The Longevity Lifestyle: Ancient Secrets & Modern Insights with Dr. Josh Axe

On this episode of the Resetter Podcast, I am bringing you Josh Axe. Now this is a really phenomenal conversation on longevity. And Dr. Axe, if you're not familiar with who he is, he has been teaching health on social media before any of us were there. Before any doctor was there, you'll hear me talk to him today. I was like, you're the OG of giving solid health advice on social media. And he hasn't stopped. And what I want to do with him in this conversation because of his vast knowledge on nutrition, because he and I align on the idea that the body is always doing the right thing at the right time. I wanted to pick his brain on what we know through a science lens about the greatest tools that we have to keep our brains and our bodies vibrant as we age. And so we start off the conversation talking about like, what is longevity and how does that compare to anti-aging? And then we went into the biohacking movement, which Josh and I also align on, that you can't hack into an intricate ecosystem. And this part of the conversation was so fascinating to me because what we really geeked out on is this beautiful symbiotic relationship between the human body and nature. And Josh brought so much current science into this conversation about what nature does for our aging bodies. You definitely don't want to miss that piece. Why don't we morph into a really interesting place? And I'm going to, I don't think we're editing this out. So I'm going to keep it in here because we had a moment of discussing the political nature of health at this particular time, especially here in America. And what is the biggest concern for the human body? And you'll hear both of our opinions. We didn't necessarily agree on this one. And I'm leaving it there as just a way for us to start to critically think about the health information that is being dished out to us in this new political era that we're sitting in. So I left it there for you. And then we really close off the conversation with some amazing nutrition and solid, solid information on nutrition. This is Josh's specialty. And he really dove into those, to specific foods. So those of you that really want to look deeper into incorporating foods into your life that will help support your aging body. You want to make sure you stick through to the back end of this conversation. But this was really like one of those conversations that if I, Josh and I were having dinner together, this is what we'd be talking about. So I hope you enjoyed as much as he and I both loved having it. And as always, with all my podcasts, I really hope that this information empowers you and helps you find the rhythm that is right for you with your health and the miraculous body you get to live in. So Dr. Josh Axe, enjoy. Welcome to the Resetter Podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Josh, Dr. Josh Axe, I have to start off by telling you something that I have not ever told you. That's that I'm sitting here in my social media platform, largely because of you. And the reason is I watched you in those early days when you were on Pinterest and you were, you were giving away amazing protocols to everybody. And I literally had patients coming into my office with like printed out like your protocols off Pinterest, asking me what I thought of them. And my, I'm going to be really transparent. My brain was like, who is this guy? And like, why is he giving away all this free information? And then I started watching you and watched what you did and how you really changed. I really, this is the credit I really want to give you is that you're the OG of bringing health information to social media. And you did it in such a beautiful way of just a desire to help people with the knowledge that you had. You were one of the few people that I looked at and thought, well, gosh, if you can do it, I can do it. And so you inspired me to even start. So I just want to say thank you for that. Well, that's all honoring and encouraging. Thanks so much. So here's a really fun topic that I'm excited that we're going into this topic of longevity. And what I will tell you is that I sat with the word anti-aging for a really long time. And I thought, why do we hate aging so much that we had to put the word anti in front of it? And then we had to create a whole industry around people who are going to make you fear aging and stop aging yet every day, every second, we are aging. So I want to start off with, can you help us understand the difference between aging and longevity? And what is actually happening to us is a deeper question on a cellular level as our body starts to move into these older states. Yeah, yeah. Well, I love the question. Let me start off with this. You were talking about social media. I did a social media post here on Instagram. Not too long ago and I said, here are the top foods to eat to live to 120. And you know the most common question I have the response I got was, I don't want to live to be 120. Yes. And it caught me a little bit off guard, but then I sat there and understood it because I had a grandmother who was going through Alzheimer's and seeing what that was like and then so many people become feeble or on multiple medications and are so sick and suffering when they get to a certain point in life and think, well, if aging is about suffering and getting older is about suffering, that doesn't sound like something I want to do, sold or something I want. Versus, you know, I was really blessed to go on a trip to Asia here. This was quite a few years ago, but I was so blown away by, you know, one of the things they would do is they would go out in the streets. They would typically take two hours for lunch and where I was in China, they would go out and they would do Tai Chi in the afternoon or right around lunch. And there were a number of people over a hundred years old. I said, how old is that woman? How old is that man? 104, 106 and I'm like, and they're still being this active. And that was really, really incredible. And then here's another thing and I'll kind of touch on this here real quick and then I'll get into this longevity idea. But, you know, I had a major health issue about three years ago where I almost died and it really caused me to spend the last three to four years focusing on my solely on longevity and healing. And when you look at the medical literature today, the number keeps going up. It was there are nine hallmarks of aging than 12 and someone's like, right. But, but, you know, there are many hallmarks of aging and functional or Western medicine today. But let me just hit it, head on to Eastern medicine first before I go back when it ties in in longevity. When you look at Chinese medicine, longevity is tied to what they call the three treasures and they call that Shen Chi in Jing. Okay. Shen is tied to your spiritual health. She is tied to your cellular health or ATP. They would call it breath. And then Jing is tied to, they would tie it to your DNA, your actual physicality, your physical body. And it's really tied to sperm, to the egg, to your bone marrow, your stem cells, or a prime example of what they would call that. And then there's this saying in Chinese medicine to prolong life, protect the three treasures. Okay. And so they believe really building health sort of this in terms of the mental spiritual side, the physical side, the physical side, or the keys to longevity. And one of the things that I really noticed in my practice over the years is that, you know, a lot of people are sick because they have childhood trauma, they have a lot of negative thinking. They might be living with unforgiveness or fear or worry. And these actually affect our organ systems and make them sick. And then also there's an element of, might like we talked about sort of a mind body connection. And then of course, eating a poor diet, that ages as well. And then when we look at the nine hallmarks of aging, or let me just add on some of the hallmarks because there's just a lot to get through. But you know, I think that some of the big ones for me is one is imbalancing your circadian rhythms. We're not, when we're not living in tune with nature, that ages us. And that really sort of kicks off a neuroendocrine response where cortisol gets too high or at least it's fluctuating incorrectly into, which is affecting melatonin. And you know, cortisol is kind of this master hormone where cortisol gets high, well now insulin gets high. When insulin's high, now there's an estrogen issue. And then that can lead to thyroid hormone issues later on in a number. And you know this as well as anybody in teach on this. But I think that circadian rhythms being off, that