

• 40:40Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  And so if you know what your hemoglobin A1C is, you can start making adjustments to get that back into a normal range. And then an optimal range, right? And so that's a critical one.

• 40:52Josh Axe?

  Can I tell you, one, I'm so glad you said that and because I totally agree. You know what's amazing though, for most people, it takes them 10 years to get there. If people do the right things, if they took 90 days and did everything perfectly. The amount that they can turn back their A1C is really amazing.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  It's mind blowing.

• 41:09Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you can go from like 5.7 to 5.2 in 90 days. I've seen it happen.

• 41:14Josh Axe?

  Yeah, same. It's amazing. It's amazing. Okay, so number one biomarker, A1C. What's number two?

• 41:19Speaker 01

  Okay, number two, I would say is a biomarker of inflammation. And I can't tell you the number of people that are surprised when their inflammation level is high. This biomarker is HSCRP, highly sensitive C-reactive protein. It becomes higher than one when you are inflamed. The optimal is zero. You want this as close to zero as possible. Once it goes over one, you need to start doing something to reduce your inflammation. So what could that be? Well, 90% of our immune system lives in our gut, right? Most of the inflammation, if you're gonna go searching for where you're inflamed, it's probably your gut, right? And so there's probably something going on in your gut. Maybe like you were mentioning, you were on antibiotics for a while. That's like a

• 42:03Speaker 01

  nuclear bomb to your gut, on steroids. We talked about gluten can be a major problem for your gut. Even alcohol, eating ultra-processed food, all of this can cause a lot of inflammation in your gut. So why does that happen? Well, most people don't realize your gut is one cell layer thick. You have one cell between the outside environment and the inside environment. And that's one cell layer is damaged, you're gonna create inflammation. And so that's where you need to go looking and get your gut health optimized. And then if it's still high, another place to look is your oral health. A lot of times we have gingivitis, maybe we've had some dental work and we have inflammation in our mouth and that's causing inflammation.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  And then, you know, other parts of your body can also be inflamed, but that's kind of where you start. But the critical element there is, most people are inflamed and they don't even know it. And then when they get their HSCRP, they're like, wait, what's going on here? Why is this high?

• 42:59Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Like, well, let's take a look at your gut and let's see what's going on.

• 43:01Josh Axe?

  That's so good. What's number three?

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Um. Number three is a critical biomarker for cardiovascular health is Apo B.

• 43:10Josh Axe?

  All right. Yeah.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  So, you know, for decades, we've been talking about LDL. And if your LDL is high, you know, maybe you need a statin. And I just think that's all so flawed. That's like 1980 medicine.

• 43:21Josh Axe?

  Yes, yes.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Um. Your LDL is not the critical biomarker, in my opinion, of cardiovascular risk. Apo B is much, much better. This is a marker that ties in LDL, VLDL, triglycerides, LP little A, all of the potential cholesterol molecules that can cause cardiovascular risk. Now, what's really important to realize with cardiovascular risk is this is not just your cholesterol level. There's many other

• 43:49Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  things going on if you're creating plaque in your arteries. One of them is poor metabolic health. So look at your hemoglobin A1C.

• 43:56Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Another one is inflammation.

• 43:58Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  At your HSCRP. Another one is your blood pressure. If your blood pressure is elevated, cholesterol molecules can get into your endothelium and cause plaque. So, you know, all of these need to be taken in context together. But Apo B is another one that I like to watch. And I like to keep that less than 100 for sure. If you have plaque in your arteries, we aim for less than 80, actually.

• 44:19Josh Axe?

  Yeah. And feel free to just go through any other. I mean, if you want to do all 10, we can. Or if you want to just go through the five or however many just.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Okay. So blood pressure is another one of them. So some of them are blood tests. Some of them are actual, um, you know, measurements you can take.

• 44:31Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Um, and the blood test one, vitamin D is another one.

• 44:35Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  A lot of people go up and down with their vitamin D all over the place. And sometimes you need supplementation. Sometimes you just go out in the sun more, but you got to keep that optimized.

• 44:43Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Vitamin B12 is another one that I think is a good one to follow. Um, vitamin B12 is so critical in so many physiological processes, but it's also an indicator in my mind of your overall nutrient status, too.

• 44:56Josh Axe?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  So that's another one that I follow.

• 44:59Josh Axe?

