50% of Americans that have a heart attack, their first symptom is death. And I lost my dad suddenly in a car accident because we think he had a heart attack. That was my dad. He was a bodybuilder. He was into fitness. He was into health. He was here one second, gone the next.
Today we're going straight into why so many healthy high achievers are quietly aging faster on the inside and what to do about it. Returning to Young and Profiting to help us understand this is Dr. Will Cole. A leading functional medicine expert and bestselling author whose new book, Heal Your Cells, just came out. We'll also get into Ozempic, AI, and why real healing starts at the cellular level.
The younger you are, you are actually aging more rapidly than the people older than you at the same age.
How does that make sense though? Because everybody says we're living longer.
There's many people in their 20s and 30s and 40s that have cells of 60-year-olds today.
That's crazy.
Common, not normal.
So like 44, you get like a big aging spike.
And the problem is it's just, you're jumping off the cliff.
What are like 2 or 3 practical things that we can do to just reduce the amount of environmental toxic load?
It starts with what's in your house, right? Just one scratch of a nonstick, like a Teflon-type pan, releases over 9,000 plastic particles. If your brain cells were aging more rapidly.
Yeah.
The researchers at Stanford found that you had about an—
Will, welcome to Young and Profiting.
Thanks so much for having me. Can I just say thank you so much for a few years ago having me on your podcast and rooting for me then. And then when I reached out, you answered right away. Mm-hmm. And I said, I have this book coming out, like, can I come on the show and chat with you and catch up? And I just, your kindness is off camera and not, not everybody can say that, right? I can't say that to everybody, everybody. And I, you're the real deal and congratulations on the network and all the amazing things and see how God's working through you.
Thank you so much. Well, of course I wanted you back on the show because you provided so much value last time. We talked all about gut health.
Yes.
I learned so much. You were like one of my first doctors that came on the show and then I started interviewing like so many different biohackers. Yes. Uh, so that was really cool. And today we're gonna talk about cellular health. Because you have a new book that's coming out, I think it's September, called Heal Yourselves.
Yeah.
Uh, and cellular health is so important. And one of the most new things, unique things that I learned when I was reading your book is that parts of our body don't age all at the same rate.
Yeah.
And that is something I had no idea about. So your, your heart and your kidneys and your, uh, immune system and your metabolism all can age at different rates.
Yeah.
And so my first question to you is, how is this possible?
Yeah, many people don't know, and not just know this, but why it's so important. Because when we're looking at the United States, and really when any Western society right now, but the US specifically spends more healthcare on healthcare than any industrialized nation, yet we have the most chronic disease. and the shortest lifespan of all Western nations. And we spend the most for it economically, but we're paying a human price for it too, not just in the quantity of our life, and not just the quantity of life, but the years of healthy years, the healthspan, not just our lifespan. But yes, one of the cornerstone studies that I talk about in Heal Your Cells, and I wrote the book with Dr. Josh Ax, a friend of mine and colleague of mine in the functional medicine space, It was a Stanford study. It was published in Nature in 2023. They found that 1 in 5 Americans have at least one organ aging more rapidly than other organs.
Mm-hmm.
And why that's important is, and, and that equates to about 23 million Americans. That's a lot of people. But why it's so compelling and why we wanted to write about this and other longevity research is it's all down to cellular health. I mean, if you can actually heal the cell, you can deal with a lot of these chronic diseases.
Mm-hmm.
If your brain cells were aging more rapidly—
Yeah.
The researchers at Stanford found that you had about an 80% increased risk of a neurodegenerative issue—
Wow!
Like Alzheimer's or some sort of neurodegenerative problem. If your heart cells were aging more rapidly than the rest of your body, you had about a 250% increased risk of heart failure, heart attack and stroke. But just 1 in 2 Americans are— it's killing 1 in 2 Americans.
Yeah.
And 50% of Americans that have a heart attack, their first symptom is death. And I lost my dad suddenly in a car accident because we think he had a heart attack, or at least some cardiovascular event, lost consciousness, and it caused him to crash the car. So that was one of the pivotal roles of me just diving into, okay, why is this happening?
Yeah.
Why are so many people, not just people in their 60s, baby boomers, but we're seeing so many people getting heart disease, heart— cardiometabolic problems, autoimmune problems, cancers in their 20s and 30s and 40s.
And they look healthy. They look fit and muscular and healthy, but then underneath that all, they might have heart issues.
That was my dad. He was a bodybuilder. He was into fitness. He was into health. He was here one second, gone the next. And I've seen some— and Dr. Ax, who wrote the book with me, Had his father-in-law, same thing. All did all the wellnessy stuff.
Yeah.
Here one day, gone the next. So this concept of uneven aging and not just looking at problems for the sake of it and saying, well, we can't do anything about it. Actually, it's the empowering thing is when you know what you're dealing with, you can do something about it. 'Cause largely these things are reversible, healable, overcomeable things. But we have to do something different to see something different, which is why we call the book Heal Yourselves. And the subtitle's Reversing the Irreversible, because the world and the system that the world runs in says there's nothing you can do, just take this medication, see you later. But actually the science is pointing to actually quite the opposite. We have a lot of agency on our health, but we have to actually do something about it.
Yeah. And what else was interesting for me is the fact that when we're looking at our body, it's, it's better for us to think about what is the system that is failing the most, or like, what is the system that I need to be worried about the most? Like, am I having gut issues and like, that's the thing that I really need to focus on first. So you really wanna figure out what is the system that is failing the most and work on that first, correct?
Absolutely. Yeah. Now there on a clinical level, cuz we still run a telehealth clinic.
Yeah.
So obviously for telehealth patients, we run labs. You can look at DNA methylation and some of the hallmarks that the Stanford group, uh, looked at. We can look at these different organs, like 11 different organs is what Stanford looked at, and we could look at similar ones of how cells and specific type of organs, and not just the organ cells themselves, but the type of cells within the organ. That's the follow-up study just this summer, just in June of this year. Different types of cells within that same organ can age more rapidly. So we can get very precise. This is just cutting-edge stuff. But yes, we have to know what organ's aging more rapidly, or what's your pain point. Everybody has— there's so much bio-individuality to that, right?
Yeah.
Based on genetics. But genetics loads the gun, epigenetics pulls the trigger. There's something in our life that's causing that accelerated clock.
Yeah.
That, that cell clock to be, uh, aging more rapidly. So yes, we look at labs, DNA methylation, inflammation markers to look at that. And somebody's health history obviously is important, and their family history's important. But beyond that, in the book, we adapted questions that we ask new telehealth patients. It's the cellular health report card to kind of see. It's not the same as a lab, obviously.
Yeah.
But I wanted people to see what organ may be the weakest for me? Maybe for some people it's their gut, and they always have digestive problems. And there are some good clinical pearls, some telltale signs that their body is giving them a proverbial check engine light.
Yeah.
Like, something's off here. The body's nudging them to pay attention. In our hustle culture, we're so divorced from our body, and our body sometimes— oftentimes is giving us some clues. Pay attention to me. Pay attention to me. Um, and we're not, we're not aware or conscious or paying attention to these signals that our body's giving us.
Yeah. Most of my listeners are like late 20s to like early 40s, even some, some like late 40s, 50s. What should we be paying, like, what are the common things that we should be paying attention to in, in terms of like realizing that a system is failing?
Another study published in Nature. Nature has so many good studies on PubMed, but this is another summer of 2026 study, recent study that found that people born after the age of the year Mm-hmm. Were aging significantly more rapidly than people born prior to 1965. But specifically, people born in the 1990s. Basically, every decade after 1965. If you were born in the '80s, '90s, 2000s, every decade, the younger you are, you are actually aging more rapidly than the people older than you at the same age.
How does that make sense, though? Because everybody says we're living longer.
We're living Longer lifespan by a few years, but it's not a great healthspan.
Hmm.
So we're aging more rapidly, but we— so we can keep people alive longer today because of modern medicine, but we can't keep them healthier with modern medicine. So we see that in elderly homes, right? I mean, they're alone, hopped up on tons of medication, completely sedentary and depressed. It is a miserable existence. So that's not what we're talking about here. So of course we want to add years to your life, but can we also add life to your years? And that's what all this whole longevity chatter in the biohacking space— I think they lose the plot because it's like, what's— how can we add quality of your life to the here and now?
Yeah.
Not just look for the promise to the future, which of course I am interested in living a long, thriving life and being able to play with my grandkids someday and enjoy life and not be in that space that many elderly people find them. But for myself in my 40s or people in their 20s and 30s, like, how can we enjoy life now? I see so many of my friends that are kept back from living the life that God created them for because they're fatigued and they have nervous system dysregulation. They have other inflammatory problems. That's not a great quality of life. So, yeah, the science is pointing to the fact that there's many people in their 20s and 30s and 40s that have cells of 60-year-olds today.