is a major hallmark of aging. Another one would be microbiome dyspiosis. You know, your gut gets off. That's causing an aging issue. And what's connected to the gut? Just I'm going to hit on just two others because I know we can dive into this stuff as we go on. But sort of our immune system. And so we see this, these senescent cells building up. But one of the biggest signs of this aging is something called immunosensessence where we have too many of these senescent cells, which are zombie cells, which are very inflammatory. If they're left in the body, they're kind of dead cells is why they're called that. And then the last one would be, I'll hit on here quickly is stem cell exhaustion. We don't have stem cells enough to regenerate. And he own stem cells are those tissues that if you have an area of injury or you're aging, you know, let's say you get a sunburn or anything happens. It's sort of negative to where there's destruction of cells in your body. Stem cells are created to help regenerate, heal and repair the body. And when those stem cells get exhausted in your body and you don't have enough of them, you don't heal as well. And that's something people may notice if they're aging too quickly or if they have an injury, it doesn't heal as well. And of course, this always happens as we age to a degree, but sometimes more quicker, more quickly than it should happen. And so those are some of those big signs of aging. But again, there's about nine to 15 hallmarks in Western medicine. There's three hallmarks of aging when it comes to ancient medicine like in Japan and Asia. But those are some things people need to be aware of when it comes to longevity and aging. So are you saying that if we know that these markers are happening, if we already know the stem cell exhaustion and you know that autophagy may be not as efficiently working, like they're then they're it's this is the way I think about aging after studying it for so long is like it's almost like we need a new playbook. Like if you've been doing your life this way from zero to 40, I think at 40 is the moment which somebody needs to swap out the lifestyle playbook. Would you agree? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Now I think we could also argue it could actually be done even earlier. Oh, maybe, yeah, but but but to your point, yes, I do think that's when people are most conscious and when you get injured at Ford and beyond or you have certain things happen, your body is absolutely not as resilient. So something happens there. And I like your you know your example of it being a playbook because there are so many things we can do in terms of what the ideal foods are what the ideal herbs are what the ideal advanced therapies are what the ideal habits are. Yeah, that can allow us to age more slowly. It's not anti-aging. It's really aging. Here's the here's the reality. I think we're all sort of hardwired to level around 120 years. I think there's a scientific journal that recently came out and kind of threw that number out there as well. Based on you know we've we had somebody I think passed away last year. There was 117. There is one person and I don't know how accurate they're they're they're tracking of her age was they said it was 122 that's the longest I've ever heard that was actually looked at and had it written down. But I think we're hardwired for that age. You know let's say the average American dies it's somewhere on 78 you know it's some it's somewhere in that ballpark. A lot of people are doing think about that. If you're a hardwired to age to be to live to 120 we're doing 42 years of damage to our cells in our body and and so and it's because we're not to your point following the right playbook. So what's interesting though is I agree with you like you know you should we should be thinking about aging the day we're born right there should be sort of a plan for avoiding you know the the harms of what aging brings avoiding chronic disease like you know I think you and I both align like that should be hardwired into a human from the day that they're born. But we live in a culture that doesn't think that way and we live in a culture that looks at anti-aging or longevity as oh you don't have any wrinkles you don't have any gray hair and so the way we measure aging is completely off. Yeah and one of the things I want to go back to that I'm so happy you you brought up is the the way you explained the how Chinese medicine looks at this because I have a really good friend who spent last winter skiing in Japan and she would send me pictures all the time she's like Mindy look at how many seniors are out walking look at how many seniors are being like lifted up by the culture and they're so honored in that Japanese culture of like you are wisdom now and we don't have that in our culture. In fact people are so scared of aging that they're like injecting themselves with poison so that they you won't see that I'm aging. So is there is in the longevity conversation also needs to be a conversation about how do we start to culturally help aging people so that they don't feel like they're going to become invisible? I love that I love that you brought this up Dr. Mindy because this is something I've talked about a couple times is that part of it is like what most people move towards what culture glorifies and so you know if it's for women let's just give an example of its motherhood well then they go after that if it's being a big a CEO boss it's that if it's looking very very young it's that but when you look at Asian culture wisdom is one of those key words that that that they really honor and look at and I think as you get older that comes with more wisdom more life experience and so you know and and there's many Asian quotes around sort of the graying hair your hair going gray and that being a sign of wisdom and honoring people that that are that are getting more wrinkles and their hair is turning a different color and and those sort of things so I think if if if in the united states or in the western world if we would look at people that were getting older and we would say that's wisdom right there I want to learn from that person yeah I want to be mentored I want to be disciple I want to you know I want to honor them yeah then I think more you know we'd have a whole lot less Botox yes there would be a lot less of everyone feeling like I need to you know I need to look 20 years younger than I am and so so yeah I think that's a I think that's a great point it's you know I will I walked around as I was researching age like a girl I walked around for years saying asking people what does wisdom look like like how do you know you're in the presence of wisdom if everybody's freezing their face how would you know like I can go to my Instagram and see a picture of like a very aptly aboriginal woman from the outback and I I look at every wrinkle and I'm like wow that's a story to tell wow if those wrinkles could talk yeah I look at gray hair as like wisdom strands like oh my god you earned that gray hair and I think that it we don't you know we don't have that here in our culture but on the opposite side and this is another thing that you and I have both been immersed in is the biohacking world and we now have not only are we not honoring aging because we don't want you to we don't we don't want to look like we're aging we're now offering you a whole world of fast hacks to slow the aging process down and so for I can tell you through the female lens that becomes another list of haftos so now I got to jump in cold water I got to get red light I got to start doing three-day water fast I got to go get my NAD like is that what longevity is supposed to look like no you know I definitely not now it's not to say that you know doing some of these advanced therapies or you know biohacks aren't beneficial for some people but but here's here's what biohacks are first I hate the word hacks I just got to tell me to I hate it because it's it comes from a mentality that the body is a piece of machinery it's not yeah you know like we we are I mean the human body is this to meet this divine amazing like it's amazing it's absolutely incredible so looking at the body would just sort of all and wonder and in its biology rather than it being a machine I think that's one perspective that needs to be shift for people and and thinking about the body yeah but but you know I'm actually writing a book along Jevny won't be out for a four-year so I got a little ways before it's out but but one of the things I'm getting into in the book is really sort of I'm trying to think the word will use in there but it's really living in tune with nature I mean you know what's a lot better than red light