My guest today is someone who has been leading a global health revolution around using food as medicine to support longevity, energy, mental clarity and happiness. Dr Mark Hyman has been a practicing medical doctor for several decades, he is the Head of Strategy and Innovation at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine and the author of an incredible 18 books. His latest one, Young Forever: The Secrets To Living Your Longest, Healthiest Life, challenges us to reimagine our biology and the entire process of ageing.

In our conversation, Mark walks us through the 10 hallmarks of ageing, and explains what we can all practically do to influence them. He talks about the difference between our chronological age and our biological age and wants to reframe the idea that growing older means becoming frail, weak and less independent. In fact, Mark believes that as a society we have normalised what he calls ‘abnormal ageing’.

We talk in detail about food and how our daily choices influence the speed at which we will age. Mark explains how all the chronic diseases of modern life – heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes and dementia – are in some way related to disturbances in how we regulate blood sugar. And he details the ‘wildfire of downstream effects’ this can lead to - things like inflammation, increased belly fat and an increase in stress hormones.

Mark also shares powerful research showing that we can reverse our biological age by up to three years in just eight weeks. We also cover the controversial topic of protein, the crucial need for resistance training as we get older, and what exactly Mark learned from visiting the Blue Zones – places around the world where the population naturally thrives into old age. Their default culture, he says, is a diet rich in whole foods and phyto-chemicals, a naturally active lifestyle, being socially connected and a strong sense of meaning.

People who live well into old age, it seems, live close to the earth and each other. How’s that for a health goal worth aspiring to?

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Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/338

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Child of the Counterculture