That's crazy.
Common, not normal.
I really wanna dive deep on this whole concept of aging, and there's all these different like aging phrases or, or ways to calculate it. You've got your biological age, you've got your chronological age, and you've got your cellular age. Can you break down the differences between those?
Yeah. So the chronological age is how much, how many years, like how many birthdays have you had?
Mm-hmm.
The biological age and the cellular age, I would say pretty much the same. It, It's the overall understanding what's happening at the cellular level. What's your cell's age, which can be very, very different. And we can actually quantify this.
Yeah.
Looking at different metrics like inflammation, like DNA methylation, and other health biomarkers that can aggregate more or less where your cellular age is.
Yeah.
And many people are aging more rapidly, but it's— many people think, well, to your point, people in their 20s and 30s or 40s, I don't have to be thinking. This idea of longevity isn't really sexy or in, they're not really into it. And that's why it's like, to me, they're missing the point. Missing point is like, yes, we all kind of have a cellular credit score, whether you know it or not.
Mm-hmm.
And we can improve it. And what you are dealing with in your 60s and 70s and 80s, you actually start investing in your 20s and 30s and 40s. You can't wait until you're in your 60s to be like, yeah, I care about this now. You have start building this now and investing in your health now.
Mm-hmm.
But even if that's still, if your head is in the sand for the future, and that may be the case, that quality of life's actually more important for me.
Yeah.
It's like, what are they doing? Like the talent and the time and the vision that they have in their life to not be kept back. That's also a sign if somebody's not thriving in their life and being the best version of themselves, that's also a sign that their cells are aging more rapidly.
Yeah. So I actually, for the first time ever, I'm gonna be taking one of those, uh, aging test, like a really popular test. It's gonna have 160 labs, and I'm gonna get my biological age. Now, what do you wanna tell me in terms of when I read that biological age? What should I take seriously or not seriously? How should I be reading that?
Do you know some of the biomarkers they're looking at?
It's Function Health. Okay.
So it's— Yeah, yeah.
You're probably familiar with it.
Yeah, yeah. So they're— look, and Function Health is— I don't know all the labs that they're running, but they're running a lot of good conventional lab data. I nerd out on this stuff.
And what we're also gonna What we would look at—
and Mark Hyman's a friend of mine, and they're doing amazing things over there. And what we do with our telehealth center is similar, but one-on-one. It's not like, you know, it's— we're seeing people one-on-one online.
Mm-hmm.
I would take all of that data important. I would take it all important, knowing what you're getting done. I think all of this conventional data is important. There's going to be bigger deals and smaller deals potentially, right? So I think the context around these biomarkers matters. What I think you should do is actually send me the labs afterwards.
Mm-hmm.
And I will give you my—
I will definitely do that.
Yeah, for sure. So I think one of the things I would look at, this is what I'd look at. Well, let me just say this. Yeah. I am, I am assuming everything's gonna be fine.
Yeah.
You're a healthy, vibrant person, and I don't want people to become hypochondriacs or become obsessive about this. Stressing about your health isn't good for your health either.
Yeah, exactly.
So I, I'm gonna assume it's just gonna be a good pat on the back and say, you're doing everything great. And cool, it's a snapshot in time. It's a good, great report card, and we could check in next year. Mm-hmm. That's what I would assume. But if there is something off, the beautiful thing, the grace in all of this is that by you being proactive about your health, you could do something about it. You know, uh, like Maya Angelou said, when you know better, you do better.
Mm-hmm.
Well, labs are a know better thing, and you can do something about it. So I think, uh, some of the areas I think are the most helpful for the average person are inflammation markers. And you're going to look at that high sensitivity C-reactive protein. Homocysteine is another one, uh, specifically having to do with cellular— both have to do with oxidation because when they're high, it's the cells kind of saying, hey, I'm not safe. And they're trying to protect us, trying to protect themselves, but it's so showing that something is threatening the cells.
Yeah.
And we want to find out what's the root upstream cause of that threat. And it could be both physiological, physical, or mental, emotional, spiritual things like stress and trauma, and looking at both of those things. And that's where health history comes in. So I would say let's look all of it. And then the great thing about looking at conventional biomarkers like that is we also can look at the tighter interval within that larger reference range of where our body functions the best. And that's where we get our name in functional medicine. So we're looking at optimal, not average, which, which we probably talked about the last time I was here. But the labs reference range is based on that statistical bell curve average of people who go to labs.
Got it.
People that go to labs aren't the healthiest group of people, so we're, we're looking is where does the longest vibrant, like, lives live? Where does the healthspan longevity people live? That's the functional range. So, uh, yeah, I think that that's a great illuminating proactive tool for you to then say, okay, what's, what are the things I need to focus on?
Yeah. But in terms of the biological age that they're gonna give me, yeah, I feel like every time I hear somebody tell me their biological age, it's always younger. than their chronological age.
Are they lying to us?
I don't know. Like, is it real? Should we really take that, like, seriously?
There's a lot of labs out there that I don't know their system and what they're basing that calculation on. So not everything is accurate out there. So I'd want to look at the reproducibility, the credibility of the tests. But this— like, for example, the Stanford researchers and us looking at DNA methylation, it's an estimate. These are estimates of, like, more or less where can they be. But I think, you know, we want to put the— all labs in context.
Yeah. And also, like you mentioned, like, the people who get labs are usually unhealthy. So you're, like, basing it on the average, like, unhealthy per person maybe.
Right. It's— yeah, exactly. But I think it's a ballpark is what I would say. A lot of these labs can say, a ballpark. Am I trending in the right direction or am I not? And it's not, it's not, you know, it's not even as well as we talk about in Heal Your Cells. You may be great in some areas and then some pain points in other areas. So it's, I think the context around this data is important.
Yeah. So there's lots of things that impact your cells. One of them is what you eat, of course. Talk to us about, you know, I feel like there's a lot of information out there about what we should be eating, but what's your, like, best guidance in terms of how to navigate Yeah. Our nutrition.
The food— foods are instruction manuals to our cells, right? I mean, they're determining how quickly or how slowly that cellular clock ticks and tocks. And we have agency on the rapidity or the slowness of that cellular clock ticking. So it's not just about what we're eating, it's when we're eating. A lot of researchers are talking about the chronobiological disorder. So basically, things like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, And insulin resistance feeds many types of cancers.
Mm-hmm.
That is this— yes, these are inflammatory problems, but— and the foods we eat either feed inflammation or fight inflammation. There's no neutral food. There's no Switzerland, I'm doing nothing for your physiology meal. But— so what you eat matters, but when you eat, the science is pointing to also. So the whole concept of time-compressed feeding or time-restricted feeding, intermittent fasting, or fasting-mimicking ways of eating, is a tool that we have to slow down that cellular clock. So it's— you're— you are right in the sense of you're gonna— you ask 100 different doctors in the wellness space, you're gonna get 100 different opinions, pretty much. We can get into the granular details of it, but I think there's so much bio-individuality to this topic.
Yes.
Because I look at people and their health history and their labs all day long. So if I hung my hat on one way for everybody, I'd be proven wrong all day long.
Yeah.
Because it's— you could say, for example, a Mediterranean diet, you know, has lots of great studies around it, right? But what if that person has FODMAP intolerance from SIBO and they, they eat lots of greens and grains and it's causing a lot of bloating? So you say keep doing that. It doesn't make that version of the Mediterranean diet— and there's different ways to even do a Mediterranean diet— doesn't make that bad, but it makes it It's not loving that person back right now.
Mm-hmm.
So, and then there's many examples of that. Things like fermented foods, right? That have a lot of data. I love us the data around sauerkraut and kimchi and kefir. But if you have histamine intolerance, mast cell activation syndrome, which we see a lot clinically, that's gonna flare some people up.
Mm-hmm.
Does that make— even bone broth. Bone broth's like the pinnacle of the gut health food that we talk— talked about for years. It can be, depending on how you cook it. can be higher in histamines. So there's no hard, there's very few hard and fast rules other than, of course, eat real food.
Yeah.
And decreased processed, ultra-processed foods. If I had to say what are the inflammatory core 4 that don't love most humans back would be gluten-containing grains, industrial seed oils like canola oil, soybean oil, and that specifically we talk about it in the Heal Your Cells, how that impacts cellular membrane health. Added sugar in the absence of fiber. And then I would say conventional dairy. Now there's better for you versions of even those, like a sourdough ancient grain wheat can work for some, some people, not for other people. There are better seed oils, like an organic cold-pressed sunflower oil, technically a seed oil. But is it, is that what's killing America? No.
Yeah.
