Can Food Really Heal Your Brain? | Dr. Jeff Bland & Dr. William Li

There is a significant impact of food on brain health and overall well-being, with great importance placed on nutrient-dense, anti-inflammatory foods. Unfortunately, nutrient levels of modern crops are declining, but regenerative agriculture is helping to restore food quality. Specific brain-boosting foods such as leafy greens, small cold-water fish, and polyphenol-rich plants have an ability to reduce neuroinflammation, protect against cognitive decline, and enhance mental clarity. And, ultimately, identifying whole food sources of essential nutrients will support your entire body. In this episode, I discuss, along with Dr. Jeff Bland and Dr. William Li, practical tips on choosing the most nutrient-dense foods and how to harness their benefits for overall health. Dr. Jeff Bland is the founder of Big Bold Health, a company on a mission to transform the way people think about one of nature’s greatest innovations—the immune system. Through Big Bold Health, Dr. Bland is advocating for the power of Immuno-Rejuvenation to enhance immunity at a global level, often through the rediscovery of ancient food crops and superfoods. To get there, he is building a network of small farms and suppliers throughout the US that take a clear stance on regenerative agriculture, environmental stewardship, and planetary health. Dr. Bland’s career in health spans more than 40 years. A nutritional biochemist by training, he began in academia as a university professor. He then spent three decades in the natural products industry, working alongside other pioneers. A lifelong educator, Dr. Bland has traveled the world many times over in his role as the “father of functional medicine.” In 1991, he and his wife, Susan, founded The Institute for Functional Medicine. In 2012, he founded another educational nonprofit called the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute. Dr. Bland is the author of The Disease Delusion: Conquering the Causes of Chronic Illness for a Healthier, Longer, and Happier Life, as well as countless additional books and research papers. Dr. William Li is a world-renowned physician, scientist, speaker, and author of Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself. He is best known for leading the Angiogenesis Foundation. His groundbreaking work has impacted more than 70 diseases including cancer, diabetes, blindness, heart disease, and obesity. His TED Talk, Can We Eat to Starve Cancer? has garnered more than 11 million views, and he has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show, Martha Stewart Live, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, Voice of America, and has presented at the Vatican’s Unite to Cure conference. An author of over 100 scientific publications in leading journals such as Science, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and more, Dr. Li has served on the faculties of Harvard, Tufts, and Dartmouth Medical School. Find Dr. Li’s Eat To Beat Disease Masterclass at drwilliamli.com/masterclass and get a copy of his book, Eat To Beat Disease at drwilliamli.com/book-li/. Full length episodes can be found here: Nourish Your Brain with These Powerful Superfoods https://drhyman.com/blogs/content/podcast-ep909?_pos=1&_sid=652901034&_ss=r How The Most Important Superfood You've Never Heard About Will Rejuvenate Your Immune System https://drhyman.com/blogs/content/podcast-ep176?_pos=10&_sid=652901034&_ss=r Cancer Can't Stand This Diet: Dr. William Li's Anti-Cancer Nutrition Breakthroughs https://drhyman.com/blogs/content/podcast-ep890?_pos=4&_sid=ec054bdd0&_ss=r This episode is brought to you by BIOptimizers. Head to bioptimizers.com/hyman and use code HYMAN10 to save 10%.

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

• 0:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman Show. Food is medicine, but then that begets the question of, well, what foods contain the most medicine and how do you grow foods that contain the most medicine? And it turns out that regenerative agriculture is that, nothing. We've seen a 50% drop in lots of minerals and other nutrients in vegetable crops over the last 50 years. So even if you're eating your broccoli, it's not as good as it used to be.

• 0:24Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Now, before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help everyone by my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand, well, you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function Health for real-time lab insights. And if you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, well, check out my membership community, Dr. Hyman Plus. And if you're looking for curated trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, visit my website, drhyman.com for my website store and a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested products.

• 1:03Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Today, I want to zero in on the research behind five specific foods that you can add to your diet for tremendous capacity to support your brain and health and make us feel, think, and perform better. Now, some of you may be familiar with a few of these foods, but others may surprise you. So let's jump right in with the first food that can literally change the way your brain works for the better. The first is dark green, leafy vegetables, and specifically a category called cruciferous vegetables, also known as brassicas, basically the broccoli family. Kale, collards, spinach, arugula, Swiss chard, collard greens, mustard greens, bok choy, romaine lettuce, turnip greens, beet greens, watercress, endive,

• 1:44Dr. Mark Hyman?

  escargot, broccoli rabe, dandelion greens, radicchio, watercress lettuce, chicory, pretty much anything green. What is the mechanism of green leafy veggies and the positive effect on their brain? Well, There's a lot of reasons. Antioxidants and protective phytochemicals. Now, we don't think of phytochemicals as essential nutrients, but they kind of are. They're protective foods, right? We know harmful foods like sugar and processed food and so forth, but they're also protective foods, and we want to eat more of those and less of the harmful foods. Now, green leafy vegetables contain anti-inflammatory molecules and antioxidants, things like vitamin C and E, carotenoids, which are the green, um, orange things actually also, but they're in the green vegetables, lutein, which is great for eyes, alpha-linoleic acid, which

• 2:28Dr. Mark Hyman?

  is plant-based omega-3s. They contain polyphenols, which are these plant-based anti-inflammatory chemicals, flavonoids, things like camphorol. All of these things reduce oxidative stress, which causes inflammation, and then reduce, more importantly, neuroinflammation, which is inflammation of your brain. The oxidative stress damages your cells, and it can contribute to the formation and accumulation of something called beta amyloid plaques. Now, you might have heard of amyloid theory of Alzheimer's. And amyloid, just to be clear, is not the cause of Alzheimer's, although many, for many years thought it was, and we spent billions of dollars studying research to prove that it was, but we never could be successful. It's sort of a side effect of inflammation, and it's the bodies that tend to deal with a bad set of circumstances.