  That's good.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:00Josh Axe?

  Really good.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  We follow hormone levels, testosterone, uh, TSH, uh, T4, T3, reverse T3. So we follow a few critical, um, hormones as well.

• 45:09Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  That doesn't sneak up on you. And I actually have like for people, for your audience, I have a That they can download from my website.

• 45:15Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Dr. Shaw dot com slash biomarkers and it'll give you a free ten page guide to what are these biomarkers? What is the optimal level and why they're important?

• 45:27Josh Axe?

  Oh, amazing.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  You can just use that and follow these ten critical biomarkers on yourself.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Outside of blood tests, we mentioned blood pressure. You know, blood pressure in medicine, we refer to it as a silent killer. And why is that? Well, because no one knows what their blood pressure is. And you measure it once you're at your doctor's office and that measurement is usually thrown out because you they're like, oh, you have white coat syndrome today. And then you live with high blood pressure for twenty years before someone does something about it. And the blood pressure doesn't just damage your heart, it damages every organ in your body. And we know that anything over one thirty over eighty has an increased risk of mortality. So you gotta get that fixed, you know?

• 46:08Josh Axe?

  I mean, I'll tell you, I mean, this is really, really personal for me because I had my, my father in law. Um, passed away and he had, and to be honest, we didn't know because he didn't go to the doctor often. And anytime he'd go in, they'd say, oh, it's white coat syndrome. But like, looking back, like he had blood pressure, high blood pressure a really, really long time. And he died tragically of a heart attack about a year and a half ago. And the thing is, he was on no medications, he was working out regularly, like we didn't see it coming. But that was the one thing that I think if we really go would go back and look at things. We would have done something about that, you know, but, but it's just, and the thing about taking blood pressure is it's so easy.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  It's so easy, I know.

• 46:44Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  You just look up a YouTube video on how to do the blood pressure right. And my wife and I actually do this every quarter.

• 46:50Josh Axe?

  You can get something that does it for.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  It does it for you, the whole thing. Just put it on there. It does three of the measurements in a row, averages them, you do it first thing in the morning. Seated, legs not crossed, arm on a table. That's it. Super easy.

• 47:02Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Buy a blood pressure cuff and this is something you can do as a couple with your wife or your significant other. And um, just once a quarter and you should start doing it, in my opinion, even as early as twenty five years old. Because I've seen twenty five year olds with high blood pressure.

• 47:17Josh Axe?

  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's critically important to get under control. I'm so glad you said that. You know, I wanted to, I wanted to dive in a little bit about just some practical things people can do and also get your opinion on. Why many people are aging so quickly? You know, when I think about our average lifespan, it's probably somewhere around seventy eight years old in the United States. Now, other country, you know, you go to Okinawa and other areas, it's, it's longer. But when I think about that, and I believe the Bible talks about we're designed to live 120 years.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:46Josh Axe?

  There are scientific studies saying, hey, we should live about 120 years. But if you think about that, most people are taking more than one-third off of their life. Some people, if they're 60, 50% of their life, they're aging themselves prematurely.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:01Josh Axe?

  What are the biggest causes of premature aging today?

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, I'll add one more thing to that, which I think is important. Even if people are living to 80, they're spending that last 20 to 30 years frail, you know, not with their, not being able to recognize their family members and multiple chronic diseases.

• 48:20Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  So even though we've extended life, I would say almost artificially with all of these medical treatments that we have.

• 48:25Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  People don't have the health span too.

• 48:27Josh Axe?

  That's right.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Right?

• 48:28Josh Axe?

  That's right.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  We know that you can live to 120 years old, being able to do all the things you want to do and enjoy life. There was a woman that died last year at 117 years old, and she was super active.

• 48:40Josh Axe?

  That's amazing.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. There's centenarians all over the world in blue zones that have, you know, they're over 100 years old, and they are just out there working in the fields, dancing, they're hanging out with their family, playing chess, like, we know it's possible, right? So the question was, why are we aging so fast? I think there's probably four main causes. One is that we are very, very sedentary in our life. We spend a lot of time not moving. Humans, you know, since the dawn of humanity, have walked and roamed this earth, right? We are, we are made to walk.

• 49:16Josh Axe?