So to lump all seed oils or to lump all grains or to lump all dairy or to lump all even sugar. is reductive. So there's a lot of nuance and context to these conversations. So I like getting into the weeds of like, what loves your body back?
Yeah.
And that's part of what we teach in the book. Instead of this sort of like, this is my camp, this is the carnivore camp or the vegan camp or the Mediterranean, whatever, keto camp. We're all different. And even within the camps, there's still a lot of variation and bio-individuality to these food conversations, nutrition conversations.
Yeah. So I want to dig deep on this concept of biochemical individuality. And that was a concept that was discovered, I think, by Dr. Roger Williams.
Yes. Well, you've done your research.
I have. And so I'd love for you to tell us what he discovered exactly, because I thought that was really cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's— we talk about it in the book, is that the— it's We're all unique. We're all unique. And he was called a quack. He was— people kind of poo-pooed him. They didn't understand it. Any disruptor, you know, it's— they typically vilified at the start. And then years later, oftentimes before these people are gone, like after these people are gone, that's when they're validated. And science catches up with these guys, these pioneers. Science catches up with antiquity. that we're so unique. The idea that this is gonna be a one thing for everybody. And that's one of the blessings— and I use that word loosely there— of AI.
Yeah.
That we can use AI in smart— hopefully smart, regulated, thoughtful, constrained ways to be more precise. Because there's only so many hours in the day, and I'm only one human being. for me to say, okay, how many people can I even help in a day? And then on top of that, brainpower of a human. So to get precise and like we were talking about with lab data, getting more precise on not just food prescriptions, quote unquote, but also on herbal peptides, mind-body practices, all these things. So I am hopeful that we can get more. But that's what that doctor was talking about, is that we are all different.
Yep.
And the idea that we can say we could have 100 people with a low thyroid problem, for example, And what one low thyroid case needs that the other person doesn't need. Is it an underconversion of T4 to T3? Is it Hashimoto's disease? Is it thyroid resistance? So he didn't get into the weeds of that, but I think he saw enough in his research to show that there's so much bio-individuality to this concept. And that was talked about decades and decades ago in his life. Um, that now this is the future of medicine.
Yeah. This is how—
is precision medicine.
Healthcare is evolving.
Exactly.
With functional health and your company and everything like that. Yeah.
They're just confirming what our, our, uh, our ancestors knew all along.
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Right. And there's— I'm hesitant to even— when we talk about— it's important to talk about. I'm glad you brought it up. But that word is so overused sometimes. And then people end up stressing and have anxiety about this stuff. Or they just shut down and like, I can't do anything about it. You don't have to have perfection to start improving your health.
Yeah.
You do not have to live in some nontoxic plastic, BPA-free plastic bubble because that's not— stressing isn't good for your health, right? This is so important, guys. So I— this is the context of this, but we still have to talk about it. We can't just have our head in the sand and because it may ruffle some feathers. But yeah, it's, it's a pro— it's a massive problem. I mean, the overwhelming majority, almost all of us have these forever chemicals, microplastics in our body.
Mm-hmm.
Common, not normal. I look at these environmental toxin tests, I see them high on nearly everybody. And by high, I mean even trace amounts. But is there a healthy amount of microplastics in somebody's body, especially when researchers are finding that it's It may be these microplastics, at least a piece of the puzzle contributing to this because they accumulate in the plaque, the artery, arterial plaques actually contributing to this inflammatory response because the body's like, what the heck? So the immune system cells are saying, I need to get this microplastic or forever chemical out of the artery.
Wow.
And is that why we're seeing 1 in 2 Americans having heart attacks and strokes? Its implication in cancer, infertility issues, which The United States is below the total replacement level, meaning we have a massive fertility problem.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it's 70% of the world is below the total replacement level, meaning we don't have enough people to replace ourselves without immigration. I mean, this is where we're at as a world today. Why? What has changed? It's not our genetics. It's the environmental issues. So, and then I— another thing I look at are these herbicides and pesticides. I mean, most of the people that I measure on labs have these things coming out of their urine. There's not a normal amount of pesticides that should be coming outta your urine. Yes, I'm glad that your body's brilliant enough to clear this stuff out, but why is it in there in the first place? So it is another thing that you can, as you can imagine, make our cells feel unsafe.
Yeah.
So the body has this innate ancient mechanism called the cell danger response. And that cell that's meant to protect you, there's these pathways that upregulate to say, I need to defend you. And the cells get defensive. And that's happening on a micro level. The cell membrane, this sort of gatekeeper that gets nutrients in and gets byproducts of energy out, becomes more hard, becomes more rigid. The cell membrane loses its fluidity, and it becomes oxidized, almost like a rusted cell.
Hmm.
And where— what's happening on the membrane, it's also receptor sites for different hormones. So that's implicated in the sort of hormonal crisis we're seeing today. today, and fertility issues being a part of that. Um, but these sirtuins get stressed out, especially from environmental toxins that we're talking about— herbicides, pesticides, microplastics, forever chemicals, heavy metals.
Mm-hmm.
Um, these guardian angels of our DNA, of our genome as a whole, these sirtuins then kind of are playing catch up, just trying to defend your cells that it can't keep up. So these whole mechanisms get thrown into this threat state. So the goal is not to avoid them and these environmental toxins entirely, because we can't.
Yeah.
But the body's amazingly resilient, but we have to give it a fighting chance. And we don't have the wiggle room that our ancestors had, because these— most of these environmental toxins have only been in the human landscape for a few decades. A blip in time when you're putting that into context with the totality of human history. So something to deal with, not obsess about, not to live in fear around. Because the body does have these mechanisms to clear this stuff out, but we have to actually facilitate it.
Yeah. So talk to us about that. What are like 2 or 3 practical things that we can do to just reduce the amount of environmental toxic load?
It starts with what's in your house, right? I mean, you could go really basic. The Environmental Working Group has a new list every year or so. They update it. It's the Clean 15 and the Dirty Dozen. I think that's a basic, most people know about it. But just go and look. It's the produce, the fruits and vegetables mainly that are the Clean 15, are the fruits and vegetables that tend to have the lowest herbicides and pesticides, and the Dirty Dozen tends to have the highest.
Okay.
Um, so shop there, meaning that if you're on a budget and you can't buy all organic or don't have access to all organic, don't stress. Do the best you can and give the rest to God because you don't have to, it doesn't have to be perfect. Wash off the, the Clean 15 if it's conventional and not organic, but swapping for organic fruits and vegetables whenever you can is a Okay. I mean, we could go through the whole house, but we probably don't have time for that. But like, the kitchen's one area that I would say swapping out any nonstick pan for either a cast iron skillet or a nontoxic nonstick pan.
Okay.
Because that's a major— just a single scratch. This is a study out of California, I believe. Just one scratch of a nonstick, a conventional nonstick, like a Teflon-type pan, release over 9,000 plastic particles.
Wow!
Right? I mean, wild. So super simple. Like, there's swaps for most of these things. So look at the things you're using on a daily basis. The bioaccumulation, this sort of cellular accumulation that can happen where your cells are like, okay, cool, here and there, no big deal. But you're cooking here every single day. Are you having this thing every single day? That's where things can add up.
Yeah.
And then look at all the other— I mean, going to like quickly the laundry room, like swapping out your laundry detergents and soaps and things like that. It should not be smelling like this fake sort of—
Yeah.
Like just swap out, guys. Like there's so many better things you can get at Target and Costco and Sam's Club that are decently priced, that don't have all these scents and additives. And then going up to the personal care stuff, like really vet the makeup you're using, the skincare products you're using. Really important. And then you can get into the weeds of all different types of things. I think EMFs are actually something else that you need to look at. It's invisible, but, uh, doing the best you can to minimize EMFs is a great thing. So even if it's just turning off your Wi-Fi router at night, like, do you really need the Wi-Fi at night? I mean, some, some people do cuz they're even their alarm clocks attached to Wi-Fi, but I would get the gold fashion.
Really? Like actually turn off your Wi-Fi, not just like put your phone away.
Yeah. I mean, look, I mean, you could. The more you do, the better.
Yeah.
So do the best you can with whatever doesn't stress you out. Like, I don't want people to become maniacal zealots about this, but meet yourself where you're at.
Yeah.
Lean into it, and then progress over time as this becomes less overwhelming.
Mm-hmm.
So yeah, base, sleep with that phone outside of the room. But I would go a step further and turn your Wi-Fi off because you're sleeping in an electric box.
Yeah.
So you want those— because that's another thing that accelerates cellular aging is our sleep, our light. itself, like the blue light, it— that's accelerating our cellular clocks as well. But it's these deep sleep states that we need to get to.
Yeah.