• 3:13Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So it's sort of a bystander in the process of dementia, and it does gum up your brain, but it's really not the issue. It's the inflammation that's driving the amyloid development. And some of these foods can be protective, right? So some studies suggest that polyphenols can inhibit the formation of beta amyloid fibrils, which are these plaques that are common in response to inflammation in the brain, and they gum up the brain that ends up causing dementia. Now, they also promote clearance of these plaques in the brain. So these polyphenols actually help the brain clear amyloid, which is great. This explains probably maybe some of their effects on the cognitive function that we're seeing. There's also other nutrients like vitamin K, phylloquinone, that plays a crucial role in regulating calcium and activates proteins

• 3:57Dr. Mark Hyman?

  that help keep calcium out of areas where it shouldn't be, such as the brain's blood vessels. Vitamin K also has anti-inflammatory effects, and that can reduce neuroinflammation. It's also involved in the synthesis of important fats called sphingolipids. Doesn't matter what they call them, but basically it's a class of lipids that are crucial components of your brain cell membrane. So your brain cells have membranes, and they have to be made out of the right fats. And if they don't have the right fats, you end up with more inflammation. Now, these lipids play a role in cell signaling, and they maintain the integrity of the function of your brain cells. Really important. So what else besides green leafy vegetables is protective for your brain? What's the second big group of food or foods that can do this?

• 4:42Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Well, small cold water fish. Let me explain why. Now, I call these the smash fish: salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, and herring. Now, you might not like them, but they are the most nutritionally dense, the lowest in toxins, and the highest in omega-3 fats. Plus trout and oysters are also great. Now, why is fish good for our brains? What does the research actually say? Well, a new study published in the British Journal of Nutrition looked at the diet of 798 adults aged 65 to 97, and they looked at 102-item questionnaire using the Center for Epileptic Studies Depression Scale. Now, participants were categorized based on adherence to the Mediterranean diet. Now, we can argue, what is the Mediterranean diet?

• 5:26Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Is there a better diet out there? But it's basically a whole foods, healthy diet, right? And it's not, and basically, what is Mediterranean diet? It could be pizza and pasta. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about whole foods, right? Lots of veggies, fruit, olive oil, nuts, seeds, fish, whole grains, beans, that's a Mediterranean diet. Now, the higher adherence to the diet was correlated with a 55% lower risk of depression symptoms. Increased fish intake was linked to a 44% reduced risk of depression overall, and a 56% reduction in women.

• 5:59Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Now each additional gram of fish per day decreased a woman's depression risk by 2%. And three or more servings of fresh fish a week reduced depression by 62%. Now, think of that in the context of our mental health crisis. I mean, we're all taking Prozac and being in therapy and doing all these things. But what if we just ate a can of sardines three times a week, right? You might have no friends, they might like how you smell, but maybe you won't be depressed. Now, I'm just kidding, I love sardines and they're great and they're delicious. And I just came from Europe where they have fresh sardines, they're so good. Now, what they found was interesting, there was no effect with canned tuna. Now tuna is also high in omega-3s, but it's also high in mercury, which can actually cause depression. And it can be a concern.

• 6:44Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So I would stay away from those big fish like tuna, swordfish, halibut and so forth. Now, you can use the guide from the Environmental Working Group, ewg.org. And you can see their guide on choosing fish with the lowest amount of mercury. So just go to ewg.org and you'll learn about it. So why, why is this so good for our brain? Well, the, the brain diseases that we see, right? Whether it's depression, Alzheimer's, even autism, ADD are inflammation of the brain, brain on fire. And omega-3s are powerful anti-inflammatories. You see up to 60% of our brain is made up of fat. So you literally are a fat head, right? Half of that fat, by the way, is omega-3 fats. So they're essential.

• 7:28Dr. Mark Hyman?

  These are called essential fatty acids. They're not optional in your diet. And yet, most of our diets are deficient in these essential fatty acids. So they're like a vitamin or mineral. If you don't get them, you're going to get deficiency and it shows up as depression, dementia, and a whole host of other things. Now, as we expanded our brain, our cerebral cortex and our executive function and memory and intellect, it seemed to coincide with the introduction of fish and seafood into our diet about 35,000 years ago. Even hunted land animals had higher levels of omega-3s than industrial-raised animals. So like, for example, wild bison have higher levels of omega-3s than a feedlot cow. Now, it makes sense that we need these omega-3s to keep our brains functioning properly. And that a lack of fish or omega-3s can lead to omega-3 deficiency.

• 8:13Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And that leads to mood and memory issues. Now, the two most important forms of fish oil are EPA or Icosapentenolic acid, you don't remember that, and DHA or docosaxanoic acid, it just comes from the chemical structure. These come from fish. You can't get them really from plants. Alpha-linoleic acid or ALA is also an omega-3. It's a plant-based form of omega-3, and it comes from things like walnuts, chia seeds, flaxseeds, hemp, and some leafy greens. The problem is that only about 10% of the plant-based omega-3s, the ALA, is converted to the ones we actually need, the EPA and DHA. So you, if you're vegan, you're not necessarily going to be getting this, and it's a big risk for deficiency.

• 8:58Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So you have to figure out how to get your levels up by taking fish oil. And there are concentrates of plant-based fish oils where they kind of jack up the amounts and convert it, and it's, it's kind of a bit of a project, but there are some around. EPA and DHA, these essential omega-3 fats, play crucial roles in the body's inflammatory system. We learned this in medical school. This is not a new science. We know how they regulate icocinoids, prostaglandins, all these inflammatory systems in our body, and they produce a whole class of anti-inflammatory molecules, also called resolvins and protectants, right? They resolve and protect you from inflammation. They resolve inflammation and they protect you. Now, these are great names. I love these names. But basically, a lot of fish oil has this in

• 9:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  it, but sometimes at low levels. I'm going to tell you in a minute about one you can get. There's a high levels of these protective things. Now, when we're deficient omega-3s, it increases our risk of inflammation in the body and the brain. And it can show up like depression, mood disorders, memory disorders. EPA specifically has been shown to reduce neuroinflammation, right? Remember, the neuroinflammation is linked to memory issues, dementia, Alzheimer's, depression, anxiety, ADD, autism, bipolar disease, schizophrenia. All of these problems of the brain. Have been linked to neuroinflammation and EPA actually is inversely correlated with all these problems. So there are actually studies from Harvard that show you can treat

• 10:24Dr. Mark Hyman?

  bipolar disease by giving fish oil, surprise, or ADD by giving fish oil, or depression by giving fish oil, or improve dementia by giving fish oil. That's how powerful these are. And they regulate all sorts of compounds in the body, regulate neuroinflammation. Now, when you have low levels of EPA, it increases your risk of heart disease, not just brain diseases, but also heart disease, skin disorders, diabetes, and lots more. In fact, these fats are absolutely essential for life. We gotta get them from our diet, but 90% of Americans are deficient in these critical fats. And I'm going to explain to you more where to get them and how to take them. But I think at this point in history, unless you want to poison yourself with mercury

• 11:04Dr. Mark Hyman?

  from eating a lot of fish, you're going to need to take omega-3s from supplements. I mean, unless you want to eat sardines every day, which most people don't.