  Yes.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  We, we need to walk at least 8,000 steps a day, the research shows, to prevent mortality from, from being sedentary. So number one is sedentary behavior. Number two, I would think, is we do not live in the rhythm of the universe, and we do not live with the rhythms of the planet, and our circadian rhythms are completely destroyed by living indoors, shift work, lighting, etc., all these things that we've destroyed our circadian rhythm with.

• 49:46Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Thirdly, I think is our level of toxic exposure right now.

• 49:51Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  We're exposed to a hundred and fifty thousand toxins we were never exposed to eighty years ago. These are just chemicals being dumped into the environment, our air, water, our food, you know, our skincare products, all of that. We're just assaulting our system with those, right? And so, and I would say, fourthly, is our level of emotional stress and not dealing with traumas that we suffer.

• 50:18Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  And the dysregulation, we alluded to this earlier, that that has on our balance between our parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system on a day-to-day basis, so that we are not emotionally regulated and therefore our physiology is not regulated.

• 50:33Josh Axe?

  You know, I have, I've had quite a few people with cancer come to me over the last, I mean, I mean, really, I feel like it's more and more, but it's just a lot of people for a lot of years. And the thing that I can pinpoint with all of them, absolutely, is that there has been emotional trauma in their life and they have not fully healed from it, like, and, and, because there are a few people I could think of, and like, my mom is one of these people. Like, when my mom was diagnosed with cancer at forty-one, she was my gym teacher in elementary school, she was a swim instructor, like, my mom was fit.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:04Josh Axe?

  She was like, healthy from that standpoint. My mom, we didn't eat that bad, I mean, it was a lot of like Midwest food, like casseroles, but it was actually a fair amount of real food.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:12Josh Axe?

  Not to say she didn't drink too much fruit juice and, and we didn't eat fast food sometimes, but I had a woman come to me recently and she is in her, she's like thirty-nine years old, and one of the most upbeat people, eats like, perfect, like, you look at her diet, you're like, wow, that's a perfect diet, and really serious cancer, and you just know, like, there's so, so much emotional trauma with, with her mom and her family members and those things. So, so I just wanted to just reemphasize, I think that it's probably the most overlooked thing in medicine.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 51:43Josh Axe?

  And when you look at a lot of these ancient forms of medicine, I think they were more aware of the importance of your spiritual and your mental and emotional health, but we had this happen during, you know, the Renaissance, like, like, what, what's happened in, in the world, when you kind of also separated church and state was, well, your spiritual and emotional health, that's over here, and your physical health is all the way over here, and we don't blend them. Now, that's starting to change, just really in the last few years.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:09Josh Axe?

  But, but I'm, I'm so glad you said it, because I've, I've rarely had Doctors come on here and because I ask a lot of people, hey, what's the root cause of things? And sometimes I'll hear, well, maybe it's stress, but but that that trauma piece, that's that's critical.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  It's critical. It's so critical. And, you know, you've you've talked a lot about ancient modalities like Chinese medicine, Japanese medicine, the Bible. My dad was an Ayurvedic physician.

• 52:31Josh Axe?

  Really?

• 52:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:32Josh Axe?

  Amazing.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  I grew up with Ayurveda. I grew up with the different, you know, the different doshas in Ayurveda, right? And so emotional health is a big part of that is is how you relate to the outside world and how's the outside world affect you? It's a it's a big part of the conversation. So we've known this in all these ancient healing modalities. And then we forgot it to your point, right? For so long, we separated away from that. And I I am glad that more attention is being brought towards it. Um, and so what do you do? Like, what do you do about emotional dysregulation and traumas? And I think, you know, number one, um, I think it's number one most important thing is to realize that almost everyone has

• 53:15Speaker 01

  minor traumas and major traumas in their life, right? And so I just think you you you we've learned to suppress them. And we have to understand that these are affecting our physiology, right?

• 53:28Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  So just just having that admission and then doing some inward looking work and then understanding what are the tools available out there to help you kind of mitigate the damage that's doing to your physiology? I look at trauma as a toxin, basically.

• 53:45Josh Axe?

  That's right.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  Just like a mold toxin.

• 53:46Josh Axe?

  Exactly.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Just like PFOS. It's a toxin in our physiology, right? And you got to do something about it.

• 53:51Josh Axe?