And some people are more sensitive to this than others, and you can track on the sort of the wearables, but even that has low-grade Wi-Fi. So I don't even like using those trackable devices, like the rings and the bands, long-term for most people because, A, it's like, okay, do you really need more data for ad infinitum, forever and ever? Then you stress about—
Yeah, you're just, like, constantly stressing.
But I do think using technology, smart, pointed, pulsed when it makes sense, and then keep it intuitive and basic. And yeah, minimize EMF exposure as much as possible. Some of these are small. I don't wanna overblow it. The small frequencies, but it's adding up. It's Wi-Fi there. It's, it's, it's 5G there. It's your phone sitting next to you right there. So it's the overall entourage effect that all of this stuff plays. So the more you can start to take a dent into how much you're exposed to is a good idea. I mean, you could go all the way up to wearing, like, covering your bed with a Faraday cage, which blocks EMFs entirely. Depends on how nerdy you want to get.
Yeah.
But yeah, the more you do, the better.
Totally. And I think for a lot of the listeners tuning in, we probably are pretty good with our eating. Like, we've been taught for a long time, like, avoid processed foods, fats, sugar, all these things. But environmental toxins is probably something we can all focus a little bit more on.
Yeah.
And there's also biological toxins, and I believe, like, metabolic toxins, which I didn't realize was a thing.
Oh, yeah. Well, when your cells— back to that cell danger response, if your body's all feeling unsafe, and the goal of this is from physiologically or physical factors, whether it be an environmental toxin or food that doesn't love you back, or eating too much— like, eating too late and you're not getting a reprieve, or it's things like stress and trauma, Anything, whether it's physical or mental, emotional, spiritual, what's making your cells feel unsafe? When that, when that happens and that cell membrane becomes more rigid, your mitochondria starts shifting from producing ATP. These are the cellular energy factories of your cells, and you need it for energy. So think brain fog, fatigue. A lot of people's health problems are actually mitochondrial issues. But then it becomes, you almost, we get these leaky mitochondria. You know how people have like leaky gut syndrome or leaky brain syndrome, which is impacting anxiety and depression and brain fog.
Mm-hmm.
and fatigue, but you're actually on a cellular level, you're, you have leaky mitochondria with this threat hypervigilant cellular state, and your cells are releasing these reactive oxygen species. So these byproduct products of energy, which stresses out those sirtuins, those guardian angels of the genome, even more. They're like, okay, I need to defend you, but you're not giving me a reprieve here. They're always working.
Mm-hmm.
So they kind of lose their way in just trying to maintain the backup of these toxic byproducts. The problem is because the cell membrane is more rigid, these toxins aren't able to get out of the cell as easily. So that's why healing the cell membrane is a key part of what we talk about in Heal Your Cells.
Yep.
And just clinically, it's just so important because that's where the hormonal receptor sites are, but that's also where nutrients get in, i.e., nutrient deficiencies. At a cellular level, but also getting the bad stuff or byproduct. It's not even bad, but it's just an accumulation. It's too much of something that's part of nature.
Mm-hmm.
But we just need a homeostasis in the body. But when the cell is stressed out, homeostasis is impossible.
Well, I, I have so many questions. Uh, let's spend some time on how we heal ourselves. So similar to how different parts of our body age faster, also our cells can renew and they all renew at different rates depending on the body part. So like Skin is pretty fast.
Yeah.
Blood is pretty fast. Your stomach is pretty fast. But then other body parts are slower. So why is that the case?
Well, the simple answer is the way God made it.
Yeah.
It's just how quickly or how slowly those cells function, right?
Right.
And some— so we have a greater grace period in certain— like, our gut's amazingly resilient, right? And the brain, in theory, is healing and can heal, but it's going to take slower for a lot of these Uh, like myelin sheath destruction or neuroinflammatory spots. It's like, oh, in, in theory, if you lived long enough, it could heal. But we only have so time, so much time on this earth. Uh, even the longest living of us, right? And I want people, there's, the research is clear. There's no reason why most of us can't live over 100 disease-free, healthy, vibrant years. So that's the healthspan and lifespan aspect of this. But theoretically, the nervous system, which is one of the more slower areas to heal.
Yeah.
it can heal, but you'd have to live to, like, over 250 years old or something like that. You know, not that long maybe, but you know what I'm saying? The body is always healing, some more rapidly than others.
Yeah.
So why— another reason why it's so important to find out what's your cellular report card, because if it is this area that is like, we can't do much about it, it's just a slower healing area, you have to get on it.
Yeah.
Versus your gut, not to say that it's not difficult for some people because it can be very difficult, but I've seen the gut repair pretty dang quickly.
Really?
Yeah. So it's like there's different areas that we may have more of a grace period than others.
And there's an order of operations in terms of, like, what we should do to actually heal ourselves, correct? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, it is. And for the sake of the book, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible because there definitely is an order of operations. We have to stop this toxic load. I think that's one of the first things we need to do, which we kind of touched into.
Yeah.
Like, start— if you haven't, lean into the food aspects of it, lean into the environmental toxin to mitigate this. And then we didn't go deep into it, but yes, what we feed our body matters with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but what are we feeding our head and our heart on a daily basis? And the epidemic rise of spiritual disconnection, this sort of lack of some spiritual faith in our, in our life as a humanity, that's also creating this cellular danger response. I would really— what, look, looking at the content and the, the constant stream of information we're consuming on a daily basis, that's impacting the cellular rapidity as well.
Yeah.
So not to be perfect, not be— to become obsessive, but to say, how can we minimize the things that aren't loving us back. And maybe it's a food, or maybe it's a relationship, or maybe it's a job that is unsustainable and it's a toxic job. But these things matter because what good is it if you've narrowed down the nutrient-dense, most amazing superfood clean eating you can think of, but you're serving your body a big slice of stress every day?
Yeah.
Or you're serving your body a big bowl of trauma, unresolved trauma every day in our body. These are more nebulous, more abstract and complex, certainly, but they're really important. So I think one of the first things is just taking an inventory.
Yeah.
Of, like, what are the things that aren't loving my body back right now? Because those are the things that are causing your cells to become defensive and age more rapidly.
Yeah. And not just— like you said, not just physical, but mental as well.
So important. And it's hard because it's more prescriptive For me to say, eat these foods, do this type of fasting, take these peptides, all helpful tools. But how do you say don't have that stress or trauma? You can't say that, right? But it's so important. So we dig into it in the book because I see people do all the good biohacking wellness stuff, right?
Yeah, they want to jump to that first.
Right. And right. But, and I get it, it's more linear and, uh, black and white, but these complex things need to be dealt with. I'm not saying you have to address it all right now. Because that's not how it works, but you need to at least lean into these dark corners of somebody's health. So I would say that's, if you talk about order of operations, I think this is one of the first things that people need to do is even acknowledge the things that are not loving them back at this point, that's causing their cells to become defensive, that's accelerating these pathways.
Mm-hmm.
Because these beautiful pathways that are meant to heal you are completely dampened when you have both either physiological or psychological stress in your life. Your body on a cellular level can't even distinguish between the two, whether you're— it's an inflammatory food or toxic relationship or a burnout job. Your cells all kind of respond the same way.
Yeah.
So how do we let your cells know that it's safe? Cellular safety will cause a ripple effect of healing in your life.
You actually have a great story in the book that really illustrates all of this. So you mentioned earlier your dad.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, tragically was killed in a car crash. And you said that you got grief body at that time. Yeah.
Yeah. So backing up a little bit, this is 2023.
Mm-hmm.
So I was on the eve of my last book before this, uh, Gut Feelings, which talked about stress and trauma and around this and how it impacted gut health, uh, and autoimmunity. And It was a book about stress and trauma. So the irony was not lost on me of like, my dad was here and we had a, we had a great relationship towards the end. But as all parents, I think a lot of kids can say, yeah, sometimes our relationships with our families are complicated sometimes. And it was healing. It was like getting in a great place. And that's the— I'll have to ask God one day. I don't have the answer of like, wow, why could it have been the best it could be? and then he's gone.
Hmm.
But that was part of it all, of like, dang, man, time is so short, right? And we don't know the time we have. Um, so yeah, it was all of that, of like replaying it in my mind and then thinking this guy that was a picture of health, and then here, then gone in a sec, gone in a split second. And then lots of unanswered questions with the car accident, and then having to see— not to get too graphic, but like your bloody dad on a couch metal table at a hospital.
Yeah, it's worse.