• 11:18Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Himalayan ternary buckwheat is full of over 130 of these phytochemicals, some which are found nowhere else in nature, that have powerful properties, regulate our biology, and rejuvenate our immune system. So talk about how, and again, there are many other compounds that can be beneficial for health. There's 25,000, as I mentioned, and in my whole, my book, The Peak of Dot, I talked about the role of these compounds and how powerful they are. But the Himalayan ternary buckwheat, how does it work on these chip cells? How does it work to rejuvenate our immune system?

• 11:46Speaker 01

  So that has been a really interesting story that's emerging, because generally what scientists will do, and you know this very well, is they'll, they'll look at those 100 different phytochemicals, and they'll say, which ones are doing the heavy lifting?

• 11:57Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  So they'll go and they'll find-

• 11:58Dr. Mark Hyman?

  The reductionism.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Exactly. They'll find a molecule. And then they'll study the heck out of that molecule. Well, that's been done with Himalayan ternary buckwheat. We could go on the list. Rutin, quercetin, dismon, luteolin, physitin, hesperidin. These are some of the major of the 100 or so phytochemicals in Himalayan ternary buckwheat, along with tuhopa. And each one of those has been individually studied, and has been found- Individually to have effects on

• 12:24Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Immune rejuvenation.

• 12:25Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  By activating this process of autophagy selective to the immune system. And in fact, now we have see all sorts of papers being published on quercetin. It's the darling right now. And quercetin is an important member of this family, so I don't want to undersell it. But quercetin doesn't work the same when it's working by itself as when it works with ninety-nine other phytochemicals.

• 12:46Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, it's a team, it's a team effort.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  That's right. And so here as we get into fractionalized foods, saying, oh, let's just pull one nutrient out and then we'll make that the nutrient of the month. Versus saying, no, it's the combination that makes the orchestration of the effects that's causing immune rejuvenation.

• 13:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, so Michael Pong called nutritionism is the reductionist approach to studying nutrition. That's why we have saturated fat and salt and this and that. Instead of looking at the whole composition of the diet. It's important. So, so basically what you're saying is these compounds in the hemolytic ribbit wheat help to get rid of all these old cells and rejuvenate our immune system.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Yes, and let me say one thing, get to loop back to a point you made earlier, and you did so eloquently, by the way. When you were talking about the fundamental processes that people start having problems with as they get older and get more ill. One of those you mentioned was mitochondrial function, which is the energy powerhouse of the cell where our energy is produced. Well, it turns out that our mitochondria can, within immune cells, can undergo injury. And when they do so, that produces a senescent immune cell. So the mitochondria itself can be the seat of the initial injury that then creates the damage to the immune cell to make it senescent. Now, what do you do to get rid of bad mitochondria?

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Because the mitochondria can rejuvenate themselves in the absence of the cell rejuvenating. The mitochondria has a life of its own within the cell.

• 14:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  And that process is called mitophagy. It's a subset of the big process called autophagy.

• 14:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Right.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  And it turns out that these chemicals, or these phytochemicals that are in ribbit wheat, specifically have been found to have mitophagy influences on immune cells. So it re-energizes the cell.

• 14:30Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, you're kind of cleaning up your energy system.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 14:33Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's like cleaning your carburetor.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, and the spark plugs or whatever. Yeah.

• 14:38Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Amazing. This is an incredible story. So you read a lot about immune rejuvenation and you you talk about a stepwise process to help rejuvenate your immune system. Can you can I break down a little bit these four steps of immune rejuvenation program that you've developed?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:54Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And by the way, all this is on bigmoldhealth.com. You can read about it. You can listen to podcasts, read the articles, read the science. It's just fascinating.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think what's happened, you can hear it probably in my tone of voice, is this has just sucked me in full on. It's like it's like I opened the door and it was a vacuum and it just sucked me right in.

• 15:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  To the wormhole.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Because there is so much here that I think will help people. Once we learn how to really apply this in a personalized way. This is really personalized immunity. And we now recognize that people have different immune identities. Just like they have different fingerprints, they have different immune identities. That requires different approaches towards their immune identities to maximize their immune rejuvenation. So it starts with some fairly simple things. The the simple things are the things we've been going through. Maybe they're simple to say, but not so easy to do. That's changing some lifestyle principles. So you start looking at things like your sleep. You start looking at your activity level. You start looking at how much are you eating out of rushed habit patterns of things you know better than to eat, but it's just convenient to eat them. And one of the

• 15:56Speaker 01

  things that has been very useful for me, and I I found when I did a a series of little Instagram posts on this, are these biometric devices that we wear, these wearable devices that give us information. And I I happen to be wearing an Oura ring, because after being a biohacker and wearing all sorts of different pieces of equipment, this one I found gives me the the most interesting information. And what I found is, from a personal experience, now I've done really a kind of a pilot study, and I think it's more general, is that our Oura ring is actually a surrogate marker to measure aspects of our immune system.

• 16:27Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Because what happens is when you're under immune stress, it's eating, do you realize over 50% of your metabolic energy can be eaten up by your immune system when you're under immune stress? So what happens is your body temperature goes up, your heart rate variability goes down, your respiration goes up, your heart rate goes up, your sleep patterns go down. So you know, when you see these very low scores in the morning from an Oura ring, it says, whoa, geez, what's going on? It's probably something that happened to you last night that affected your immune system. Could be alcohol, it could be stayed up too late, it could be stress. But your immune system is fighting, is telling you. That it's under, it's under demand. So these tools to me are useful for supporting your coaching system, right?

