Dr. Michael Greger - How Not to Age - ENCORE

Dr. Michael Greger talks about his new book, How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older. Getting older does not have to mean getting sicker. There are eleven pathways for aging in our bodies' cells and we can avoid all of them. Whether you're a long-time fan of Dr. Greger, or you've never heard of him; you won't want to miss this. We got a little personal with him and he was candid, open, and sassy!

Want to get in touch with the show, send us an email at lauren@agelikeabadassmother.com, we'd love to hear from you!

Transcript

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Hi, friends. Lauren here. This week we have an encore presentation from season one with Lisa Rice, and we are interviewing Doctor Michael Greger about his latest book, How Not to Age. There are 11 pathways for aging in your body's cells, and we can avoid all of them. And if you are familiar with Doctor Greger, you're not going to want to miss this because it's like you've never heard him before. We actually get him to open up about his personal life. So stay tuned for that. And, feel free to drop me a line at Lauren at age like a badass mother.com. And I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. And if you're enjoying the podcast, please share with a friend. Thanks, guys. I'm Lauren and I'm Lisa, and we're flipping the script about growing older. Our guests have been influencers since before that was even a thing. Welcome to the anti Anti-Aging podcast. Welcome to age like a badass mother. Today's guest, Doctor Michael Greger, is a badass in the world of nutrition and lifestyle medicine. He is a graduate of Cornell and Tufts University School of Medicine, and a founding member and fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. He is a physician and sought after speaker, has presented at the Conference on World Affairs and the world Bank, and acclaimed author his books How Not to Die, How Not to Die Cookbook and How Not to Diet became instant New York Times bestsellers. More than a million copies of How Not to Die have been sold. Doctor Gregor feels like an old friend. Both Lauren and I have referenced his videos regularly for years. His research, knowledge and humor have us addicted to his nonprofit portal Nutrition facts.org, which scours the scientific literature to cut through the hype to provide free, evidence based, life saving information for all. He is our go to for anything regarding nutrition and health. If you geek out over health facts and the minutia of nutrition like we do, or simply want to show up at your holiday family gathering with hard data to defend your Plant-Based lifestyle, then Doctor Michael Greger is your man. His newest mindblowing book is How Not to Age and certain to show us all how to age like a badass mother. Welcome, Doctor Greger, we're honored to have you here. I'm so excited to be here. Oh my gosh, this book is just 13,000 citations. Like, I'm going to be very old by the time I am going to live to be over 100 by the time I absorb all the information in this book. Well, a little little light poolside beach reading. What's the problem? That's. I texted her the other night. I'm like a little light reading before bed. So there's so many, like, incredible takeaways from this book and just in general, unless you're a jellyfish, we're all going to die. But the goal is to die young. As old as possible, as you say. And that's precisely what this podcast is about. And it's not surprising that the 11 pathways to aging can be regulated by diet. So, as we know from your other books, diet, exercise, adequate sleep, I loved where you talked about how there's not enough time for you to sleep, which I thought was interesting because that's one of our questions. When do you sleep? And one of our favorites, of course, staying sexually active. So yeah, maybe we can start with. I'm sure you've practiced the quick snack synopsis. Anti-aging. Eight. Sure. This is a, kind of an actionable checklist to complement my daily doesn't specifying, you know, particular foods like nuts, greens, berries, the potential to offer some of the best opportunities to slow aging and improve longevity? Happy to go into any of them. The Daily Dozen is something that we we definitely live by. I don't think there were really any surprises with it. The anti-aging eight. But Loren and I were talking about, you know, confirmation bias and and why is it that to this day, you know, we both work in the field? I'm a health coach. And Loren just coaching also. And even with all this information and people like you sharing this incredible information and data and facts, there's still an obsession with not enough protein, fear of carbohydrate. Soy is going to give me cancer. Can you would you mind addressing