therapy even though I love red light therapy is the sun and the sun not only has red light it has blue light which has major anti-inflammatory properties it's got green light it's got violet light it's got all these different color lights different lights have different benefits on the body so laying out this and not getting burnt okay do not get burned it's terrible for aging but getting sunshine on your skin directly is better than red light therapy as tremendous benefits not only vitamin D but so much even beyond that and then you know I think well you know I I also like hyperbaric oxygen therapy I think it's a great therapy but you know also great is doing box breathing or chigong which is done throughout Asia doing things to help oxygenate oxygenate your body and cells sound I mean just sitting there listening to the sound of waves crash or crickets in the forest or just that stillness when you're walking into nature most of those sound waves are theta sounds now what's interesting is at dawn and dust they're a little bit different they you know it sort of changes versus like an intense storm is more alpha waves there's some deep sleep that you have of the sound of like cicadas at night but these sort of nature therapy of sounds is one of the fastest ways to help regulate our sympathetic and paracetamphatic nerve system that's an amazing therapy my point is this is that biohacking is a it's really should be supplemental this other stuff is food it's like you can take supplements we love those those are great but your diet is way more important than any supplement and and you know there is a there is an a the census came out in Japan like I think it was like eight weeks ago they have 99,500 so almost a hundred thousand centurions in japan this small this island of Japan a hundred thousand people over a hundred years old and the biggest thing that I've noticed is I've studied Japanese culture and maybe you you could share this as well because I know you wrote an amazing book on longevity which you're on my podcast about two age like a girl which which which I'm excited to get into there but you know it's it's really just their rhythms of life yes they're outside a lot they're moving a lot they're not rushing they're they're you know there's an ancient Asian quote and it says wisdom no it's patience is the greatest companion of wisdom so it's like hey do you want to know if somebody's wise or not how patient are they that was that sort of what they call one of the cardinal signs of wisdom and Asia so anyways they're there to your point I think that biohacking can be great can be beneficial especially if it's the winter and it's really not sunny you can use some red light therapy but it doesn't make up for the real thing I am so happy I hope you bring back nature like in that book please bring back nature as the greatest you know healer I so I have an experience with this that just has rocked me after the fires in L.A. I was writing age like a girl and I just needed somewhere where I could just get out of the the mayhem of of everything and finish the book and so I landed here in Santa Cruz and when I got here I had multiple people tell me Mindy the the nature here is very healing let nature heal you go out see the ocean get in the forest so I did every single day I would go and look at the ocean and every single day I'd go in the forest I eventually started surfing I took up surfing two months ago wow yeah at 56 years old and I just plop my board with a friend in the water and now I go out and surf every morning and I go hike every afternoon and I have I like you I have done every supplement I have done every biohack I have done everything I have had every type of therapy on the planet and nothing nothing has changed and rewired my brain by committing to a daily dose of water and forest every single day I am in awe like I'm literally watching my brain rewire to like all the traumas that have ever gone in my life are just like going away and this happy resilient brain is emerging it's amazing you know one interesting thing about the ocean because I know that's where you know you're you're on the coast there yeah there are these organisms in the ocean called bacteria phages and you're probably familiar with phage therapy they of course yeah in certain areas of Asia rather than doing antibiotics but the ocean is the greatest it's the most bacteria phage dense substance on the planet and so you know you have all these sort of natural antibiotics you're exposing yourself that's why it's so great people will say I want the ocean I noticed my skin was really healthy my sinuses were more clear I mean a little bit of that is the salt and what salt does for moving lung she and moving the body but part of it is these phages and these these microorganisms in the ocean they have anti pathogenic effects cleansing effects and so it's the I mean the ocean is just you know incredibly healing yeah and even I started to look into the makeup of salt water and salt water is the same mineral makeup as our blood oh wow wow so it's crazy like when you stop and you look at how nature heals like we've been given the greatest medicine cabinet we just have to get out of our of our homes to go do that so yeah I did not know that about phages and you know I'm sure just to fill the audience in phages were quite in vogue before antibiotics came in and they were actually a more effective antibiotic if we'd stuck really studying phages we would be in a really different place than we are with all the antibiotic use so I didn't know that this is really interesting so so tell me like as we look at these hallmarks if I'm 45 55 years old and I want to be slow the aging process down and have more functionality as I age do we have like a tool box of best practices like you absolutely need to make sure that you're doing these things I think we definitely have put nature in the toolbox but what else would go in that toolbox well let's talk about diet and then maybe we can talk about supplementation and then there's even movement you know would be great to discuss as well you know I think dietarily you know you want to do food so this gets into I'll talk about Chinese medicine here again and then correlate it to to Western they have this thing we call Chi Yin and Yang okay he has really connected to our mitochondria that would be ATP production so so I remember when I first heard some of these words I'm like that sounds out there what is Yin and Yang and and she they're just sort of these ancient medical words in Asia and and she is really again it's your cellular energy that's that's really what it is and boosting cellular energy is incredibly important it's also incredibly important to build the Yin now this is really important for women's hormonal health this is really tied to like when a woman goes through menopause you have the Yin and Yang and this is really tied to progesterone estrogen Yin is responsible for cooling the body and moistening the body and this is why women get hot flashes in Chinese medicine they'll say you have a kidney Yang or a adrenal Yang deficiency or I'm sorry Yin deficiency because when estrogen and progesterone get too low that's really part of what causes the body to not be able to moistening cool itself hence hot flashes in some of the other symptoms so there are food in Chinese medicine for instance that are Yin building foods that bring moisture and coolness like yams and purple sweet potatoes are one great example of that there's also certain seeds like sesame and pumpkin there's you know a lot of these natural progesterone boosters flax seeds or gray of course that's more estrogen those are all Yin those are all Yin producing well a flax is very Yin now now pumpkin seeds because the zinc content probably leans more Yang and so do like pistachios and and some of the others but but you want to actually build both yeah but but those are good and then of course there's the herbs black cohosh is very Yin building where wild yam is is is more of that progesterone supportive but my point there is we want to support Chi we want us to work and we also want to support getting the body enough nutrients to function properly and also eating certain foods that support the detoxification process so like part of me to simplify it longevity is about addressing toxicity deficiency and having enough energy to support both the detoxification and the rebuilding process of of the cells so some of the best foods for those categorically as we talk about cellular energy one surprising one for a lot of people is pomegranates you know pomegranates are a food incredibly high in eligic acid and now and I do want to say this so eligic acid kit is the number one thing