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Because you need to coach yourself through these behavior changes of improving your sleep, your activity, your diet, you know, things that you need to rhythmically figure out about your life that are directly being manifest through your immune system into your function. Your immune system is directly connected 24/7 to everything you're doing.

• 17:29Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, so what are these four steps that you talk about?

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Well, I just told you the first step is assessment, right? Is understanding where you are, what's the base, then from the

• 17:40Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Your immunotype.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  That's right, it's your immunotype. And we have a questionnaire on the Bitwell Health website that gives a kind of a first kind of look see. So we start off with the first thing, which really you've very well stated, and that is finding those patterns of behavior that tie to your immunotype. Are you an allergic type? Are you an inflammatory type? Are you a type with, that tends to get everything that comes along? So you have an immunosuppressed state. So you understand a little bit about what your own immunopersonality is. And we have a questionnaire on our website. This is called the Immuno Identity Questionnaire. That gives a little bit of a help for a person identifying their own specific immunotype. Then we go from there saying, well, now you have your immunotype.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  What are you going to do to move you from an imbalanced immune state to a balanced immune state? That's what we're all hoping for. Because what we want to do is we don't want to shut off our immune system. Or we don't want to hyper-function it. I mean, people always say, boost your immune system. But hold on just a minute. If you're already in an inflammatory state, do you really want to boost your inflammation? No, you want to rebalance your inflammation. And so people say, I'm just going to take a bunch of immune system boosting nutrients. Well, no, no, no. That may actually only exacerbate the problem and make it worse. So the second step then is you modulate your immune system based upon what you've learned about your first state. Are you immunoadactive, immunoveractive? Do you need to bring your immune system down? Do you need to bring your immune system up?

• 19:09Speaker 01

  And we have a series of ways that that can be employed with diet and lifestyle. I would again go back to where you took us earlier. And that is make sure when you introduce the program, they're using food as a friend. And you're using rhythmic eating so that time becomes your friend, your circadian rhythms doesn't become your enemy. Don't overindulge. Don't too frequently snack. I mean, it used to be, oh, we want to take seven to eight meals a day. Those are the days of hypoglycemia. That is probably not a good idea with regard to what we've learned about circadian rhythms. Then the next level, the third step, is how can I optimize my immune system by utilizing some of these specific nutrients that we've been describing, the Himalayan, Tartary,

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Buckwheat phytochemicals. I would also put into this family, there are three families of nutrients that are very important. The phytochemicals, we've been discussing a lot. Second are pre and probiotics, because the gut plays such an important role in modulating our immune system. Seventy percent of our immune system is clustered around our gut, the so-called gut-associated lymphoid tissue. So we want the friendly microbiome, so pre and probiotics would be step two. And then the third are omega-3 fatty acids. There are more and more papers coming out to show the important role that omega-3 fatty acids have in balancing the immune system. And I might add, it's not just omega-3s in and of themselves.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  It's also in concert with vitamin A, vitamin D, zinc, and what are called pro-resolving mediators. Pro-resolving mediators are part of the omega-3 family that activate the immune regulation process and the inflammation regulation process. And we find that some fish oils and marine oils have much higher levels of these pro-resolving mediators, these PRMs, than others. So we want a high PRM, omega-3-rich oil, we want pre and probiotics, and we want the proper phytochemicals. And I think the point you made-

• 21:07Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And you now have created this fish oil, this Dutch Harbor fish oil, which comes from Alaska, right?

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, Dutch Harbor Omega, DHO, and it has the highest level we know of PRMs of any natural oil.

• 21:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So this is some of the beneficial stuff that's in fish oil that reduces inflammation, but it's a separate class of compounds, they're just the omega-3s, they're called pro-resolving mediators. Basically, your immune system has a way, a break, a way of resolving the inflammation. These are called pro-resolvents, and they come from these certain- The sources of omega threes and you've got those access from Alaska and now you have a product that's called Dutch Harbor Omega 3 Oil, which you can get on bigbolthealth.com, right?

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Exactly. And I might say that the reason that we haven't heard more about these pro-resolving mediators in these commercial omega 3 supplements is that when most omega 3 oils are manufactured, they're cleaned up through a very complex process that strips out the PRMs, it removes them. So people don't talk about them because they're not in the barics.

• 22:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  And so you have to have a very mild process to retain these ingredients within fish oils, which we've been able to develop.

• 22:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So aside from all the lifestyle factors, let's just sort of summarize.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 22:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That help us to remove the things that are causing damage to our immune system and immunosenescence and age. In addition to sort of enhancing our immune system with right sleep and exercise and timing of eating and whole foods diets, there's some super hacks, right? Things like phytochemicals from Himalayan tartary buckwheat, pre and probiotics to help our microbiome regulate itself, and these pro-resolving mediators that come from special kinds of fish oil.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:52Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's powerful.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. Now, let me just say one thing about what we've learned, because a lot of this, people would say, "It sounds interesting, but where's the proof?" And fortunately now, the phytochemical portfolio in Himalayan tartary buckwheat has been studied clinically now in studies with humans for a number of years. So we have an idea of how much you need to get in order to produce this. And it's equivalent to something like 100 grams a day. That would be something like three and a half ounces of Himalayan tartary buckwheat flour delivers the level of these phytochemicals that have been found to be associated with improved immune function. So people would say, "Well, I really don't eat Himalayan tartary buckwheat flour every day." Well, we've tried to produce other ways of getting it, like through a shake mix or through

• 23:37Speaker 01

  a capsule that's concentrated in these phytochemicals, knowing that not everybody's going to...

• 23:42Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So you have like four capsules, taking it as like a quarter of a pound of...

• 23:45Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 23:46Dr. Mark Hyman?

  ...of the flour, which is pretty amazing. And by the way, I've used this flour, made best pancakes, chai Himalayan buckwheat pancakes for my bucked vegan diet. We made soba noodles, we made dumpling skins, like for, you know, dumplings, which are amazing. And it tastes so good. It's so good. And what's fascinating about it is that not only are you...