that for our listeners? Because we, you know, our demographic, we definitely want to get that message across. Yeah. You know, that's one of the reasons that I wrote this book is to really cut through the noise and nonsense. You know, reminded me, actually, my last book on weight loss, you know, both dieting and anti aging are multi billion dollar industry. And with so much money in the mix right. Seeking even basic practical advice in either arena, living longer or lighter you know is you know you're just faced with an inscrutable barrage of pills and potions. I mean, look, even as a physician with the luxury of waiting neck deep through the medical literature, it's been a challenge to tease out facts from force. And look, if it took me three years to sift through the science, then I'm afraid the casual observer would just have, you know, no chance. But of course, the more difficult it was, the more valuable I knew it could be to people. And the good news is we have tremendous power over our health and destiny. Longevity. The vast majority of premature death in this body is preventable with a healthy enough die in lifestyle. Okay, so let's talk about the diet and lifestyle for a minute. So maybe we don't have to weigh deep into every, you know, all eight and the Daily Dozen people can kind of look that up for themselves. You've talked about it a lot, but there are some things that are standouts. Beans, nuts. I love it. Can you talk about the things that are green standouts? The leafy greens, the strawberries, mushrooms? Yeah yeah yeah yeah. And just in terms of anti-aging foods, according to the Global Burden of Disease study, the largest systemic analysis of risk factors in human history, the largest life expectancy gains will be made by eating more legumes, which are beans, split peas, chickpeas and lentils. So if there's one thing we should boost in our diet, it's beans or lentil soup or hummus. This is presumed to be because they're the most concentrated source of prebiotics, like fiber and resistant starch, which feed the probiotic good bacteria in our gut, like Lactobacillus in this list to make beneficial post biotics like butyrate and acetate, which can reduce inflammation, boost immunity, and improve muscle strength in frail individuals. So legumes rule the roost and kind of a per serving basis low on an ounce per ounce basis. Nuts are actually associated with the lowest risk of premature death compared to any other food group. So I recommend a palm full of walnuts a day. Dark green leaves make it into my anti-aging eight is the vegetable most associated with a longer lifespan? The nitrates and greens can improve age related declines in muscle and artery function, slower metabolic rate, and the sulforaphane in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli can improve immune function, boost the detox enzymes in our liver and airways. Berries, or in their place. It's the fruit most associated with a longer lifespan. I talked about the benefits of almost dried Indian gooseberry powder and the bright, colorful anthocyanin pigments in berries, thought to account for their benefits for cognitive function, eyesight, inflammation, blood sugar, artery control, artery function, cholesterol. Though they do get cleared from our bloodstream within about six hours. So I recommend having, you know, dosing every meal with berries so it makes a perfect dessert. Or with hibiscus tea, which has the same kind of anthocyanins or savory sources, such as purple cabbage or purple sweet potatoes. And the rest of the anti-aging aid includes boosting levels of an enzyme cofactor called NAD, something I've seen the whole Mrs. microRNAs caloric restriction, protein restriction and methionine restriction was probably the most single most important thing we can do. I thought that was really interesting, the methionine restriction, because again, the obsession with protein and if we're eating the right amount of calories, then we're not going to over consume the methionine is something that you referenced in the book, but that I thought it was interesting, though, that, hormone cancers that are more prone to hormones, even high amounts of plant based protein can can be effects that you have for IGF one. So insulin like growth factor and if you have high enough protein intake doesn't matter whether it's plant or animal protein. Only at reasonable intakes do you actually get that, plant based benefit. Yeah. Basically, when it comes to protein aging, less may be more. Reducing protein intake, meaning restricting protein intake down to recommended levels. So the only thing I could find that can actually block how block all 11 of the aging pathways. Turns out, there's no benefit for adding extra protein in the diet of older men and women. Turns some muscle