And he's already gone. It's, it's, it's never easy, whether it's a slow loss or a quick loss. But yeah, that was the impact that stress and trauma— my body, something had to give. And the foods that I would be fine with, like, I love a good hot sauce, Tabasco. Like, I put Tabasco— I'm one of those guys that used to put Tabasco on everything. Eggs, anything. What else? My son's off camera. I put it on literally everything. But I couldn't— I had no resilience. Like, my gut brain axis. Your gut's your second brain. 95% of serotonin, 50% of dopamine is made and stored in the gut. So the cells of my gut and the cells of my brain were under like, whoa, we need to slow down. And I was back to back. That was my 4th book. I'd run, I ran a full and still do run a full telehealth clinic, and I do my podcast twice a week. So I had to practice what I taught, and I was, found myself in a the same place like a lot of our telehealth patients. We know we're doing more than most people are about health.
I wasn't eating the standard American diet. Uh, the worst thing that I eat is like an organic Valencia peanut butter, which, you know, some, some people in my space would say I'm slowly poisoning myself, but I love my peanut butter and I have no shame about that. Um, the whole point being is like I was doing better things than the average person and I still was like, hit that burnout.
Yeah.
And to dig deep into some of the practices that I talk about in the book, like somatic practices and trauma work and EMDR. and journaling to sort of metabolize stored stress and trauma in my body that, yes, it hit a zenith, a tipping point with my dad, but really was a lot more than that. Uh, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. But now, you know, I never feel bad. I have— I feel better than I ever have now, but it took some healing. And I wanted to share what worked for me in the book for the people that have done all the things.
Yeah.
How do you take it to the next level? And that's what Heal Your Cells is for.
Yeah, it's crazy to think because for me, when I think of like mental, like trauma, I feel like it's like this abstract thing in your mind and you don't actually think that it's really impacting your physical health. And that's what you're saying is that you've got to heal your trauma so that you can fully heal your body.
Well, epigenetically, it's one of the things that's coding on your epigenetics. It's these code, these instruction manuals for how DNA is expressed. Yeah, it can be environmental toxins or it can be an inflammatory food or eating too often and not Having a proper fasting window. But it's also things like stress and trauma actually codes and upregulates these genes that we don't always want to be turned on, like inflammatory genes or, you know, a gene for an autoimmune condition or fertility issues, whatever the case may be. But they are epigenetically regulating cellular expression.
Mm-hmm.
Part that, that saying that I mentioned earlier, genetics loads the gun, epigenetics pulls the trigger. So yeah, something that's pulling the trigger for one person isn't for the next person, but it typically is a confluence of different factors. And for me, it was just pretty obvious that was the stress piece. And again, for someone that loves what they do.
Yeah.
And I think a lot of entrepreneurs and business people, we don't— it's hard to see where it's so relative, right?
Yeah.
Most people that I talk to in our, like, that type of position, how high is your stress?
They wouldn't even It's our baseline is stressed out all the time.
Yeah. That's— just because something's common doesn't make it normal. Just because you can carry it doesn't mean you should carry it.
Yeah.
So it's like, yeah, it's like boundaries and delegation and support and reaching for help and being okay with doing nothing, which is really difficult for people like us, like myself. I can speak for myself. It's hard for me to slow down. But some of the times the best medicine is just saying no and, like, laying on the couch and just, like, chilling and unplugging and getting off your phone, supporting the parasympathetic, the resting, digesting, which that is another tool to tell the cell you're safe.
Mm-hmm.
So I prescribe JOMO. It's the antithesis to FOMO. We have the fear of missing out in our culture. Well, JOMO is the joy of missing out and finding it. And that's a deep, hard practice, actually, finding joy in missing out, missing out on business opportunities, missing out on hanging out with your friends, missing out But sometimes that's, you know, connection's important, but there's a season also to just be still.
Yeah.
And to heal and connect with nature, connect with God. So that was some of the hardest work for me. And I still am not great at it. I'll be honest with you. I haven't like, I'm not some monk living in an ashram, but it's something that I have found a better pace at slowing down.
Yeah.
Which my cells are very thankful.
I think a lot of entrepreneurs tuning in really need to hear this because a lot of us have been grind, in grind mode for 5, 10, 15 years, and now maybe the time It's time to embrace JOMO, slow down a bit.
And you will, you're, you'll be the better version of yourself for it. You'll actually be more effective. Mm-hmm. Because you actually have more to give versus being this frenetic, distracted energy. You'll be laser focused when you need to show up to that meeting. Mm-hmm. Or that project. So yeah, more isn't always better. It's hard to have that discernment, but that's part of it too. When you have some stillness, you can have discernment and know what should you say yes to.
Yeah. Yep.
And this isn't just being a hermit, antisocial hermit, which I, you know, you know, easy for me to do as a, you know, introvert. But it's about having discernment. And when you're go, go, go all the time, hypervigilant, it's really hard to, you're just saying yes to whatever and you have no idea if it's even the highest quality. Yes.
Hmm. So a couple last things about cellular health. Uh, first thing I wanna ask you about is rhythm. So it's really important to have really good circadian rhythm. Yeah. What are some of the things that we can do to make sure that we're having good rhythm and why is that so important?
It's so important here. Yeah. So one of the things we talked, we actually covered quite a bit.
Yeah.
Of the areas that are misaligned. Our genetics haven't changed in thousands of years, but yet our world has changed dramatically. So what researchers call an epigenetic genetic mismatch, it's what's causing ourselves to age more rapidly.
Okay.
And there's another quick study I wanna say is that there was a Nature Aging, which again, just this summer, so it didn't make the book, but it's showing what we're talking about in the book is that there's 2 key areas in our life, age around 44 and age 60, that are these basically cellular aging cliffs where it's a nonlinear aging. And, and the problem is people that are born in the '80s and '90s, the 1980s and 1990s millennials, and even more so for Gen Z. They're coming off that cliff faster and they are accelerating faster around these key points. So it's really important to, again, improve that cellular credit score in your 20s and 30s.
So like 44, you get like a big aging spike.
Spike. And the problem is it's just, you're jumping off the— now people are jumping off that cellular aging cliff harder because of this misalignment.
So basically, like, what, what kind of things can we do to improve circadian rhythm?
Circadian rhythm.
Yeah.
So light resets the cellular clock, specifically the brain central clock.
Mm-hmm.
And the brain central clock, the SCN part of the brain, tells the peripheral cellular clocks to be in sync. The problem is we have all this light pollution all day long. So it's back to that again, people that have to be on their screens for work. Look, I'm in telehealth, so it's a blessing to be on cam— to talk to people around the world. I've done it for a lot of years. But I need to have, like I have off camera right now, these, uh, bright yellow glasses, these blue light blocking glasses. They would be a lifesaver for anybody that has to be on their, their phone or a laptop because it will preserve not only your eyes and eye strain, which your retinal cells, I mean, the research out of Harvard right now with David Sinclair and healing these retinal damage is just so exciting with these Yamanaka factors, but beyond what what's able to do for eyesight. I'm just thinking about it from a cellular safety standpoint, is that when you're constantly— your body thinks, especially at night, let's have blue light, it's really throwing off that sleep-wake cycle. So cortisol, that stress hormone that's actually not bad— I mean, God made cortisol.
It helps that productivity. It helps— it's an endogenous immunosuppressant, so it's meaning it's a natural anti-inflammatory. You want— for like the productive person out there, You want cortisol to be relatively higher in the morning and then a nice S-shaped gradual, uh, slowdown towards the end of the day. The problem is when you're looking at your screen all day long and you have poor sleep hygiene, you're staying up too late, and on top of that, eating too late at night, it's keeping cortisol up too high for too long.
Mm-hmm.
A breaking of the Goldilocks principle.
Yeah.
Not too high, not too low, but just right. So I don't wanna pathologize cortisol cuz it's a, it's a blessing, but we don't want it's always be high. So we need to be consistent with these sleep habits. And, uh, a couple of hours before sleep, I would prefer, if I'm talking to a patient—
Yeah.
And I don't always practice what I teach here, but I would at the very least get good quality blue light blocking glasses. Next would, like, the most ideal would be to just be off of screens for a few hours, um, and then be consistent with the routine. A cooler temperature. Studies show mid-60s Fahrenheit to 67 maybe is the highest in studies report to be the best sleeping temperature to improve these REM and deep sleep and heart rate variability, which is an important marker for cellular safety.
Okay.
Because that's the parasympathetic nervous system. So cold, like lowering your core temperature. If you can't lower your home that cool, then a cool shower in the evening can be helpful. Have you heard of these sort of bed mats, like the ChiliPad?
Eight Sleep.
Eight Sleep, ChiliPad. They both have, uh, will regulate your core temperature. A sleep mask, blackout blinds, make it as cave-like as possible, um, because that will enable you to improve these sleep scores. And that is helpful to slow down that cellular clock because this, when the, you're getting blue light pollution all the time. your cells become unsynced.
Yeah.
They kind of lose their way and lose track of time on a cellular level. And you don't want that. That's what's aging people faster.
Mm-hmm. And so we need the rhythm, but then it's also good to kind of, like, stress and throw everything off so your body can be more resilient.