that can be converted into something called uralithin A there's actually multiple uralithins there's uralithin BCD and E as well but these are compounds that have been tied to sort of mitochondrial recycling and creating new mitochondria for the cells so so that is really powerful and there are other foods that contain eligic acid really raspberries walnuts and pecans are probably the next highest in certain types of tea herbal tea but but that's a really great food for that and then a lot of the mushrooms would fall into that category as well of cellular energy and then just in addition foods that are going to move the blood like beets like boosting nitric oxide that's also very good for moving cellular energy there as well and then foods that are going to support kind of rebuilding the body you know I think meats but it's specifically organ meats yeah very top of the list I mean I think it's something we just really really missed out on what our ancestors did yeah getting organ meats in fact if somebody would have gone into like an ancient apothecary which is a pharmacy you would have found herb spices mushrooms and organs in glands I mean that's kind of what what you found in there but I think getting more meat more protein those that's more anabolic in nature supporting Yang I think you want to get a lot of good organic meat and then a lot of fruits and vegetables and then there are other things like some healthy fats olive oil is going to be very high on that list and that's going to be great as well but yeah and I think I think you know it's it's interesting I think almost everyone can agree not everyone almost everyone that olive oil is like the perfect oil it's like yeah oil you know just put it on everything I drizzling on every meal yeah yeah and it's like do what the people do they're living a long time it's what they're using in Asia you know price secondary they'll probably use sesame oil but they do use a lot a lot of olive oil and and so I so I think longevity food wise focus on the really nutrient dense foods the pomegranates and the berries are probably at the top of the list yeah focus on the vegetables the green leafies and the cruciferous now if you're eating vegetables I actually believe most of the time they should be steamed or cooked especially cruciferous I mean that's really the big category I don't part of it is due to the goitrogens and that's just the difficult of digestibility of cruciferous that are not cooked but I would say those are are the other category and then and then the wild organic meat the wild caught salmon the grass fed beef and then again you got some of those fats you got again in there but to me those are probably the greatest longevity foods out there yeah it's so and they're not it's not complicated this is what I keep saying to people it's like we've we've complicated health and when you go back and look at some of these ancient strategies it's not complicated one question I have on on that do you care what kind of farm it comes from so if I'm decide I'm going to start to eat more beets or I'm going to get more pomegranates and I'm not paying attention if it's organic non organic yeah if it came from a regenerative like do these things actually matter for the nutrient quality it does but let me also throw out there there is a hierarchy and I also want to also be realistic with everyone's schedule because do your point one of the things I've learned over the years is being a practitioner as I know you've learned it's like I want to give somebody as much as they can handle but I don't want to give them so many things that it's like they just break down under the load of it's like get rid of every last thing and you could only eat these three things from this you know farm and you know that's regenerative organic so so here's what I would say the most important foods for you to buy organic are meat and dairy the it's the most important and the and also and dairy is a whole nother topic but when it comes to meat and and dairy they are if you have a cow and it's eating foods that are low to a genetically modified feed and glyphosate and it's being injected with steroids and growth hormones and it's not fed grass I mean all those things you're you're going to have meat that's sick okay it's going to be higher in omega-6s there's all kinds of issues there so so meat and dairy if you're going to invest in something organic and from a good farm that's number one after that it's really the things that are more related to the dirty dozen it's things that you can't take the peel off for instance a eating eating lettuce organically is more important than eating a pomegranate organically because you're not eating the peel of the pomegranate like the glyphosate isn't typically going to get all the way to the seeds versus it will stay on the outer part of the skin so so it's really not as much of an issue there by the way there is a really good study that was done twice and they found that when you're washing fruits and vegetables if you wash them for one minute with baking soda it got a rid of over 90% of the pesticides one study said 99% the other one said 90 I want to say 7% but so so just one quick easy hack at home baking soda's cheat throw it in there wash your fruits you know keep it in there for 30 seconds to a minute and you're going to get rid of a lot of pesticides that way now there are you know when you can buy locally or regionally yeah the foods are typically more fresh and the longer something gets to the point where it's ripe if it's ripened on the vine rather than ripened on a truck or in a store it's going to be more nutrient dense that's why in Mindy you might have seen there's there's there's a couple studies on showing that frozen berries are more nutrient dense than buying fresh berries I've heard that in fish too better will make cuz they freeze it on the boat that's right so they're immediately freezing it yeah sort of maintaining its nutritional value versus letting it because a lot of fruit you know let's say I'm in here in Tennessee we get we get fruit at some stores from California well by the time it gets here and you eat it sometimes it's two weeks later I'm not getting in the mold issue I mean how many of us have bought and razz berries or blackberries they're molded part of that is the time and then the city that's why if you actually put baking wash those in baking soda they'll last a lot longer too your your berries won't mold as quickly but but yeah so I would say those are some things to consider when it comes to like the import but but but there's no doubt things that are ripe or things that are more local things that are free of you know chemicals are better for us and of course again the more local and fresh it is typically the more new and and the soil is important right I mean yeah right you you've quoted the studies one study found that a lot that quite a few of the produce today is approximately as 40 percent less nutrients I mean that's that's a lot yeah I mean you said no I've heard like you have to eat like 10 heads of broccoli you know compared to your grandma that had a cup of broccoli you know centuries or you know years ago decades ago it's really the nutrient quality and they've even come up with I've where they're trying to come up with a scanner that would scan over your meal and it would actually tell you the nutrient amounts in there oh wow it hasn't come to market yet but we've been following the development of that that's amazing that's amazing yeah remember there's a scanner they can do on humans looking at some of the antioxidant content you know so it makes sense that they could do that with fruit and vegetables I love that yeah that'll be amazing talk talk to me a little bit about toxins because I think that I mean you and I have have both studied under dr. Daniel pompa we've been immersed in detoxing for a very long time and I think we don't think about toxins until we're sick or or or or or we're aging so to what toxins do we need to think about and what are the best practices for getting them out of us yeah yeah yeah and let me say this about toxicity one toxicity is incredibly important I do want to mention though I think for some people you know let me just this is more of a philosophically I see a lot of people that have a toxicity or an infection issue and they just focus on killing the infection or getting rid of the metal via taking some something like a binder I think the first thing people should focus on when it comes to detoxifying is strengthening their own body and internal system and your body will heal into toxify itself so that's just one thing I do want to mention philosophically if you are looking to detoxify is that