mass, muscle strength, or muscle performance. Instead, the excess protein most Americans get causes a drop in the pro longevity hormone called FGF 21 drop in testosterone, a worsening of the age accelerating enzyme torso. We should strive to stick to the recommended, point eight grams per healthy kilogram body weight, which comes out to be about, 45g a day for the average high woman, 55g a day for the average men. Then reducing down to about 1g/kg after age 65. Yeah. You know, we we just spoke to Doctor Clapper and he, he reiterated that very same thing about if you're getting enough calories, you're getting enough protein. And there's no need to add protein as we get older. But I thought another interesting aging tip is the the calorie restriction. Can you talk about that a little bit? Because I think that's something that really intimidates people. And in my mind, if it's even just the minimal restriction of not eating after a certain time or eating before a certain time can be beneficial, can you address that? For the average person who maybe doesn't want to do intermittent fasting? Yeah, sure. A caloric restriction without malnutrition. One of the most powerful and non-pharmacological interventions for extending Healthspan lifespan across a number of species, in part by boosting Ampk, which is an anti-aging pathway in autophagy or reducing an IGF one, this, pro aging, enzyme and hormone. So simply reducing food intake can double or triple the lifespan of yeast, fruit flies, worms prolong the average and, and maximum lifespan of rats and mice by up to 50%. But, it's interesting the lives of most animals is actually not prolonged by caloric restriction. Even the most strains of mice tested. In terms of humans, we do have the calorie study, the largest, longest running study, randomizing people to caloric restriction, found that even a 12% drop in caloric intake can result in a variety of physiological, psychological aging benefits. And so this like, you know, 250 calories on 2000 calorie diet. So it's just like skipping a piece of pie or something every day and have all these benefits. Though it's not clear whether the benefits are due to loss of excess body fat and or the concurrent improvements in dietary quality that they saw in that study. But, you know, we can we can calorie restrict simply by switching to healthier, less calorie dense foods rather than eating smaller portions so you can actually more foods and get less calories by switching to healthy whole plant foods, which tend to be very plant based diet. There we go. And that's why okay based diets have been found to be the most powerful weight loss intervention ever documented in a peer reviewed medical literature that didn't enforce exercise or or person restriction. Nothing has worked better in 12 months, according to the broad study in New Zealand. And then I put you say fiber is anti-inflammatory and saturated fat is pro inflammatory. Yes, indeed. So this inflammation is one of the, aging pathways. I talk about. Aging kind of can be thought of as an inflammatory disease, a blood test for inflammatory markers. So C-reactive protein can, predict physical and cognitive performance as well as remaining lifespan in elderly individuals. Thankfully, access inflammation can be extinguished through changes in diet. So that's eating lower on the dietary inflammatory index. And so what does that mean? That means, you know, avoiding pro-inflammatory food components saturated fat, endotoxins, D5, GC, sodium, and so minimizing intake of meat, dairy, tropical oils, and salt. You know, one lousy breakfast can double our C-reactive protein within four hours before it's even lunchtime and then go out of our way to eat foods that are anti-inflammatory, such as legumes, beans, green sodium free tomato juice and tomato paste, oats, flaxseed, turmeric, ginger, garlic, cinnamon, cocoa powder, dill, green and camomile tea, and other fiber rich, anthocyanin rich and salicylic acid rich foods. And I talk about all of that in the information chapter. Yeah, it's all in the book and it's all just incredible information. I found autophagy to be, especially fascinating. And one of the things that you always say is that the body has this incredible capacity to heal itself. Would you say autophagy is a big part of that? Can you explain that to people? What that means? Our body's ability to sort of clean house. Yeah, it's kind of our internal housekeeping process. The primary system for cleaning the body from the inside out to clearing away accumulated cell are debris that may that may contribute to the aging process. And so there's some food components that suppress autophagy, like acrylamide, which is a toxin formed during the frying process, concentrate on potato chips and French fries. Whereas other food