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, one thing I see sometimes, and I just want to say this, when it comes to people that have, some people are aware that they've had emotional trauma. And I see two things happen. And the third is what people want to do. Sometimes people just leave it buried.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Yep. I did that for many years.

• 54:07Josh Axe?

  Yeah. And and that's probably the biggest thing people do is they just bury it and and leave it. Um, the second thing is people live in it and wallow in it.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:17Josh Axe?

  And never move on from it. They go to their therapist. The therapist makes it worse because they just. Have them wallow in it and, and they see themselves as a victim.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:26Josh Axe?

  Still 20 years later, they're still living in it. No, you need to go to it. You need to process it and you need to heal it.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:34Josh Axe?

  And you need to move on. Now you're the hero. Now you're the guide in the story. You're no longer the victim. And, and that healing process is so important. And it's just, it's like this with doctors too. There are some amazing 10 out of 10 therapists that know exactly how to help you heal and process this and move forward in your life. Just like there's some doctors that can help you do that, but there's also some people that they're, they're, they don't know how to do it. Okay? And so this is why like I am very, very conscious of like, like if I'm going to a doctor or I'm sending my family members to a doctor. They're going to be a 10 out of 10. I'm sending them to Darshan Shah, sending them to a good friend of mine, Dr. Gazagoli. Like I'm sending them to these people. Because man, a good physician is worth a lot.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I, I agree with that. And I think, you know, a lot of times, um, people are not ready to deal with their traumas. And so I think there's other tools available to help. In my, in my mind, emotional dysregulation comes first. And then, once you learn to regulate your emotions, then you can put yourself in a much better place to dive deeper into your trauma.

• 55:38Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  Right? And so emotional regulation to me means, um, I just interviewed Gabby Bernstein. Do you know Gabby?

• 55:46Josh Axe?

  Yeah, I guess she is.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  She's the best. Yeah. So she taught me about internal family systems and she wrote this book called Self Help. And basically it says, giving yourself a pause between an emotion and your reaction to it.

• 56:00Josh Axe?

  Right.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  And so that pause, if you learn to live in that pause for a moment and understand what that, what's going on. And what internal family systems tells you is that usually it's something from your childhood that's crying out for help. And looking inward, man, it can really help you regulate. And you feel it. You feel it in your physiology.

• 56:19Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  Feel your, um, sympathetic system be less on fire and your parasympathetic take over. And it's so powerful. Once you can do that, it can really help.

• 56:31Josh Axe?

  You know, I, I think having that, uh, self-awareness and emotional intelligence to be able to do that, it, it is. You know, it's even more powerful than having a high IQ, right? It's like, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's so, so important. And, and I think that, uh, yeah, I, I wrote about this, and I, I wrote a book, uh, called Think This Not That. And, and I, I really got into this in the book, uh, that it's just so important to be self-aware and be able to pause and reflect. And what is that emotion? Where did it come from? They must always come from memories. Something happened when you were a child is where it starts. And then it's just continued to just feed and grow and grow and grow until, uh, you know, emotionally it can, you know, kind of take you over and you can react in ways you don't want to react.

• 57:16Josh Axe?

  And, and so I'm, I'm so glad you're saying this because it's just so, um, it's so key to all the things we're talking about longevity. Last few questions for you. What are some new therapies that you are getting turned on to now? I mean, I, you know, I think a, a lot of people aren't using, of course, it's so funny. Some of the things are old and they become new. It's like, you know, plasma exchange. Okay, that's, uh, yeah, that's what, you know, used for other things quite a years. And now you've brought it back and really started using it for a lot of people with these different infections. What are some of the other more advanced therapies that maybe you're just introducing in your clinic or you're looking into right now? That you think are pretty, pretty fascinating and may have some promise?