sometimes you can oh I've had people detox like do to have because their body couldn't handle especially their gut yeah or liver pathway so yeah just think about that so so I would say the biggest sources of toxins are let me throw at it some different categories I'm just kind of doing this on the fly like we have sort of metabolic toxins in a way you know I think about sugar today like sugar is a metabolic toxin and it's overburdening your pancreas in your liver that that's causing a major issue right so so so you have these metabolic toxins like sugar we have environmental toxins of course I'm going to throw you know pesticides on that list too along with many others of course again glyphosate is the most referenced one probably for a lot of people you know there's several studies showing the glyphosate really has creates major alterations to the gut microbiome of killing good bacteria and altering that gut flora so I think that's a that that's one to be noted of course we have heavy metals that that's another category that people need to be careful of but I think the biggest exposure and then one other that people typically don't throw in but I think well let me throw two more in infections can act as toxins to the body whether I mean mold is kind of that borderline one but mold would be a case of that but even lime and different types of viral infections and then the last one here we don't need to get into this much but part part of it also is like toxic thoughts oh yeah oh yeah you know there are a lot of people and listen I understand why but if you're living with a victim mentality or you're beating up yourself and you might find this interesting in in Chinese medicine they would say a big root of autoimmune disease is negative self-talk if you're verbally abusing yourself or mentally abusing it's like why did I do that I'm no good if you have really low self-esteem and you're always beating yourself up because what's happening in autoimmunity is your body is attacking itself its own tissues and there's also a new type of medicine people may have heard it's not that new but German new medicine that's also taking a look and glance at this as well there's another book on this but the body keeps score but there's all these ideas around sort of our mental spiritual and emotional health really impacting our physical health and they even say things like unforgiveness is like like you think you're hurting the other person but it's like drinking your own poison right so I do think that's the other toxin to look at but when it comes to detoxification what I encourage people to do is number one let's strengthen your own system there are foods that do that yeah it's gonna say tell it teach walk us through those foods yeah yeah so so I you know first and foremost we talked about this earlier like there are foods that are more anabolic like meat and there foods that are more catabolic which is autophagy which this that your lysosomes in your cells are really what's responsible for cellular detoxification is those lysosomes but but you know vet vegetables are the best for that okay and they're going to be at the very top along with certain herbals so so vegetables cruciferous vegetables we all know this but you know the liver is very important for hormonal health it really helps us with balancing out estrogen levels for instance so that's really important in the green leafies a lot of the chlorophyll the magnesium those nutrients be vitamins are very good for the liver detoxification pathways but vegetables number one my my favorite fruit this might surprise some people when it comes to detoxification because it's just so basic are apples apples an apple a day there's something to that yeah you know apples are really high in pectin in pectin is a natural binder now citrus pectin has gotten more popularity due to some studies on I think on cancer and that is beneficial too but apple pectin is a natural binder in cleanser of the colon and and so really apples are really really good to talk to fire along with a lot of other fruit again I would say blueberries are great we talked about pomegranates a little bit sour soptus is one that's maybe not too popular has anti cancer benefits and cellular cleansing benefits but but I would just say apples would be so it's vegetables it's apples liver I mean eating organ meter like heals like yeah yeah yeah so that's not Chinese so so you said it so like like like supports like is a Chinese another one Chinese medicine principle that if you want to support an organ eat an organ or if you want to support an organ eat a food that looks like that organ so you want to support your blood eat beats you want to support your eyes eat carrots that that sort of ideal but yeah liver I mean and you know another yeah liver would be the top one for for overall detoxification I mean there are some other good ones though as well now this is a little bit more leaning immune system thymus gland has been used for many years for boosting the immune system and for immune detoxification and support but I would say liver fruits and vegetables you know it's interesting about that if you've heard of I know you of course you've heard of it but your audience of gershant therapy you know max gershant his original protocol was basically vegetable juices fruit specifically apples yeah and raw beef liver in the same drink or did he do them separate well so it changed over the years he started off with with juicing liver so it was actually liver juice and then they started doing it raw and then later on it was steamed and then later on some of the vegans got in there and they're like no liver can't be on here after he died and then they eventually brought it back and they did desiccated liver tablets on the on the on the therapy but but yeah actually actually liver and listen if you just don't like the taste to liver you can buy desiccated liver tablets or capsules that are still really beneficial and then I would say you know probably wild caught fish like salmon you know that those amegas are incredibly powerful of course they're just reducing inflammation but also at healing the cell membrane that's a part of detoxification that's important egg yolks are also great they're really high in these phospholipids that are great because your cells all that outer membrane is made of a mixture of about 90% of it is fat and protein and so and that really a lot you want and that allows things to pass in and out of the cells like oxygen and nutrients and some other things so so getting the healthy fats the fruits the vegetables and some of the organic meat especially like liver high in the B vitamins I think those are probably the best detoxifying foods yeah that was brilliant so well said and you know as you were talking I was thinking like my brain completely lines up with what you're saying and why would we rather reach for a supplement why would we rather reach for a medication why would we rather just take our chance with some horrific chronic disease that is going to really affect the quality of our life and may end our life earlier then to actually list what you just talked about like take right it all down and go to the market and make sure that on a regular basis you are getting that like why is that so difficult now I'm sure you're wondering the same thing but you have yeah so I don't understand why we don't lean into that well I think part of it it almost goes back to what you pointed out earlier is this sort of you know when we look at Asian culture and we gratify wisdom and gray hair and age in the wisdom that comes with it you know that that that's something going on culturally I think in America when you look at what people what most people would put in the place of God or worship it's it's it's money it's economics and the other thing is speed so I think in in American culture it's about finance like it's about monetary gain and how fast can I do it and so part of that puts your health on on a back burner I mean there's no doubt when you go to Asia and by the like the recent statistics on America's overall health is they're ranking around number 70 oh yeah we're horrible I mean I mean that's it's in Japan's like one or two and so when you're just comparing it in Japan one they're taking more time when they eat they're eating more whole they're eating more whole meals it's not everything's about speed if everything's about speed you're gonna do a door to ask every meal you're gonna do fast food you're gonna do ultra-process foods and if that's a if that's a bigger you know priority you know it's interesting you bring up the speed thing I really love that and and I know you do that you fast I can tell you that the more fasting