• 24:10Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Developing a product or a series of products that take advantage of these phytochemicals, phytonutrients to rejuvenate our immune system. But it's tied into the bigger ecosystem which we live. That it's not only important of what you grow, it's how you grow it. Yeah. So you could grow this in a way using chemicals and poor soils like that are eroded, that don't have organic matter, and you wouldn't necessarily get the same product. What you're finding is that using practices that we call regenerative agriculture, which we've talked a lot on this podcast, which way of regenerating ecosystems, regenerating the soil and building the organic matter in the soil, that you can not only help rejuvenate human health, but planetary health. Yes.

• 24:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That we can address the ravages of using all the industrial agrochemicals, the fertilizers, the pesticides, the herbicides, the high amounts of irrigation that deplete our water resources and the depletion of the soil microbiome through these chemicals and tillage and all these practices that have been so destructive and may account for a significant part of climate change. And that the soil itself is a sink for carbon and can draw down carbon through the power of these plants that suck carbon out of the atmosphere because they breathe carbon dioxide. But you can't do it if you don't use regenerative agriculture. And the beautiful thing about the Himalayan taro buckwheat is that not only are you growing it to produce these phytochemicals for human health, but the very way you're growing it

• 25:38Dr. Mark Hyman?

  is also helping planetary health using regenerative agriculture. And there's very few regenerative products out there on the market now, and this is one of them. And it's amazing. It's gluten-free, it's organic, it's non-GMO. And what's really fascinating about this packaging, Jeff, is, and you can buy this now on bigboldhealth.com, right? Is not only you talk about the nutrient content, way higher in protein than most other grains, way lower in its impact on blood sugar, so very low glycemic index, much higher levels of magnesium and zinc and iron and all kinds of nutrients. But what's amazing is that on the, and I've never seen this, is it says total polyphenols, which are the antioxidant levels. These are the phyto-nutrients, which is amazing that we now, you know, have, it's almost like a, like a medicine. It's almost like you're seeing like

• 26:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  a flower package that has a drug on it, which is like so cool, except these drugs aren't phytochemicals.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Well, we're, we're the, I think, the first group in the flower area to actually be certifying on each batch are phytochemical levels. That are these immune active phyto-nutrients.

• 26:43Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's so important. And I think, you know, as you've taught us all, Jeff, food is medicine, but then that begets the question of, well, what foods contain the most medicine? And how do you grow foods to contain the most medicine? And it turns out that regenerative agriculture is that method, that we've seen a 50% drop in lots of minerals and other nutrients in vegetable crops over the last 50 years. So even if you're eating your broccoli, it's not as good as it used to be.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Let's start with basic hydration.

• 27:08Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's a great idea.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  So this is a, this is a twofer, really three, if you actually talk about coffee and tea with water. You've actually taken the number one, number two, number three beverages in the world, water, coffee and tea.

• 27:18Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 27:19Speaker 02

  Combine them into one, put it in your gunny sack and take it with you.

• 27:22Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, that's great. Actually, you know, I was in Ikaria, researching the Blue Zones, and I went to this guy who was sort of making goat cheese and I was milking goats and like making cheese with him. It was kind of fun. And then after he's like, let's have some tea. And he served me this tea. I'm like, what is that? And he's like, it's had a different taste. I'd never had it before. Oh, this is the wild sage bush that's growing everywhere here. I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. So I saw this plant, I looked at, I looked it up and it actually has higher levels of catechins than green tea. And this is one of the longevity molecules, right? So it's quite interesting.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I think that that's the other thing is that really Mother Nature has created a pharmacy with an F, kind of in yours, in the spirit of how you do things. You know, the pharmacy with an F actually is way more diverse than anything you'd find in a drugstore, in a hospital, you know, pharmacy stockhouse. And we're just beginning to discover. What some of these things are. That's the power of science. We can go in there, we can do mass spec, we can identify the different peaks, and we can put a label on to them. Yeah, it's freedom case. Hey, so you got tea, water, coffee? So here's something else I would bring. I'd bring tree nuts with me. Tree nuts? Okay. Walnuts, almonds. Walnuts, almonds, pistachios, macadamias, cashews. You know, so number one, I love the diversity

• 28:40Speaker 02

  of the different types of tree nuts. Yeah. Okay, but they're a great source of protein. We need protein to be healthy, right? Especially as we get older. People are always asking like, well, what's a good source of protein? Well, you know, tree nuts gives you some nice protein, but it also gives you dietary fiber, which is important for our gut health. And if there's one thing that I, I carry around with me now, knowledge wise, that I know everyone needs to do better on, everyone can up their own game, is to get better gut health. I don't care if you're a super athlete, triathlon, you know, every single person can do better the next day, tomorrow, to get, to improve their gut. That is so powerful. I have colleagues who are, I mean, I do cancer research, but I

• 29:23Speaker 02

  also have colleagues who are doing gut microbiome research in cancer patients. So talk about life and death, right? I mean, you know, gut health, you have, you know, more regular stool or whatever, anti-inflammatory. It all comes in a sharp focus if you're talking about cancer patients. And it turns out that the quality and nature of your gut microbiome can make the distinction between life or death if you have cancer. And I've been talking to oncologists about this, cancer docs, and they're just starting to wake up to this idea. And, you know, cancer patients are going, flooding into the clinics every single day. Yeah. Getting chemo, worse, getting antibiotics for various things. Okay. I mean, look, you might need antibiotics. Steroids.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  But you're not resurrecting, you're not protecting the gut microbiome. And if that makes a difference between life or death, that is something that everyone needs to focus on. So a study out of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, looking at people with one type of cancer, melanoma, that's spread. So we're talking about metastatic melanoma, bad disease, that responds well to immune therapies. Not chemo, it's a Checkpoint inhibitor. Checkpoint inhibitor. That actually explain to people listener listening a checkpoint inhibitor is not chemo. It's giving you an infusion of a medicine that wakes up your own immune system to spot where cancer is. It actually helps your immune system do what it's supposed to do. Find cancer and scrub it out. Think about the dry erase board. You know, if you've got some notes on there, just scrub it all out to zero or a clean slate.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  I did for my mom. I've seen many other patients who have actually had a complete response. It turns out not everybody responds. Only about 20% of people have a good response. 80% of people don't, and we're beginning to realize that 80% don't have the right gut microbiome makeup. Now, a few years ago, we talked, I remember we had this conversation at Milken about Akkermansia, which you know is everyone's talking about now and good thing too, because it's important. But now we're beginning to realize other bacteria are also important. It's about eight bacteria been discovered and dietary fiber matters. So.