components like chlorogenic acid, the antioxidant coffee and sperm eating can actually help our cells take out the trash. So to help boost this anti-aging pathway, I. I encourage readers to consider on a daily basis 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic activity when needed, fast to boost autophagy, but rather go fast by exercising though 20 minutes fails to move the needle. But 60 minutes of moderate intensity exercises brisk walking does, minimizing your intake of French fries and potato chips, trying to get at least 20mg of sprinting a day by incorporating foods into your diet, such as tempeh mushrooms, peas and wheat germ, as well as drinking three cups a day of regular or decaf coffee. Do you really walk 14 miles a day on your treadmill? Not when I'm on interviews that I'm actually on my treadmill now, but I've got complaints. I make people seasick, so I should be walking right now. We wanted to do this on our stationary bikes, but we thought we might have a little trouble focusing. We thought for sure, you know, I wish I am on the treadmill, but I can't. It's not. It's not going to bother us. All right, that's it. We're doing it. You're doing it. Okay. Oh, here we go. You guys. I can't thank you enough as we hoped for this man, doctor Greger walks 14 miles a day at a very slow pace. Just just on, you know, while he's interviewing, while he's working, you can't see it, but he's going to start right here. All right, let's do this. I have a question about nuts going back to nuts because I did. So I did the prevent reverse heart disease and program for six years and actually reversed my heart disease. And I didn't eat any nuts. Thank you. I didn't eat any nuts for six years. But now that I have proof that I have reverse disease, I feel like I want to have nuts and I use them in the form of because I feel like I want to have it, because it will help me stick to this lifestyle. I want some damn fat in my life, and the way I use the nuts is I make a nut or a seed source to put over my green leafy vegetables and ribbon. Is that is that okay, or is there a problem with breaking it? Yeah. Do it. Yeah. Whole foods, are you nuts? Seeds. Number of seed butters and avocados do. Okay. What? Do what? I just wanted to make sure breaking it up in the Vitamix, like, breaking the cell walls wasn't a problem with that. I mean, it's better to eat whole, but. But better to eat blended than none. Okay, because I feel like it's my spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down on my. I encourage people to to palm for walnuts every day in my and how not to age. Okay well and also Lauren, like we've talked about, you reversed your heart disease, but you learned that you've got the DNA for Alzheimer's in your family. And so that was another question about the benefits. But not but I also have completely clear carotid arteries. I mean, I've had a lot of testing, and I feel like the diet I'm doing for my heart is the diet you do for Alzheimer's, right? It's the same thing for our heart. It's good for our head. Indeed. Exactly, exactly. Okay. I want to talk about you touched on this a little bit, but I feel like I have a lot of friends who don't believe me, even though they've seen me reverse my heart disease, lose 20 pounds, gain all my health. They they still don't believe about eating carbs like the whole grains and so forth. And you say a low carb diet is a low life span diet. Can you just tell us why? Like why? Why friends who won't listen, tell our friends who won't listen to us to eat some rice? Brown rice for a baked potato? No, I mean, I mean the, most carbs people are, you know, processed junk, right? So they're eating Twinkies or something? I mean, if Twinkies are your idea of carbohydrates, then of course you want a low carbohydrate diet. But what they're missing is the fact that there are healthy sources. In fact, some of the healthiest foods such as legumes, whole grains, fruits, you know, they are, you know, packed with carbohydrates, but they're healthy for you. In fact, you know, I mean, the, you know, they every single blue zone centers their diets around whole plant foods. And so can we ask you a couple of questions like a little bit personal, not personal personal. Let's do it. But just tell no no no no. We're proud I'm oh, I'm an open book. Oh we're getting this. The sassy version today. How much sleep do you get? I've been doing well. I'm on the road now. 136 months, so it's it's really difficult. You know, time zones change every day. I try to get as much as I can on the road, but it's tough because, you know, most of the talks are in the evenings. And so it's like an hour talk, half hour questions and three hours of book signing. And so I get to bed super late. And then if I'm flying from Denmark to the west coast, I'm