I do the less hangry I am so I when I look at a meal and between fasting and eating very much like you were you were talking about I never get in that place that I'm so hungry that I need food ASAP or I'm gonna pass out or I'm gonna kill somebody yeah so I think there's like tied into that is this metabolic dysfunction from all the ultra-processed foods and so now all the sun's speed of getting the food to my door becomes incredibly important because I can't go long periods without food yeah yeah yeah I think I think you're totally right yeah there are yeah there are numerous benefits of you just cutting down that eating window you know yeah yeah and fasting there as well but yeah yeah it's funny yeah when I was younger yeah if I didn't have a meal I was so cranky today I could miss a meal and just not even you know hardly know all the time all the time like I was traveling the other day and I was like when am I gonna get food and I thought I don't think until I get home tonight okay that was fine it wasn't it wasn't a panic so yeah so I think that like the crazy thing and I'm sure you go there in your mind the more I study this the more I'm like oh this is a problem and this is a problem and this is a problem and they're all like mesh together and this is why we're number 70 because our culture doesn't support health it's not just a food die issue or you know you know whatever like there's so much more to it and you just brought up a really good point yeah yeah well again you know like I was I am a again I know everybody has different opinions on this I was very happy when RFK got in because he's trying to do some things at more line with what I've hoped we would do in the whole house space for a while but but yeah listen food dies you know they can cause some minor issues now for a few few small select people they can cause major issues like I've worked with so many kids with ADHD and there's no doubt when we got rid of food dies and some of the things we saw improvements of course but the ultra-process food the sugars and the heavily processed oils I mean those those are again just the overconsumption of processed carbs I mean that's the that's the single biggest problem and in that's you know that's the mainstay of the American diet and for sure but people are getting better but then you know and and I want to move on to movement here in a second but again the complexity of the problem because yes like the focus of cleaning up our food system that RFK is putting his attention on is beautiful but meanwhile Trump is overturning pesticide laws and glyphosate is there's no regulation of how do we square those two well you know I think you know when it comes to Robert of Kennedy I have the opportunity to go to DC and meet with some people and be somewhat involved over there and and he's doing it I'll just say he is doing a really great job he is working tirelessly part of the problem is there's so many things he wants to change I mean there's so many things and then you still have these the donor and just to be quite frank I don't think you know Donald Trump is he doesn't know what Robert of Kennedy knows he's not as educated and so yeah you know it's just I think that I think that's part of the problem there's certain certain things like when he came out we had the whole thing about Tylenol and yeah and so it's just not his equity well and so and we'll move on to exercise but that but I do think this is a really interesting it's the nuance this is what like I keep trying to train people we've got to think about health you need an ethos you need a formula to think about health because it's multifaceted and so I think one of the things that is is difficult is that the acetaminophen I like you I really I worked with a lot of kids that were normal one day and then they went and got a new set of vaccines and the next day the parent came into my office and said they're not talking yeah I witnessed that right before my eyes yeah but that didn't happen with every child that didn't happen with every child so with the acetaminophen thing that was so interesting is like yeah you could follow the science I watched what a lot of people said but it's not there's not a one-to-one connection here and what and I think that's where the media took it and it and it ties into what we're talking about on longevity that this is why you can't just do one bio hack or start eating beets on a regular basis or add in organ meat every day there's a there's a there's a system an ecosystem that of health that once you learn how to click into it you start to see that health becomes very effortless yeah and you and I our patients are following we've clicked into it but we got to get out of the one one-to-one thoughts well well and to your point you know I was I was we were talking about darshan char earlier and he was on my podcast and we were we're having this conversation and and it was that you know what makes a really good health practitioner like somebody that I would send my family to and it's someone like you and it's this it's that I'm creating something personalized just for you because you're a unique being there's no one else like you on the earth and this is why it drives me crazy when you have doctors who are like I'm on the like solely I'm not talking about just hey this I use this with some patients but everyone needs to be keto everyone needs to be carnival everyone needs to be vegan it's like and I learned this via partly Chinese medicine it's that no everybody use it needs a unique protocol and I learned this early on in practice because it's like I would have a patient coming with inflammatory bowel disease yep and I realized early on oh I can't have them eat salads like they need to eat all cooked food lots of soups yeah ginger herbal tea that's for that person but I'd have someone come to cancer and it's like well I'm gonna do some raw food and and so you know very very different diets and so I think that what people also need to understand is just because your friend did yeah hard of war whatever doesn't mean that's the best diet for you like you're very and you know this because you take care of so many women hormonally and that can be so different especially between you know you know you know pre menopause post menopause I mean those changes monthly psych I mean there are women's hormones also make it so much different even times even sometimes eating different foods on different days of the month you got it yep as you've taught so so I do think one of the things that I want to encourage people to do and I think this comes with supporting your longevity is is trying to cultivate greater physiological awareness greater awareness of how your body's responding to different foods and different things and seeing what works for you and and and and and I think that's important that's not to say that you know most people can't really benefit from salmon and extra virgin olive oil and blueberries right I think there are food that most people can benefit from but also when you're eating certain things really continue to just try and fine tune and notice what you know what's going to work for you and your your your unique biology yeah that's so well said okay talk to me about movement because I can tell you the other thing that I saw in my clinical practice was that these women who were high performers exercising all the time Spartan racer crossfitters they would come in with these injuries and that never went away and I'll never forget like arguing with a 50 year old cross fitting woman that I was like you have to stop cross fitting and she's like no I'm not going to and so she kept in injury yourself so in age like a girl I brought forward the idea that we need to change our exercise as we age we need to look at this very different so I'm very curious of your opinion of aging through the lens of longevity yeah yeah I know we're gonna line here as well so just literally yesterday I was in the gym here here in Nashville and there's a woman there she's probably 39 going on I'll be about 4 39 40 and I was having a conversation with her and she wants to have another baby and she's training for a marathon and then I see her in the gym working out an hour and a half a day that's not counting her running and she's like you know I noticed from all my symptoms I think I self diagnosed myself with endometriosis okay and and I'm like well like it's you really have a choice like either you can really I know we can get you really healthy and you can have a baby or oh no there's what she told me afterwards she's like they have the marathons in two weeks but then I was thinking about doing a half iron man and I was like I'm like oh I'm like there's really a choice