• 31:27Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, nuts.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  The study that my colleague at MD Anderson led on showed that for melanoma, giving immunotherapy, for every five to six grams of dietary fiber, it decreases mortality from that cancer by 30%. Like you basically, I mean, think about if you want to.

• 31:48Dr. Mark Hyman?

  People eat about eight grams of fiber a day. I was at the Hazza tribe in Tanzania. They eat 150 grams a day. And so, you know, we need to boost it up to about 50. But you think five, just five grams reduces by 30% and you can eat 25, 30, 50 grams. That's a lot of, that's a lot of percent reduction.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  And you know, you don't want, you don't want it just ordered in a bottle, right? I mean, or in a jar. I mean, like, I know we tend to be. You want it in food because the foods, fruits and vegetables, especially the whole foods, contain the polyphenols that are the prebiotics that work along with the fiber to feed the actual healthy gut bacteria. And you want diversity. So you want, you want to eat, you know, that whole idea of eating the rainbow is, you know, I always think about the rainbow being a nice visual allegory. But really, this is a life and death thing. Like the more diversity you can put in your plate, the more diversity you're going to have in your gut when your gut. diversity is really rich, meaning you have a lot of different types of gut bacteria. It pays you back. Your health gets paid back by improving your immune system.

• 32:47Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, that's so important. You said I wasn't to highlight that because the the polyphenols, you sort of whiz by that. But, you know, we think about prebiotics and probiotics for our gut. But there's another incredibly important category of compounds that are called polyphenols, which are all the colorful plant compounds you see and that make your vegetables and fruit the colors they are. And those are medicines, and those seem to be fertilizers for the good bugs. Now, we were talking about the reduction in cancer from having more fiber. How does that work? When you eat nuts? Well, basically, you can probably explain it better than I can, but there's an important compound that healthy bacteria make in your gut called butyrate. And butyrate has many effects on the body. It's anti-inflammatory, it keeps your gut lining healthy.

• 33:31Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's the fuel for the gut colonocytes, but it also suppresses P53 oncogene, which is essentially a cancer promoting gene, which is why dietary fiber reduces colon cancer and many other cancers. So we actually now know the mechanisms by this word. So it's it's kind of amazing. If you're geeky like us, it's like, holy cow, we understand how to get from A to Z and why it's happening, not just eat fiber, you're not going to cancer, but we understand the linkages all the way along.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  I want to I want to unpack something you just said is because it's so interesting and important, but also to bring a little bit of clarity to the audience. You you heard the term oncogene, right? Like, Mark, you just talked about oncogene. An oncogene is a gene which is made of our DNA that's associated with causing cancer. And a lot of people, including myself, for many years, thought that, and you know, you've heard of BRCA, and there's a lot of other oncogenes. It turns out that P53 is one of those oncogenes.

• 34:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  But it turns out that P53, the way that it was, we're born to have P53, normal P53, is protective against cancer. It's only when P53 is mutated, when there's a problem with P53, that it actually sets up for cancer. So P53 normally actually protects us against cancer. It's basically, it's the bullets in our gun against cancer. Cancer normally and it's only when it's actually mutated. Now, now, let me tell you how powerful this is. There are animals like elephants that rarely get cancer that have more than one copy of P53.

• 34:59Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's interesting.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  In their genome. And so P53 is protective. What we want to do is prevent those mutations that can occur. And this is the real purpose of this antioxidant story that's been floating around for decades.

• 35:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Right? So antioxidants are neutralized, these harmful activated atoms that, that, you know, are in our environment that we eat sometimes with ultra-processed foods. And those that can actually come in there and basically like a samurai warrior, like slice and dice, like a ninja, slice and dice our DNA.

• 35:31Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  And when your P53 gets sliced and diced, that's when you run into trouble. So you need to protect it. Polyphenols can have antioxidant properties. They also activate all of these other protective aspects of our body. So that we are more resistant against diseases, including cancer.

• 35:49Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, it's quite amazing. Okay, so we got, we got tea, coffee, water, nuts of all kinds. What else you bringing with you?

• 35:58Speaker 02

  You know, I so.

• 36:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  To Mars, let's say, to Mars. What are you bringing with you to Mars?

• 36:03Speaker 02

  You know, I mean, look, perishable goods, the things we talked about, you can actually carry with you because they're, they're, you can put them in a tin.

• 36:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  And you can have with you. But actually, you know, fresh foods, produce is really, really important. And, you know, I, and I know that everybody kind of rolls their eyes when they hear about another story about broccoli or kale. I like to present it as brassica, which is like all a gigantic class of green vegetables.

• 36:28Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  You can choose it cauliflower, bok choy, you know, broccolini. It's a lot of different types of vegetables you can actually get. Mother Nature is really smart. She actually created the same types of polyphenols and bioactives and put them in all this entire class of vegetables. And, and if you have any of those things, you know, what are some of my favorite ones? I mean, I like bok choy.

• 36:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  Go to an Asian market.

• 36:54Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Chinese broccoli is my favorite.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  Broccoli, and you know, broccolini, Chinese broccoli is a great. Anybody that wants to change their mind about the same old same old with broccoli just needs to step into an Asian grocery store.

• 37:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, the thing about Chinese broccoli, I don't know. It's sweet. It's got this like sweet flavor. So it's like almost like eating candy, but it's broccoli. It's like so good.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Well, and by the way, you know, because I like to cook. So for me, talking about food as as ingredients is important because people like to nail it down in their heads. But really Chinese broccoli, what do you do with it? First, you go to wash it, you trim it, you heat up some oil, puts a little bit of garlic slices or chopped garlic in there. And then literally you stir fry it quickly. Okay, not with a lot of oil. And then you can add oyster sauce, soy sauce, a little chili pepper, whatever you want to do to really light up your taste buds. Food has to taste good.

• 37:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  Healthy food has to taste good.

• 37:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah. Nobody wants to eat sawdust and cardboard.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 38:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Okay, so we got the whole brassica family, collards, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, broccolini, broccoli raw. I mean, the list goes on. You can look it up. It called Christopher's vegetables, brassicas. You can find them. We'll link to them in the show notes. But this is something I eat every day and I try to eat a cup or two every day of these foods at least. So, um, okay, so you got water, tea, coffee, nuts, brassicas. What's next?