like nine hours off, you know, mean it's just nasty. But when I'm home, I really do try to take care of myself and get at least seven hours a night. What? Okay. Seven, at least seven hours a night. So you're. So you're definitely not getting that. All right. So what? Who's your best friend? What's your best friend's name is. It's like a long term childhood. Oh my God. Probably Jen Hawk. Doctor Jen Hawk. I've heard you speak about her before. She works with you, right? She we have. I mean, we've done, like, podcast together. Okay. Is she somebody you've known for since childhood or. No. No, she just since the pandemic. Oh, by the way, don't listen to anything she has to say about the pandemic. She's she's a nut when it comes to, Yeah, crazy Covid conspiracy theories. So just because I have tremendous respect for her doesn't mean she's completely, 100% wrong when it comes to her beliefs about, the pandemic. So I that we can be friends and disagree. Exactly. Be friends and disagree. Right. Do you just have, like, a work relationship or do you guys do anything fun together? Oh, well, we used to have a romantic relationship. Oh. But, now we are just canine co-parents. Gotcha. Okay, so she's she's like a partner for you as well? Yes, she was, but now she's still your pet. I love that she's still your best friend. Oh, I'm friends with all my exes, I love making a canine co-parenting. I love the pictures of your canine companions on Instagram. And and just laughed out loud when I was reading about the benefits of having a dog and how their heart rate goes down. Oh, my God, isn't that fun? Wasn't that the sweetest thing ever? Yeah. What? What are your dog's names? Unfortunately, we just lost two of our babies. We lost them all in one month. I mean, they were both very old, but so? So. So we're only down to three dogs, two rabbits, guinea pigs. And so we have Lucy, peaches and, Princess. There are three remaining dogs. Oh, that's so sad. I'm so sorry. That's so hard. Yeah. Was, And you're you're 51 years old now. I am adding. And can you can you share with us, like through this research in the book, there were some surprising things for us. What are some of the surprising things for you, like was the sardine and strawberries or the things you learned about mushrooms? Has that, like influenced your dietary choices or lifestyle choices at all? Oh my god, absolutely. I mean, I learned as much, you know, writing the book as people get reading the book. I mean, I wasn't taught most of the stuff in medical school. In fact, entire fields of of science, like the microRNAs weren't even discovered before I graduated from medical school. Right. Challenging the central dogma of biology. So, I mean, some of the biggest surprises for me, the exercise thing totally didn't turn out the way I thought. The sleep chapter, red wine, resveratrol and a. These supplements, vitamin D, fish, protein restriction, micro RNAs, and the list goes on and on. In terms of how I what I've changed my own diet now I've included properly, you know, this this, you know, long pepper, this, this spice. You can get Middle Eastern spice stores, potatoes, pepper long me in a purported C analytic compound. I'm eating more strawberries than I ever have. Fresh, frozen or freeze dried wheat germ every day. I mean, wheat germ, cardamom, a sirtuin activating compound. I mix that with my cocoa powder, making sure I eat cocoa powder every day. So you eat mushrooms every day. Also eating more mushrooms every day. In fact, I started growing oyster mushrooms. You can. Just like you can sprout like broccoli sprouts. You can grow your junk. It's so cool. And I also started eating a lot more tempeh. Oh yeah, I love the earth. Erica Theanine in the mushroom and the fermenting. Both fermenting. Yes, fermented longevity vitamins. Oh wow. That's good. Can you talk about a little bit about the soy myth two? Because I feel like that's another thing that my friends get caught up on. Like I can eat soy. Why is soy good for you? Organic soy. Yeah, that's that's some reason that's just soy. So misunderstood people don't understand. And there I mean, so there's this side where, oh my God, that phytoestrogens that might have estrogenic effects people don't understand. There's actually two types of receptors in the body, alpha and beta. The phytoestrogens and soy bind to the beta receptors. Our own s receptors bind to preferentially to the alpha receptors to. The effect of soy on different tissues depends on the ratio of alpha to beta. So, you know, estrogen has positive effects on some tissues but negative effects another. So for example estrogen is good for the bones, bad for the breast. So ideally we'd have some kind of selective estrogen receptor modulator. It'd have genic effects in some tissues but anti estrogenic