here like you know in terms of what you want to do okay because you know half iron man training at 40 years old with your body already depleted with these symptoms and train of a baby I'm like it's you know it's so all that being said a lot of people are doing types of exercise that are they're aging exercise oh well said yeah what we know this because you and I have taught that's for so long but long distance cardio is at the very very top of the list you know it's really hard on your gut it's really hard on your immune system it's hard on everything your hormones cortisol stay in higher so yeah that's not the right type of exercise the other thing is to the point the crossfit when you are doing like exercise to where you're failing constantly for speed when your muscles fail let me everyone does this to think about this when you go till failure with your muscles what has to take over once your muscle fails your ligaments your tendons the actual connective tissue your joint so anytime you go to the point to where you're beyond failure you're injuring your ligaments and tendons and connective tissue and if you're doing it for speed there's zero percent chance you're doing it in proper form the entire time yeah and and so I really encourage like at this point Mindy when I go to gym it's about functional thinness yeah I do a lot of weight training but I'm doing like lunges in a way that a physical therapist really showed me how to move my body and spine and keeping my back you know in a very specific position I'm doing body weight squats with maybe kettlebells I mean there I so I'm doing things because I want to be active when I'm a hundred years old yeah like I'm exercising for longevity right now so I love that thank you for bringing that up my 80 89 year old dad he's 89 and about five years ago he had to have knee replacement and so I went over to his house after the surgery and I was trying to help him out of the chair and he couldn't lift himself out of the chair he couldn't do like a tricep dip basically is what it was and so I told him when we got done I was like once you're healed you're going to start doing tricep dips because what happens if you end up on the ground like how are you going to get up and I think we don't tend to think about that at like 40 or 50 like it all like our are you know hopefully we're not as obsessed with how we're looking in the mirror although we always want you to like what you see when that's coming back at you but functionality needs needs to be the thing like we need to double down on that the other thing I want to say that I don't know if you did you see this 80 year old woman who just ran an iron man this was like this weekend I think I just saw the caption on social media I didn't read up on it at all but so I sat there and I was like okay so I know everything I've studied about post men apostle women you have the capability to do that but that's not good that is not good for I mean like I want to know what like you said what are the other costs of her being able to do an iron man yeah so it's it's it's really interesting I'd really think our movement needs to change when we age yeah yeah and and and you just said something I think that's so important for people and this is wisdom we talked about wisdom earlier wisdom is knowing what the trade-offs and the costs are because I see people doing this all the time saying you should do this you should do this okay but what is it going to cost you because you know you going out and doing an iron man triathlon is it going to cost you your knee health maybe now you're not going to walk three years earlier because of the the amount of damage you did by all the trade because it's not just doing the iron man it's the training you did for the iron man and listen that's an amazing feat I think we could all look at that and say what that's incredible of course yeah but but with that just be aware and listen as long as you know the cost if you feel like that that that that cost is worth it but but I do think people need to learn to to more the because listen I injured myself I'll tell you just a quick story and then I'd love to touch on some more exercise principles I learned so much about longevity because of this exact same thing we're talking about now I 10 years ago did CrossFit for a year and by the way I'm not built to do CrossFit like I did triathlons I mean I'm I'm I'm fairly fit but I'm a little bit more like like thinner wrists and in midsection and things like most of people doing CrossFit and Olympic lifting they're like small like like very short really stocky people and so when I did this like I was doing cleans for again this is so done I can't I'm embarrassed even saying it I'm doing cleans Olympic lifts for time in CrossFit and listen it was fun but I ended up really pulling something in my back really bad and then a couple weeks later I was lifting and I heard a pop oh no and and this was 10 years ago and I I herniated my L405 and L5S1 discs and I had pain I was in bed for two weeks couldn't move major pain and many for years years I suffered with just terrible chronic back pain finally and I tried yeah I tried so many things to get well fit PT, chiropractic, red light I mean you name it and then I got turned on the stem cell therapy and I went and got stem cell done I they pulled from my own bone marrow re-injected it so natural procedure and I felt like 70% better I was like wow this is really like amazing and then a few this is about three years ago and I was about 95% better okay but I just had this little nagging issue left I thought I'm gonna get it done again why went in and chop my wife and I were in Puerto Rico at the time got the injection done again natural my own stem cells but something went wrong and I felt worse and worse and worse to the point where I had to wear a back brace and I thought gosh what's going finally you got some point I could barely get out of bed then one day I woke up I could not get out of bed the pain was so excruciating wow I had to call an ambulance they came and picked me up brought me to the hospital took an MRI got the report back so I had a spinal infection in my disc in my bone my entire LFI pervertive brop was infected and there was an abscess growing by my spinal cord of it the infection it was called osteomyitis so I had to get on a flight from Puerto Rico a private plane like flew me like in a gurney they put me in a gurney flew me there I met with an infectious disease doc and he said Josh he said listen I'm gonna be honest with you he said this could kill you it's spread so far he said most likely you're gonna be permanently disabled he said well to put rods in your spine and he said your best case scenario is you're gonna for chronic pain every day and you'll be the first person to know when battle weather goes through that's what he told me word for word and I had about 24 to 48 hours were honestly many I I felt like my life was over I thought oh my like just how could this happen like how did we get here yeah yeah so I mean it was just this one in like literally one and half a million chance I look statistically that you could get an infection with this sort of thing so and and I and again I I was it was such a mental and spiritual battle but then I just had this sense of common piece of doing you know what I can't control the outcome but I can do everything I can to heal and so I read a study on hyperbaric chambers and all kinds of things diet and all these sort of therapies so I started getting a hyperbaric chamber for two hours a day every day because there's a study that said you can cut down your antibiotic time by like 75% yeah they were telling me I'd have to be on antibiotics for three months I got on them for four weeks and then I started doing like you know these IVs of you know methylene blue and gents and silver and ozone and all kinds of things and the only thing I I pretty much ate wild salmon and berries and steam vegetables like that was the the majority of my diet and I went through this whole program for healing now here's a crazy part the disc and the bone in those areas have almost no blood supply so I didn't walk for for 10 months on my own and then two months on a walker so I didn't walk on my own for a year four year this is just two and a half years ago most people didn't know I went through this and and I just kept doing everything I could and you know what I read at the time all I just kept reading how do I regenerate cells how do I support cellular regeneration and radical like you know radical healing of areas and and that's why I was in the hyperbaric chamber I was doing everything I can to drive blood flow and oxygen to my disc hmm it's beautiful and so I