• 57:53Speaker 01

  There's so much cool stuff out there coming out now. You know, we live in an incredible time where we are making discoveries rapid fire. And so there's some stuff coming in the next 10, 15 years that I think are going to be a game changer. And so my message to all my patients is just stay healthy and stay alive long enough to see what's coming, you know? But, um, what I would say is the stuff that I'm really excited about at this moment is the focus on stem cells and how we can use them responsibly and use them as a therapy that, um, if done in the right way, it can, they can be very powerful. Right? And so, um, I'm really excited that Florida, Montana, Utah, that they've approved stem cell usage now.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  So we, now we can start really doing the science and really start helping people, but also be responsible and make them in a responsible way. So that people don't get hurt, you know? And so I'm, I'm really excited about stem cells and specific new kinds of stem cells that are coming out. One, one of them is called Muse cells. Um, and you might've heard of Muse cells, yeah. So, and then, you know, peptides. Okay, so peptides also, um, The way I like for people to think about peptides is peptides are very unlike pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceuticals are chemicals that are created that kind of force a specific response in our body. And they have a lot of side effects.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Peptides are actually a recreation of natural biological signals, right? These are signals our body has used once again since the dawn of humanity. And we're finally learning what those signals are. Turns out there are thousands of signals that our body uses, right? And once we know what they are, we can replicate and we can use them. But they also need to be used responsibly. Our body is not making these signals for a reason. And you can give someone that signal, but why are they not making that signal? That's what you need to figure out.

• 59:45Josh Axe?

  What are some of your favorite peptides you recommend regularly for patients?

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you know, I think that these GLP peptides are very useful if used responsibly. Once again, so things like trisepotide I found to be very helpful, not just for weight loss, right? Obviously, the reason people need GLP for weight loss is because their their gut is not making it enough anymore. And that's because of poor gut health.

• 1:00:10Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Once you get your gut health back, which every single person on GLP, we put into place a gut healing protocol. So they can start making their own GLP. What I've also found with GLP is, and this is brand new, is that it can be very powerful in reducing the effects of autoimmune disease. And so we're using it for a lot of, like Hashimoto's, for example. We're using it to decrease the effect of autoimmune disease. Turns out our T cells have GLP receptors on them as well.

• 1:00:37Josh Axe?

  Now, how much of, how much, okay, makes sense. I mean, part of me, when you first said that, the thing that came into my mind was, how much of that is an effect from being more in a fast caloric restriction or going lower calorie? But, uh, but that that makes sense. What are your thoughts on, again, you already know the pushback, so I don't even need to, I'm gonna ask a question anyways. But you know, the amount of muscle loss, I mean, there's, it's very high. So how do you deal with that as a practitioner?

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so number one, muscle loss will occur when you take GLP1s and you Just reduce your intake and you don't do anything else, right? Obviously, if you're not taking in protein and you're not moving, you're gonna lose muscle. Just like, you know, I used to do surgery and we would do gastric bypass surgeries on people that were morbidly obese.

• 1:01:22Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  And it became a really popular surgery because many people are morbidly obese and they couldn't lose the weight.

• 1:01:28Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  And we saw tremendous amounts of fat and muscle loss in the people that still remain sedentary and the people that would not eat anything. Okay, except carbohydrate. Um, and so the ones that built muscle by exercising and by taking in protein as our primary source of food intake. They never lost muscle. They actually gained muscle. And so we, what we do when we have people on GLP ones is we put into place a very specific protocol to make them gain muscle. So we give them about a gram per pound of protein a day.

• 1:02:04Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  As a core piece of their diet. We have them go strength train three times a week and then we also monitor their skeletal muscle mass using a DEXA scan.

• 1:02:13Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  And we use a bioimpedance scale at home. We want people to monitor their own muscle mass as well. And you can do that with a special scale that puts an electrical current through your body called the bioimpedance scale. And then we also do vitamin D. We do nutritional supplementation. And what we've found is over 90% of the time, people will not lose muscle being on GLP ones have done right. The other big problem with GLP ones, I'll tell you too, is that um, kind of the dosing algorithm that we're taught.

• 1:02:39Josh Axe?

  That's what I was, you beat, you beat me to my, you beat me to my next question. Okay.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you know, what all doctors are taught by the pharma companies is start at this dose and go all the way up to this dose.

• 1:02:51Josh Axe?

  That's right.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  And that's just the way you do it. That's the wrong way of doing it. You, you, when you give someone a GLP one, you go up to the dose that affects a weight change at a reasonable level so they can keep up their skeletal muscle, right? You can't, you don't want to lose 10 pounds a week. That's way too much.

• 1:03:10Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  Keep up with the skeletal muscle loss. So what we like to do is get people to lose maybe one or two pounds a week with the GLP ones. So then they can keep going to the gym and building skeletal muscle and they don't. Get that imbalance as well. And so a lot of people like terzepatide will stop him like five or seven point five. They don't need to go all the way up to the fifteen milligram dose.