effects in others. And that's exactly what soy students are. Soy appears to lower breast cancer risk. That's an antigenic effect. At the same time reducing menopausal hot flashes. That's a pro estrogenic effect. So with soy you get the best of both worlds. So we should eat, legumes or soy or other beans chickpeas or lentils every day. That's such good news for me I love soy I love it that it's my favorite. They emit anecdotally some of the longest living people. Soy is such a just a part of their staple diet. Or soy was the primary protein source of the Okinawan Japanese. But yeah, the second longest living population in the world, second only to the California Adventists, to vegetarians in Loma Linda, California. You know, one of the things that we really fight against with this podcast is that you address this like the pills and potions that are sold to us, these anti-aging pills and potions. And one of the surprising things I read in your book two is protecting our skin and mullion skin application. Oh, and cool. Yeah, it's really cool. Can you just just touch on that for a second? That was just, oh. That's another thing that I've totally changed in my life. Now I'm applying a modern skin lotion every day. Oh. Greasing up. I'm freezing up. You. No, no, no. Exactly. So that's. So in addition to avoiding the pro-inflammatory food components, avoid it, you know, and and going out a way to eat anti-inflammatory food components. We can also apply animal skin lotion, which originally was shown to decrease inflammation in skin in hairless mice. And then I finally did a randomized controlled trial of elderly men and women and found you can significantly reduce systematic markers of inflammation by applying a daily my own skin lotion. The thought is that our skin barrier breaks down as we get older, and so it allows in all sorts of external nasties that, that, that kind of inflame our immune system. And so bought by, you know, fortifying the outer layer of our skin by by applying. And that's why we can get a decrease in inflammation, which plays a critical role in the aging process. What what what skincare product do you like. Oh, so I use the one that's used in the study, just because that's the one that's been shown to actually help. But any any should so theoretically say which one it is. Oh, I forget the brand name. All right. But it's you would, would you say to look for just like you would in your packaged food, the one with the least amount of ingredients and recognizable ingredients? What would be your tip for for people listening? Who I would I would tell people to get the cheapest one because then they can spend more money on kale. I love it. Oh my gosh, that's great. Oh man. So you have. No, I'm, I, I try I encourage people to get fragrance free products. I have a video about some of the fragrances that are added to various household products, and cosmetic products can actually be harmful. Okay. How did you become how did you find your way to being vegan or whole food plant based? Oh, it's my grandma. It all goes back to my grandma. I was just a kid when my grandma was sent home in a wheelchair, basically to die. She had diagnosed with end stage heart disease, confined in a wheelchair, crushing chest pain. Her life was over at age 65. But then she heard about this guy Nathan in one of our early lifestyle medicine pioneers. And what happened next is actually detailed in his biography talks about Francis Gregor, my grandmother. They will they're in. And she walked out, though she was given a medical death stance at age 65 thanks to a healthy diet, was able to enjoy another 31 years on this planet aged 96, to continue to enjoy six grandkids, including me. So that's why I went to medicine. That's why I purchased lifestyle medicine, why I, started in nutrition facts. That or why I wrote the book How Not to Die. Why all the proceeds from all the sales of my books are all donated directly to charity. I just want to do for everyone's family what did for my family? Are we lucky? And I just want to reiterate what you just said. She did that at 65 and lived an additional 31 years. So and. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing, right. We got we didn't think hard. This is reversible, but now we know better and we have proof. Thanks to Doctor De Norris's lifestyle hard trial, published in one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world 1990 decades ago. Yet hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to die of this preventable, arrestable reversible condition. It's outrageous. But there are amazing people like you out there spreading the good news that we have this power over our health and longevity. Thank you so much. How not to age. We will be reading that until we're 100. Thank you so much, everybody. Bye.