did this and I'm excited to say after a year of not walking I was able to start walking again now I'm back to 100 percent I don't have pain every day I don't have any pain I'm able to you know I'm lifting weights I'm throwing my two year well my two year old daughter in the air in the pool you know seven feet in the air she loves that you know working out and I feel great you know I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life but a big part of it was really studying cellular regeneration and cellular healing and what do I need to do you know is everything from the dietary protocol to things like the hyperbaric chamber to my mindset and believing in knowing like activating the placebo effect I mean the placebo effect is amazing I mean when you look at it yeah so so I yeah I went back and read about this and started writing about it but you know during I think it was World War One they were giving the fallen soldiers morphine and they ran out and these are I mean these are men that have lost they lost limbs I mean the excruciating pain well the physician when they ran out he told the nurse he said listen we got to give him something fill that with saline solution and just inject him and tell him it's morphine tell him yeah the crazy part is 40% of those soldiers had the same pain relief as if they were getting morphine yeah and to think that our brains can create these neurochemicals that have the same pain relieving power as the most powerful pain relieving drug or morphine that's really amazing and so I just started reading and thinking about like I would visualize myself you know running and swimming and playing with my two daughters and doing all these things I really think that was an important part of me healing as well there's some great you've probably see Bruce Lipton right like oh yeah no I did see a lot of Bruce's work I went back and read his book and like biology belief and like I really sort of activated and started seeing myself like you know young and youthful and I think that was a part of my my healing healing as well you know what I'm thinking as I that was quite a story and and thank you for sharing it I you know I was intimately connected to dr. Pampa in his group for many years and I heard I had heard that you were hurting and I never heard the complete story so it's really interesting to hear it from your mouth but what I mean what I'm thinking about is going back to these environments that we put ourselves in these the way in which we approach taking care of this human frame that we're blessed to walk around in and you know there's this I think you and I would both agree that what we think is health and the path to health is actually probably the opposite so like everybody would think CrossFit is a very healthy thing to do but look at what happens when you do it to an extreme yeah yeah and and then when you went to go heal what I heard in that is there was another environment you put yourself in so you took yourself out of one environment and you put yourself in a different environment and perhaps that sums like everything you and I teach up is like where what environments are you putting yourself in because you can't heal in the same environment that made you sick it's just not possible I love that you're saying this dr. Mitty because I mean by the way these this is the philosophical difference between Western conventional medicine and functional medicine slash ancient forms of medicine like like TCM it's the difference and one was Lewis Pasteur who created pasteurization and germs create disease so we got to kill the germs versus Antoine Bacchamp who said no it's your environment and he used the word terrain we have to change the terrain which is kind of like our bodies are a garden in order for a flower or a plant or anything to grow we need really good soil we need water we need like again it's an environment as you're sharing and this same principle holds true like if if you know if I have a patient come in with let's say a hormonal issue like hypothyroidism my entire mindset is how do I change that environment that's one of the things herbs do you know in Chinese medicine they would say hypothyroidism is a chi and yang deficiency so it's a it's a issue where you don't have enough cellular energy and it's an issue where your body's not anabolic enough well how do we fix that well ashwagandha is a chi and anabolic herb so does rodeo or rozea what are some of the nutrients needed to change the environment well we need selenium and we need certain methylated B vitamins and we need you know even like BPC157 or TUN5 made like some of these peptide like like so creating a a protocol and to your point you said this earlier it's typically not one thing it's not one pill or one food it's a protocol of the right foods right herbs like right lifestyle adjustments and sometimes therapies they get your body in an environment where it's watered it's got sunlight it's got nutrients in the soil so now you can reverse that medical condition you can heal in the same principles true for for for longevity so you know it again now you got me thinking on deeper stuff so I did actually a presentation to my whole patient base on the differences between vitalism and and that infectious disease approach like is it the infection or is it the host and I went in and looked at bochomp and pastore and compared them and what most people don't know is that prior to the penicillin being discovered we didn't know if there was if it was the host or the infection that was the problem and what happened in this controversy was we went into a pandemic which we all now have a personal experience with this and so we went into the Spanish flu pandemic and then everybody was like oh wait it must be the infection not the host and then two years after we came out of that that pandemic penicillin was created and all of a sudden that was the hero of the moment and so the whole health conversation around 1920 dramatically changed because of the pandemic and the influx of or this discovery of penicillin and we have not moved from that place yeah it's insane but part of the problem with our whole medical system is is that we are trying to it's not health care its disease care we're trying to use a system that should be used for emergencies for for health care in fact I think primary care what people call primary care today really should be secondary care if you're sick the first thing you should do or not if you're sick just generally on a regular basis the people you should be seeing as a doctor of functional medicine or somebody who is recommending dietary changes and lifestyle changes and herbs and vitamins in those things and then if you do that for years and you still have a problem well now maybe we do some pharmaceutical intervention if there's an emergency but outside of that that's really what the the whole system should should look like yeah yeah agreed well I could talk I could talk to you for hours and you know I'd love I love what we co-created here now I'm actually thinking more just about the ecosystems and environments that we put us in and that that's the real that's healing us or just or building disease it's as simple as that so yeah and I and again like in like really truly like I'm an admiration of you started a health movement on social media and I watched it and you get credit for it I know you're not asking for credit for it but so many of us are standing in our social media platforms because you were the first to go out and really bring all of this to the world so I just I have to thank you for that because you deserve you deserve every accolade you can possibly get for that and I really appreciate it so how do people find you where do they find your work yeah well one thanks for the kind words one you can check out my podcast yeah I cover a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of great topics again I'm Dr. Mindy I know you're coming on here as well so that's on YouTube it's on Apple Spotify but it's just the Dr. Josh Act show and then you also find me on social media is Dr. Josh Acts I'm really active on Instagram and YouTube probably more than anywhere I'm pretty active on Facebook too so those are some of the best places to find me and again thanks so much for having me on I love talking to like my own physicians who are also like yours just you're doing amazing things in the world and and so thanks thanks again for having me on Dr. Mindy yeah yeah thank you Josh thank you so much for joining me in today's episode I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you if you enjoyed it we'd love to know about it so please leave us a review share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is