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Well, I didn't include water because I'm just saying that you're gonna have to drink water anyway to survive. So I put coffee and tea.

• 38:31Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Coffee and tea, nuts, brassicas.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  Brassica. Okay. All right. How many do I have left?

• 38:36Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You can do as many as you want.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  So another thing that I personally love, and again, you know, this is my informed opinion. I like this category of food called stone fruit and it's seasonal, right?

• 38:49Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Like plums, peaches.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  Right. And those are very seasonal and they grow in trees and they have a little stone in the middle, like an apricot. But it turns out the flesh and the color of these are very bright. And they're, they actually have a lot of sweetness to them, rich with polyphenols and the skin of these fruits. Also contains something called ursolic acid, which actually is not only good for your immune system, but ursolic acid also helps your circulation. So you want to actually have good blood flow. As we get older, our blood flow naturally kind of slows down, doesn't get as, isn't as good as it should be. You know, it's kind of like an old set of piping, a plumbing. So you want to keep the plumbing working really, really well. That's our circulation. So ursolic acid helps us keep good blood flow,

• 39:36Speaker 02

  helps us regenerate our blood vessels when we need to. Critical for brain health. So gut health and brain health. It's not just simply the gut-brain access through the microbiome. The circulation is also really important.

• 39:48Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I think the problem with that for me, Liam, is that I love peaches, but like, there's like maybe a few weeks in the summer where you can get a really ripe, delicious pizza, doesn't taste mealy and gross.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Right, no, you're absolutely right.

• 40:02Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I love that, but you can get them frozen, which I use.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  And frozen.

• 40:06Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But it doesn't have the skin usually.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  Usually not, but you get the polyphenols in it. And that's, by the way, that's another kind of important, practical tip for people that always ask me like, well, I can't, I can't get fresh food all the time. Should I just go for the frozen? Is it going to be, it's going to lose a lot of the nutrients?

• 40:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  No, it's more, it's got more.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  Because the people that create frozen fruit, they pick the, they pick it.

• 40:29Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Wait, that's really ripe.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  And they freeze, and they pick it when it's super ripe, because it's got to taste great. And they skin it and they freeze it right away. It's flash frozen. It's, it's got, it doesn't degrade. Polyphenols degrade while it's on a truck. All right, this doesn't have a chance to even degrade. So I encourage people to get fresh fruit if they can. You know, my only thing is that I wish they would actually pack fresh fruit in something other than plastic bags, because now we're beginning to look at microplastics.

• 40:54Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Nanoplastics.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, nanoplastics, yeah.

• 40:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, it's always hard, because fruit is something that degrades really fast. So they pick it when it's not ripe. When tomatoes, they pick them when they're not ripe. So you're kind of not getting really the, the full explosion of polyphenols. Okay, so we got stone fruits, brassicas, nuts, coffee and tea.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  All right, and berries.

• 41:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And berries.

• 41:13Speaker 02

  I put berries in there because I'll tell you, the amazing thing about berries, they are kind of the Candy of nature, right? They're small, they're beautiful, they're sweet. You can eat a bunch of them. And that's why candies, I just, they're candies that are shaped like berries, right? So the, the, the thing about berries, though, is that they are a great source of vitamin C. They've got great antioxidants. They also have these polyphenols that are kick ass. So like. And fiber. And dietary fiber as well, of course. The, the key thing is, you know, people always say, well, is a sugar in, in berries going to be harmful? Or fruit going to be harmful? You know, this is where all, not all calories are the same. Yeah.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  Fruit contains so many other good things that along with the natural sugars, which are most, for most people, your body can actually tackle, you're getting all this other benefits that, that you wouldn't be getting if you had a can of soda with just added sugar to it, right? So that's the key thing. Sugar isn't all sugar because the thing that it's contained in is going to be different. So. It's also when you eat the fruit, like if you eat it at the end of a meal as opposed to at the beginning, it's going to change your blood sugar, which you're going to have. Exactly. So not only important what you eat, it's when you eat too. And, and how you eat it as well, right? Because basically if you put sugar on top of fruit, which is, you know, kind of an old school way of eating a grapefruit. Yeah, your peaches in syrup, right? Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, you know, again, this is why I think when we talk about ingredients, you know, it's easy for us to talk about

• 42:36Speaker 02

  polyphenols and dietary fiber, but at the end of the day, people eat food in context and together. And so how we eat what we eat is really, really important. How we prepare it is also really important. So like for fruits, I like to eat it just fresh, right? Yeah. Seasonal and, and berries are, would be something that I would relive, you know, there's a study. So you're going to need a greenhouse on Mars, basically. Yeah, well, or desert island, right? I mean, you know, you need to, you need to be able to grow all this stuff, but, but dried fruit, by the way, is also a great way because you can get dried berries, you can get dried stone fruit. Like can't, you can't get apricots all year round, but you can get dried apricots. Or dehydrated ones. Or dehydrated ones, exactly. That may be less sugar, right? Yeah, yeah. If you get dried fruits, you actually get the skin on it.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  Right, so like if I had to eat six apricots whole, I might have difficulty doing it on a regular basis, but I could easily eat six dried apricots, you know, as a snack. So if you want that fruit skin, but that brings up a whole other issue about organic versus non-organic, because interesting thing that's been discovered by botanists, people who study plants, not doctors, not health and wellness people, but botanists have studied polyphenols, and they found out that polyphenols are produced by most plants, the polyphenols are good for our body, are produced by most plants as a wound healing substance for the plant itself.

• 44:03Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, yeah, they're not, they're not for us, they're for the plant's own defenses and repair and healing and protection, right?