Yeah. Well, all of this— yeah, especially with food and fasting and the way that people exercise, the research is— that's a great point. So chronic stress that goes on in perpetuity, that's too much stress, right? That's a misalignment. There's a mismatch between how our body is created and evolved and the world around us. But a little stress actually can be a great thing. The concept of hormesis, hormetic effects in the body, that's stressful, but it's pulsed. It's microdosed stress. It's intentional stress. And in some ways, I think humanity needs to get a little bit more grit and resilience, but in a smart, pulsed way.
Yeah.
human-aligned way. These adversity mimetics is what researchers call them. How can we stimulate these preservation, protection, healing mechanisms in the body so your cells can actually become stronger and more resilient? So that, I mean, it could be anything. Like fasting is a hormetic effect. Cold plunging is a mimetic, a hormetic effect, adversity mimetic. Sauna is high-intensity interval, REHIT training, which is like—
Yeah.
Like hit on steroids. I mean, there's a lot of ways to do pulsed microdose stress to then say you are more resilient. So when life comes like that, whatever environmental toxin that you are, you're breathing in somewhere, or that stress or trauma or that hard meeting at work, your cells are more resilient. So it's kind of like when you integrate hormetic or good stress in your life, it's like a cellular gym.
Mm-hmm.
So when the stuff that isn't so good, you'll be more resilient for it. And even down to the food, which we didn't get into, but there's the concept of xenohormesis. It's these plant compounds that the plant went through stress in its life, so it kind of donates and shares it, what it's learned to our cells.
Mm-hmm.
And teaches ourselves to become more resilient. So think bitter foods and deeply rich pigments. Fruits and vegetables, a lot of them have these polyphenols, these flavonoids that teach our— they actually how they work. People hear about polyphenols and flavonoids and antioxidant properties. How do they actually work? They're, they're, they're stress compounds that are teaching ourselves, hey, we went through, we went through hell out there. We grew, bugs were biting us. We were out in the drought. The harder that plant's life The more rich it is in these pigments because they're defense mechanisms. And then when we eat it, it kind of teaches ourselves to kind of have some grit and resilience too, which I think is beautiful.
And I think intermittent fasting is pretty similar, right? It's kind of absolutely giving us some resilience.
Exactly. Your body says, okay, the food may not be coming. So those cell defenses, things shift when cell defense response, cell danger response happens. And you give your body some of these adversity mimetics, these hormetics, whether it's food, fasting, cold, heat, whatever, it, it starts to slow something called mTOR, which mTOR is building up all of these— we need mTOR to build muscle, but we don't always want mTOR to be excessive. mTOR stands for mammalian or mechanistic target of rapamycin. God made it. It's not bad. We need to build muscle, but it's always high for too long.
Mm-hmm.
Just like cortisol. mTOR and cortisol are always high in most of us. It's a breaking of that Goldilocks principle.
Hmm.
So if we can lower mTOR at least sometimes, it allows our cell at least a reprieve to fix some things. So it upregulates autophagy, the cellular recycling pathways. It's sort of the anti-accelerated aging. And your body, your cells are so smart. Your cell actually envelops those toxic byproducts that I mentioned.
Yeah.
And even environmental toxins, it envelops them into these autophagosomes and then attaches it to this lysosome, which injects all of these enzymes to break down these toxic byproducts. We have a cleaning system, but we need to tap into the cleaning system. And you can't if mTOR is always high and insulin and blood sugar is always high or stress is always high. You need to give your body that cellular siesta. And that takes some—
And that's basically not eating.
Yeah.
So that you can enter autophagy, right?
Exactly. Yeah. And even these, uh, more like deeper, there's a place for deeper fasts, like beyond even 72 hours.
Yep.
These mediated aspects of fasting can be even deeper, where stem cells get activated in these deeper repairing mechanisms.
Yeah. Have you ever heard of ProLon?
Oh yeah, the fasting mimic diet.
Yeah, I've tried that a few times. I really like it. It's like a 5-day fast, basically. They give you some food, you don't break down your muscle, and you get that fasting without actually fasting.
And the ketogenic diet as a whole, and I love Valter Longo, who's the guy the researcher behind at USC, uh, the fasting mimicking diet. Great stuff there. Um, and then I would say the ketogenic diet done in a nutrient-dense, whole food way is also another way. Because what, what's happening? Ketones are raised.
Mm-hmm.
Ketones are a fuel way to burn fat, but it's also an epigenetic modulator. It actually trains those cells to become more resilient. It lowers inflammation. Paracelsus, one of the fathers of of modern medicine. He was known as the Martin Luther of medicine. He called fasting the physician within, and the ketogenic diet would be mimicking that. It's this inner cellular doctor that repairs things. But more isn't always better. People shouldn't always be fasting. That's called starvation. I mean, there's a, there's a context to these conversations that are important.
Yeah. Okay, so I wanna move on to some broader topics, uh, outside of cellular, cellular healing. Uh, but you guys should definitely go grab his book. Uh, heal yourselves. So Ozempic obviously has swept the nation over the last 2 years or whatever it's been, and everybody's on GLP-1s. You've got some pretty interesting thoughts around Ozempic and especially what it's doing to our desires outside of just desiring food. Yeah.
Look, I love the United States. I love— I think we have a lot of things, and not just the United States, Western culture as a whole has obviously brought humanity a lot of great things. you know, the American way is if a little is good, more is better. And that's not true when it comes to health. Just like hormesis, we're talking about, yeah, okay, what's the nuance and context of this? And we love to overcorrect. 'Cause I do find it interesting that as a culture, I don't wanna get too controversial here, but like we were praising body positivity and there's no such thing as a bad food and health at any size. And apparently that ended abruptly for a lot of people as soon as Ozempic came on the thing. Look, one was problematic. There are foods that don't love the human body back. We were gaslighting people and pandering and placating people, but then we like to overcorrect, and now we're advocating for medically induced starvation mode, which people are overdoing these things and shutting down hunger.
Yeah.
Food noise in balance is not a bad thing. You need to eat. So it's creating, I think, a lot of disordered eating that, oh, I'm feeling hungry, that's bad, let's up the units. And we're overdoing it. Look, I look at gut health for a living. The body makes these GLP-1 peptides endogenously, naturally, as we improve gut health. I am a fan of appropriately using microdose cyclical, both and not either or approach to GLP-1s and other types of peptides.
Okay.
Because when the gut is wrecked, even if you get someone's gut health improved dramatically, which we do all the time, Maybe their gut's not gonna ever produce enough GLP-1 to be the best metabolic health because of modernity, because of what we've done as a human species to the planet and ourselves. The human microbiome is, the gut microbiome is intimately connected to the soil microbiome and the soil that we grow our food in. So I think a pragmatic, logical approach is a both and not either approach to this. But the problem is we overcorrect in America, not with just this, but with many things, and we swing the pendulum in the completely other direction and we shut down these cues too much for too long in perpetuity, that is an issue. It's an issue. Obviously there's all the medical side effects that people are talking about with gastroparesis and muscle loss, like, and then gaining it all back the minute you stop. I mean, there's a lot of problematic— the sustainability of this is problematic. But also I'm seeing this phenomenon that a lot of people, a lot of people are talking about it, but I see firsthand with telehealth patients telling me they're seeing that in their family and friends are these Ozempic personalities.
Like, they're becoming dull and they don't have very highs and lows. It's exacerbating some depression for them. It is too much of a good thing, and it's even impacting— even impacting relationships.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's shutting down their desire for food, but it's also impacting the cravings for love and relationships. It can help some people with their relationships because if they feel more confident, it'll actually improve their relationship.
Yeah.
So I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. That's a horrible saying. I apologize. But I think the sweet spot is the bioindividuality to this.
Yeah, back to that.
And what's the lowest dose needed to improve? And if you pair it with actually dealing with why you have the problem in the first place, which is not an Ozempic deficiency, it's actually improving your gut and improving your metabolic health and dealing with nutrient deficiencies, you actually won't need that much GLP-1. That's the conversation that we don't want to have in our culture because we love a good quick fix.
Yep.
And this is unlike anything else. Uh, and this is directly proportional to people falling in love with their chatbots and AI and like completely having inhuman relationships. I'm concerned with humanity when you look at the total replacement level and our fertility rate and then this rise of people not caring about relationships as much. Uh, and it's not just Ozempic's fault, but it's part of the conversation that we are— what are we being sold and what are we choosing as a society?
Yeah. And it seems like now that GLP-1 is mainstream and like traditional doctors are prescribing it, now it just seems like it's become like a new Band-Aid that everybody's getting prescribed GLP-1s.
Yeah.