• 1:03:28Josh Axe?

  Hmm. Wow.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, you know, once again, like everything we've talked about, working with a skilled practitioner, looking at the overall context, following the biomarkers, so important.

• 1:03:38Josh Axe?

  Any other peptides you like?

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like a bunch of them. BPC one, five, seven is a peptide. It's, uh, you know, it's known as a healing peptide, but also has a lot of other effects. I like TB five hundred, which is an immune regulatory peptide.

• 1:03:53Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  Um, I really believe that immunosenescence or aging of our immune system is one of the primary reasons that we're aging, you know?

• 1:04:01Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  Um, we are overtaxing our immune system. You asked me all the reasons why we age. Most of those have to do with overtaxing our immune system, right? So TB five hundred can reinvigorate your immune system and not just, you know, slow down aging, but also help you, um, fight off infections and all the things our immune system does for us, reduce inflammation, all of it. So.

• 1:04:22Josh Axe?

  Yeah, so powerful.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then for some people, you know, I like to cycle, uh, growth hormone secretagogues.

• 1:04:29Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  And some people are really low on their growth hormone levels and they, I find that this, um, helps to just give them that little edge they need, but I don't use them for long periods of time. We might use like a three month course and then stop.

• 1:04:42Josh Axe?

  Yeah, yeah. It's so powerful. It's so powerful.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  There's so many more. I mean, I just like thinking.

• 1:04:47Josh Axe?

  Oh, there, I mean, you know what's crazy? I was reading on, uh, an article recently just going into like, yeah, I mean, there are hundreds and hundreds of peptides and they're going to be hundreds and hundreds of more over the next few years. So it's, it's crazy. And then you get into whole bioregulators. I mean, there's, there's, there's a, there's a lot. There's a lot, but the future medicine is bright.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  Is really bright. Yeah. And I think, you know, I think, um, peptides is going to be like a whole new pharmaceutical industry. It's going to be a whole new industry and people just need to be very careful and think about them as, um, as a drug, right? I mean, you, you need to go with a skilled practitioner. Don't just buy them online. Make sure you have good quality. Make sure you're working with someone that can help you, um, really. Create a protocol that's going to work well.

• 1:05:32Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  Follow your biomarkers.

• 1:05:33Josh Axe?

  Yeah, I absolutely agree.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:35Josh Axe?

  Well, this has been amazing, Darshan.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:05:37Josh Axe?

  Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. Hey, if you're watching on YouTube, make sure to comment. We'd love to hear, what is the biggest piece of wisdom and advice that Dr. Darshan Shah here shared with us today? And where can people find out more about you?

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  drshah.com is my website. And I have tools on there for people. I have a social media at Darshan Shah M D. And then our clinics are at nexthealth, next-health.com.

• 1:05:59Josh Axe?

  Awesome.

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, and I have a podcast that you're going to be on called Extend.

• 1:06:02Josh Axe?

  I'm excited.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:03Josh Axe?

  Yeah, it's going to be a good one. I'm excited for that, too. Well, this was an amazing, amazing interview and just so grateful for you, so grateful for all the great work you do. And hey, thanks, everybody, for watching here, the Dr. Josh Ak Show. Remember, each and every week, we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, and spiritually. Did you know that if you're not subscribed, you may miss out on some of the incredible interviews we have? We've had a few episodes that have been shadow banned because we're talking about controversial topics like cancer, like autoimmune disease, and a number of other things. And so if you're not subscribed, you may not see it. And it's the number one thing you do to support the show. So thank you, all of you who are subscribed, who are on mission with us to help heal people naturally.

• 1:06:45Josh Axe?

  And I'll encourage you to keep up with what Dr. Shaw is doing, what I'm doing, because, you know, I think about it like this, you know, if you were to get surgery on your knee 50 years ago, it was very different than what they would do today, going in microscopically and using more natural tissues and things versus literally tearing your whole knee apart. We're going to see this very same thing in medicine today with things like stem cell therapy and a number of things. The amount of preventative measures you can take, the ways that we can do things in the future with tracking your health in real time, it's going to be absolutely incredible. And I know myself and Dr. Shaw are really committed to getting you the best information and how to add years to your life and life to your years. Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you on the next episode.

• 1:07:35Speaker 05

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