• 44:07Speaker 02

  Right, so what happens is that when you, when a plant is growing, vegetable, fruit, tree, bush, shrub, is growing in its natural state, right? We're looking at a planet now, we don't want to be adding, we don't want to be adding the crap to the planet, we need to kind of let everything restore, we need the planet to go back into its homeostatic state, to regenerate by itself, okay? In its, that balanced state, plants that we eat, or parts of the plants, are growing with little insects, it's natural in the environment, and these insects are nibbling on the leaves and stems of these plants, and what they do is they produce polyphenols in response to the nibbling, in response to the injury, as part of healing, this is what the botanists are saying.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  Now, so if you grow a plant in its natural state without pesticides, it's going to make more polyphenols, because it's healing stuff all the time, under stress, right? If you spray with pesticides, not only do you get the bad stuff on the skin that you can't easily wash off, a study out of University of Massachusetts showed that about 20% of pesticides gets absorbed into the skin of an apple, you can't wash that off, it's just in there, so if you're gonna, but get dried fruit, get the organic kind, and you're gonna get more polyphenols as a fringe benefit.

• 45:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I think it's a really incredible thing that most people probably never thought of, it didn't really occur to me, but you're right, when you have plants that are coddled by pesticides and herbicides and fertilizers, they don't have a lot of stress, they're not getting attacked. They're basically kind of basically coddled.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 45:36Dr. Mark Hyman?

  They don't develop any resistance to disease or stress molecules. And those stress molecules that they create are their protection, but they're also our protection.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 45:46Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's really the whole crux of what we're talking about here.

• 45:48Speaker 02

  And by the way, let's let's let's dive a little deeper on that. Not only are they protection for our human cells, but now because they are also prebiotics, they're also protection for our gut bacteria as well.

• 46:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I was thinking that. I was like, you're not only getting polyphenols for all these other benefits for your biology, but actually you're helping your microbiome.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  You know, it's a grand slammer, right? Baseball analogy, you know, you hit the ball and you drive all the runs in. Okay. And that's basically what these polyphenols are. And it all starts with how we treat the plants. And I know you've written about this, you know, sort of like, how do we actually do regenerative agriculture? How do we kick it? Look, it's a bigger problem that any one person can actually solve. But as a one person, we can make that decision of what we're actually going to feed ourselves when we go to the market.

• 46:31Dr. Mark Hyman?

  All right. So I want to I want to get into like specifics of different foods and controversies and things. But first, what else would you bring quickly to Mars if you're going that you absolutely need for optimizing your health and beating disease? I mean, I have my list. I'm curious about your list.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, I have to say, I'm assuming there's not going to be any easily fishable oceans on another planet.

• 46:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But you just have it there. Now you have to grow it or have it grown there. Bring it there. What are you eating?

• 46:59Speaker 02

  You know, like, I think food, I think finding a source of omega threes.

• 47:03Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Absolutely.

• 47:04Speaker 02

  Is absolutely critical because.

• 47:06Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I was next on my list.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, our body doesn't make them, right? And a lot of foods don't make them either. All the plants do make the precursor to omega threes, but it's hard for most people to eat enough of them to actually get what they need. And so, you know, this is one of the instances where I do think that you should eat as much marine omega threes as you can get your hands on, and you should eat plant-based sources of omega threes. But then, you know, if you still have struggling, then you should actually get dietary supplement, a good, high-quality dietary supplement. And the key about omega threes, it's good for gut health, it's good for brain health, good for immune health. It's one of these strange molecules that has been. Discover to have virtually no bad effects and almost all good effects. You know, it's, it's, I'm always cynical and sus, it's a little suspicious when something

• 47:51Speaker 02

  does everything, but omega threes really kind of hit it out of the park.

• 47:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  All right. So, so basically your meal on Mars is grilled wild salmon rich in omega threes and also polyphenols. So that's the yellow color with a nice side of broccoli and a side of green tea to sip along with it. And dessert, you're having berries and, and peaches and nuts.

• 48:14Speaker 02

  Pretty much.

• 48:15Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I love that.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  You know, and by the way, you know, we're talking about omega threes. You talked about salmon and it is a common perception. I'm not calling it a misperception, I'm calling it a perception that you need to have salmon and tuna, really oily fish like mackerel and anchovies, which not a lot of people eat, but it turns out, and I wrote about this in my book.

• 48:34Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I do, I got some right in my bag here.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  Fish that are not commonly thought as oily fish actually also have omega threes. Cod, haddock, flounder, all have omega threes. Seabass has omega threes. By the way.

• 48:48Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But not, I mean, Chilean seabass is high in mercury. So you don't want to be that one. You mean, you mean.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Well, Chilean seabass is actually not really a bass. It's a, it's a, it's a.

• 48:57Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Toothfish.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  Toothfish, right? Yeah. So it's not even, again, marketing, right? We get, we get tricked on things, but it turns out recent studies have shown that seabass, particularly the Asian seabass.

• 49:06Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 49:06Speaker 02

  You'd get in a Chinese market, they would steam it for you with a little bit of ginger.

• 49:09Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yep.

• 49:10Speaker 02

  And soy. Actually, it's been discovered to not only have omega threes, but they contain a peptide, a protein that stimulates better circulation and woe healing.

• 49:21Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  So again, you know, this is the more we look into our foods, the more we're discovering that some of the things that we need for generations.

• 49:29Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  Actually contain good substances that can keep us healthy.

• 49:33Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's right. I mean, the Rockefeller Health Foundation is very much focused on this. They're spending $200 million to identify the phytochemicals in the plant kingdom that are regulating our biology and what they do. So it's really, it's pretty amazing. If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the Dr. Hyman Show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health, where I am Chief Medical Officer. This podcast

• 50:17Dr. Mark Hyman?

  represents my opinions and my guests' opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness Center, at ultrawellnesscenter.com, and request to become a patient. It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed healthcare practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical

• 51:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  ways of improving health to the public. So I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible. Thanks so much again for listening.

• 51:09Dr. Mark Hyman?

  When it comes to supplements, you only want the best for your body, the kind with the highest quality, cleanest, and most potent ingredients you can get. That's exactly what you'll find at my supplement store, where I've hand-selected each and every product to meet the most rigorous standards for safety, purity, and effectiveness. These are the only supplements I recommend to my patients, and they're also what I use myself. Whether you want to optimize longevity, or reduce your disease risk, or you're looking to improve your sleep, blood sugar, metabolism, gut health, you name it, drhyman.com has the world's best selection of top-quality, premium supplements, all backed by science and expertly vetted by me, Dr. Mark Hyman. So check out drhyman.com, because when it comes to your health, nothing less than the very best will do. That's drhyman.com, D-R-H-Y-M-A-N dot com.