And something I'm curious about, so I, my whole family's doctors. I have 3 siblings, all doctors. My dad passed away, but he was a surgeon. And I've realized, like, as I've been, you know, interacting with them over the years, that years ago they were very against functional health. Like, mm-hmm, kind of like, not very against, but like it seemed like quacky, right? Yeah.
It was the other. Yeah. It was the not us. Yeah.
Now it's, now like, uh, my sister's getting really into functional health and everything like that. And so. So she, so she's like embraced it. And I think like more doctors are embracing it and understanding that there's like a full picture to look at.
Yeah.
Can you talk to us about kind of like the, the evolution that's happening in healthcare?
Yeah, I love that. I really do love it. And I have seen that cuz I've been, I started the first functional medicine telehealth clinic 16 years ago. So I've seen a lot over that time. And it, you, we used to get phone calls from people early, this is 2009, something like that. And people would call and say, how dare you? say you could reverse type 2 diabetes, like you're lying, you are like completely giving false hope. Now you're not going to meet a, not even a functionally minded doctor. This is your average conventional doctor. They're, if they're still saying you can't reverse type 2 diabetes, get a new doctor.
Yeah.
Because that's like standard basic stuff. Like, it's just like, we know it's lifestyle driven. Yes, it's more difficult for some people if you have severe insulin resistance, of course, especially with this conversation of GLP-1s. I mean, everybody's talking about it. It's, but beyond even GLP-1s, I think most doctors will be like, yeah, looking at food and exercise are a key point. I think that's a, a simple example of how I've seen the industry change. What was radical 15 years ago, it's not radical anymore. So I think there's a few reasons for that. I think, well, I think we probably in some ways infiltrated the system, I think a bit in the best of ways. I think, I mean, mainstream institutions have functional medicine centers now. Yeah. I think the Cleveland Clinic has a functional Medicine Center that wasn't around when I first started. There's many mainstream medical and hospital systems that have integrative medicine and functional medicine systems. So I think they're not opening multimillion-dollar clinics and institutions because of quackery. They're doing it because the data speaks for itself.
Yeah.
And you're on the wrong side of history, or really are so archaically tribal that you don't realize it's actually welcome to 2026 and beyond.
Yeah.
I mean, this is the future of medicine, is a both/and, not either/or approach. And it's not— shouldn't be threatening. To me, it's like we We— let's have the best. Like, if somebody needs a life-saving acute emergency ER care, like, if my dad could have been saved, I would want him at the ER with the best advancements of medicine, not coming to me.
Yeah.
But when you talk about chronic healthcare, like dealing with autoimmune conditions, fertility issues, metabolic issues, think weight gain, anxiety, depression, functional medicine is a significant part of the solution.
Yeah.
the majority of it, I would say, because we don't have this problem of chronic disease in the United States because of a pharmaceutical deficiency. But yet that's all that mainstream medical doctors are largely trained on is pharmacology.
Yeah.
Which has its place, but we need to change the way we're educating doctors. This is not an indictment on any individual physician. This is an indictment on a paradigm shift.
Yeah.
Which we're— I mean, not to get too political, but they're trying to change that. They're upping the nutrition hours because most doctors that are conventionally trained, research shows, would fail a basic nutrition test. But that's important because— to fix, because the majority of people they're seeing are there because, in part, if not entirely, because of lifestyle.
Yeah.
So this is a paradigm problem. This has to go— this goes back, and we talk about it in the book, actually, the Flexner Report and sort of the subjugation of diversity of thought in medicine. It become— it became big money-making orthodoxy, uh, that became very, um, Cartel-like, let's just say. A financial cartel that said, we want to monopolize, and it's going to be these petroleum-based pharmaceutical drugs, and that's how we're going to train them, and we're going to consolidate the market, and anything else is going to be shut down and canceled and sometimes imprisoned.
Yeah.
And that's where we've been. But I think it's beautiful that it's changing now.
It really is.
It's so changing, and it doesn't have to be this war. Let's come together. Let's help people. Because when we're fighting each other as healthcare professionals, the only people that are hurting are the people that need our help.
Yeah. And I think it's entrepreneurs who are changing the game. It's, it's the doctors that are creating their own private companies. Yes. And their own Viome and Function Health and your company. And that's who's changing the world.
And I, and that's it. I think the blessings of long-form conversations like the one we're having right now, the internet, long-form podcasts, the democratization, the decentralization of health information, there used to be so many gatekeepers so they can control the narrative.
Yeah.
It was the 5 network televisions. It was the 5 o'clock news. They would— it was all sponsored by whatever, whoever. And that was— and the guy with the white coat that you saw every 6 months would say it was trained by the system, and that was it. Now there's information that there's no gatekeepers on a lot of information, which is why historically maybe has been so threatening, especially during COVID But the reality is, I think people are just so awake now in the best What I mean by that, conscious, alert, informed, empowered. That is threatening to an old system. But actually, I think there's so much people like most doctors got in this because they want to help people. Entrepreneurs are finding solutions to help people. So I think this is actually the benefit of obviously our culture and democracy and a free market to, to let's, let's work smarter.
Yeah.
Let's come together and level up because the data doesn't it's not looking good. It'd be one thing if we— if the system was producing great results, but the system's actually not great. I mean, the Journal of American Medical Association, the United States spends the most but yet has the worst outcome. So, it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a woo-woo person to say this, we have to do something different to see something different. Yeah, we need a revolution.
Yeah, we need change.
Yeah. And if you're still clinging to the old way, why? Like, what— what are— that just, like, it's not data-driven at all.
Yeah. Speaking of data, uh, and change, AI has really changed everything. And you have some really unique takes on AI. So what is your thoughts around AI in healthcare, but also AI in general, and how it's impacting the way that we think and the world in general?
I think it's the American way too. If a little is good, more is better. I'm concerned about that. I think, like, somebody's wearable CGM, AI. Their ring that's tracking REM and deep sleep, AI. My electronic health records, AI, part AI. I think AI's in a lot of different things. That's not what I'm talking about. Those things all make people work smarter, not harder.
Yeah.
Become more efficient, be less stressed, become more powerful and impact positive change in the world.
It's like AI version 1, basically.
Yeah, baby AI. I'm all for baby AI. But the baby AIs turn into be maybe quite the monster. Maybe not right now. I think certainly we're in the honeymoon period with AI. But like all honeymoons, they end. And I'm concerned of the endgame without having a bit of a pause as a culture, of the view behind some of the people behind these big companies, this race that they're all having to say who's going to be the biggest and who's going to be the ones consolidating more power. That's on a macro level, philosophical level of these accelerationists, right? I mean, they is they're compelled to build as fast as possible and to beat the other. And the road to hell is paved with good intentions, 'cause they'll say, well, other countries will have it. China's gonna have it, and Russia's gonna have it, so we have to beat them. So we're all a race to the bottom, or a race to techno-authoritarianism.
Mm-hmm.
'Cause that's— not to get too existential, but that's the worldview of some of these guys. Not all of them, but some of them. I'm concerned about some of these people and their end stage of where they see this going. But when I'm wearing my Oura Ring, am I thinking about that? No. I don't think it's inherently evil. I just think the system— even if you think of what's his name, Hinton, Geoffrey Hinton, another godfather, he left Google to be able to talk about this freely. Just look at Geoffrey Hinton's words. I mean, he says, like, yeah, we put the process in motion. AI, it's a blessing. But now we actually don't know how it works because it's becoming and chatting. It's becoming more smart than we are.
Hmm.
So I'm concerned about the endgame. And then beyond— that's a macro existential thought that I have just from a societal health standpoint. But on a micro level, I'm concerned about these data centers and the impact they're having on our health.
Yeah.
From an EMF standpoint, what it's doing to bees and what it's doing to people around these data centers. I mean, the amount of electricity and EMFs. I mean, I asked patients for 16 years, do you live near power lines?
Yeah.
Because EMF-sensitive people, we talked about EMF earlier.
Mm-hmm.
Turning your Wi-Fi off at night can help your health. This is enough electricity to fuel cities, just one data center.
Oh my God.
Some of these are one data center's enough electricity and EMFs to fuel small states, and there's no sign of stopping.
Oh gosh. And they can build anywhere. There's like—
They can build anywhere. So for the health of our planet and our health, at least I'm not anti-AI. AI ethicists talk about slow AI and reflective, intentional use for ourselves because the cognitive offloading that we do, like we're letting AI think for ourselves, that's not good. There's studies that show that people that use these AI chatbots even for 15 minutes decrease brain function by 55%. Like people are like losing discernment.
Yeah.
They're losing critical thinking skills. They are becoming mentally weak because they have lack of discernment, because they're offloading too much on AI. But then, yeah, beyond that, it is the larger, what are we doing for our health being surrounded by these EMFs all the time? It's, it's, it's— yeah, we have to— so going back, sorry, slow AI. It's just saying, hey, can we just pause as humanity on a micro level? How are we using this tool?
Yeah.
Are we letting it think for ourselves? Are we— is it impacting our life in a bad, bad way or a positive way? And then societally, slow AI is saying, let's, like, look at what this is doing because maybe we should pause it until we figure things out.
Yeah, it's so crazy because I was in a bubble about AI because I was talking to all these AI experts, Mustafa Suleyman, Mo Godat, all these, like, pro-AI people. And all I could see was, like, the efficiency, the productivity, entrepreneurs can compete more than ever, right? And lately when I've posted stuff about AI, there's so much hate in the comments. People are so angry because data centers are being built in their towns and cities. And for some of us, like, we're not impacted by that yet, so we don't realize that there's such, like, an environmental problem and also so much, like, hate being built up.
Yeah.
Because people don't want AI in their cities.
Well, it's easy whenever it's not in our backyard. Right? But when it's in our backyard, then you care.
Yeah.
Because this thing that's free, which I also think is interesting— nothing in America is free. Why are these most powerful things free? We're all contributing to the training of it towards the singularity. I mean, it's wild when you think about it. It's— we are just being served the way that it's being shoved down our throats, and we're just like, give us more. The AI slop, uh, it is— we need to have some critical thinking here.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, it's always easy whenever you're just like, wow, this is so great. But with that data centers in your backyard, how great do you think it is now? Yeah.
Not so great. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, this was such an awesome conversation. I end my show with 2 questions that I ask all of my guests. What is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? Wow.
I would say 2 things. You said one, one actionable thing.
One, one actionable thing.
One, I, I'm horrible at rapid fire. I, I, I, I did, I have like the worst person you wanna have on for rapid fire. I ruin everything. rapid fire. I would say, I would say this is what I would do. Do the best you can. I said it earlier, but I will say it again. All this information that we talked about, be curious, do the best you can, and give the rest to God. What I mean by that is just saying stressing about this stuff isn't good for your health. But I want people to at least pick one thing. And then, then the thing is, lean in from there.
Hmm.
You don't have to do all the things because people can get paralysis of analysis and then think, I'm just going to give up. So I would say that's more headspace that is really important because you— for you to be the most profitable, productive, amazing version of yourself, you need to do something different to see something different. And if you don't have your mental health or physical health or spiritual health, what do you have?
Yeah.
Like, you're going to burn out sooner or later. So this is like the engine for you to have sustainability in your career is dealing with this vessel that you have in this lifetime that you have.
I love that. And what would you say your secret to profiting in life is? And this can go beyond business, which we didn't even talk about business too much.
Yeah, yeah, too much. Yeah, I would say my relationship with God and nature, I think, is powerful. Like, I called nature God art. I think that's—
God art.
God art. Yeah.
That's beautiful.
Yeah, it's just like getting out. And the research shows that Shinrin-yoku, the research out of Japan and South Korea, is using nature as a meditation and medicine. It shifts your gut-brain axis. It tells your cells it's safe.
Mm-hmm.
Even if you think about it, bird— the birds, birds chirp. Birdsong happens when birds feel safe. And there's something somatic on a cellular level that tells your cells it's safe as well. So I think that's a non-negotiable for me, is I use nature as a, like, an act of worship and like just saying, wow, like, what a beautiful planet we are. And it gives me sort of divine downloads from God to say, like, this is the next right step for you. And I think in our hustle culture, to slow down and pause— and this isn't woo-woo stuff. This is physiological. This is being explored in the scientific literature of how nature can recalibrate. And again, to bring it back to the cells, it's the cellular symphony of safety when you kind of connect to that. And it's also back to the EMF conversation. One of the great ways to dispel EMFs. Because guess what? EMFs aren't even inherently bad. EMFs— there's God-made EMFs, non-polarized EMFs, or the science around grounding.
Mm-hmm.
Like, and earthing. Like, put your— like, touch grass. Literally put your feet in grass. It actually recalibrates and synchronizes that cellular clock that we talked about earlier. Instead of it being stressed by all this man-made EMF, you have some nature-made EMFs. So that's That's a non-negotiable.
God art.
God art, baby.
Love it. And where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?
Thank you for the opportunity. Uh, everything's at drwillcole.com. D-R-W-I-L-L-C-O-L-E.com. The telehealth clinic, um, information's there. Tons of free resources. Heal Yourselves is there. My podcast, The Art of Being Well, which I would love to have you on.
Oh yeah.
Anytime. Um, The Art of Being Well comes out twice a week. So yeah.
An amazing Instagram channel with—
Thank you.
Almost 900,000 followers. Crushing it.
@DrWillCole on good old IG, and I'm back on TikTok. Your boy was banned for a minute, but I came back in a different form.
We'll put all his social links and his book links and all that in the show notes.
Thank you so much.
Dr. Will, thank you so much for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast. Yeah, fam, this conversation with Dr. Will Cole made something really clear. You can look healthy as ever on the outside while your cells and organs are aging faster underneath it all. Your body is always communicating with you. Fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep, and burnout are not things that you should ignore. They're check engine lights telling you that something needs your attention. And healing is not only about finding the perfect diet or the perfect supplement. Dr. Will explained that your cells can enter a threat state because of toxins, chronic stress, unresolved trauma, and a demanding lifestyle. Your body feels all of it. That's such an important lesson for any high achiever because your business may run on strategy, but your body runs on cells. And if your cells are exhausted or stuck in survival mode, your focus and energy will eventually suffer. My biggest takeaway in this conversation is more is not always better. More hustle can backfire. More exercise can backfire. More medication is not always the answer. More data And technology can actually distract us and disconnect us from what our bodies are trying to say.
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is just slow down, get enough sleep, unplug, give your body a real chance to recover. So don't wait until your body forces you to stop. Pay attention now. Notice what is no longer loving your body back. Build your cellular credit score, as Dr. Will said, and create a life that supports your health. Instead of draining it. If you love this conversation, make sure you check out Will and his new book, Heal Your Cells. He co-authored it with Josh Ax. And because this was such a fun in-person conversation, if you're listening on audio, you can watch the full video on YouTube or Spotify. I highly recommend that you listen to our episodes more than once because they're jam-packed with information, and this one certainly had a lot of information. So you may want to listen twice or watch again on YouTube or Spotify video. And before we close, I just wanna say thank you. We've got so many new fans and listeners these days. My Instagram and YouTube have been popping off. We went viral many times. We've got over 10 million views on Instagram alone last month.
So there's so many more listeners who are now tuning in, and that's so exciting. And we've been dominating on audio for like 6 years now. I've been a top 10 entrepreneurship and business podcast on audio. But now we're finally cracking the code on video and social. So shout out to you guys for finding us, and I can't wait for you to listen, learn, and profit. I'm so grateful for your listenership, and I'll never take that for granted. This is your host, Hala Taha, AKA the Podcast Princess, signing off.
Despite living a health-conscious lifestyle, Dr. Will Cole found his body overwhelmed by grief after his father's sudden death and burnout from years of running a clinic, writing books, and hosting a podcast. This constant stress and loss revealed how little resilience his body had left and forced him to understand the role trauma, poor sleep, chronic stress, environmental toxins, and other lifestyle factors have in accelerating cellular aging. In this episode, Dr. Will shares how to support cellular health, reduce the stressors aging your body, and build the resilience and energy needed to keep up with your goals.
In this episode, Hala and Dr. Will will discuss:
(00:00) Introduction
(00:00) Why Your Organs Age Differently
(06:05) Signs Your Health Systems Are Failing
(10:41) Biological Age vs. Chronological Age
(18:30) How Nutrition Impacts Cellular Aging
(26:10) Environmental Toxins Damaging Cellular Health
(38:15) How to Heal Your Cells
(43:22) How Stress and Trauma Impact Health
(50:23) Circadian Rhythm and Deep Sleep Habits
(1:00:53) The Truth About Ozempic and GLP-1s
(1:06:14) Why Functional Medicine Is Going Mainstream
(1:11:37) The Hidden Risks of Unchecked AI
Dr. Will Cole is a leading functional medicine expert, telehealth practitioner, and host of The Art of Being Well podcast. He is a New York Times bestselling author whose latest book, Heal Your Cells, explores how cellular health influences energy, aging, inflammation, and longevity. His work focuses on helping people understand how food, stress, toxins, hormones, gut health, and lifestyle choices shape long-term health and well-being.
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Resources Mentioned:
Dr. Will's Book, Heal Your Cells: bit.ly/HealUrCells
Dr. Will's Podcast, The Art of Being Well:bit.ly/TArtOBW-apple
Dr. Will's Website: drwillcole.com
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