Have you ever wondered how to live a long life?
In our world today, it seems like there’s more information about that topic than ever before. There are more fad diets out there than one person could ever possibly try! Finding the right nutritional regimen for you can feel almost impossible. How are we supposed to sort through all that information and figure out how to live the longest and healthiest life possible?
I’ve got good news for you today, guys: My guest is here to demystify the secrets of longevity. His name is Dr. Steven Gundry, and he’s an expert in the field. His new book, The Longevity Paradox, breaks down exactly what you need to do to live a long life and even solve your health problems.
Often, we hear things like, “Well, your health problems really just come down to your genetics anyway. There’s nothing you can do about it.” Not true! While your DNA does have a little bit of influence over your lifespan and overall health, it turns out that there’s another factor that’s way more important: your gut bugs.
“… If your mother had diabetes or your father had coronary heart disease, that tells me that if you eat like your parents did, then you will most likely have those diseases — not because you inherited that from your parents, but you learned to eat from your parents. And it actually goes beyond that — not only did you [learn to] eat from your parents, but you share the microbiome in your gut that your parents have.” – Dr. Steven Gundry
According to Dr. Gundry, we all have a microbiome of bacteria, fungi, and even mushrooms living inside us. It sounds crazy, but you actually have more genetic material from these “bugs” inside you than you have from your own DNA! It seems like it might be important to take care of that microbiome, right?
Today, Dr. Gundry is here to teach you how to do exactly that. He’s here to break down what exactly gut bugs are and teach you how to make a healthy microbiome, prevent health problems and aging, and live the longest, healthiest life possible. This information is fascinating and incredibly helpful, so let’s dive in!
Who Is Dr. Steven Gundry?
Dr. Steven Gundry started out as a cardiac surgeon. He performed over 10,000 surgeries! But eventually, he realized that surgery wasn’t enough to address the root of his patients’ health problems. Instead — he started to realize — getting his patients healthy by altering their diets and taking care of their microbiomes is the key to health and long life:
“People now assume that they’re going to get their hips and knees replaced … [But] what [shocks] me is [that] I have a number of people … [who] have been scheduled for knee or hip replacement and have come to me for cardiac clearance … [and] we would put them on my program in anticipation of getting them in better shape for their hip or knee replacement. One of them I talked about in [The Longevity Paradox] — he was scheduled for a knee replacement — … [and] we put him on the program for six months. … When I saw him right before the knee replacement and [did] the final test … the guy said, ‘What knee replacement? I canceled it.’” – Dr. Steven Gundry
Today, Dr. Gundry is dedicated to helping his patients avoid surgery. (Pretty funny for a former surgeon!) He is committed to teaching his patients how to have a healthy microbiome and live a long and surgery-free life.
Dr. Steven Gundry’s books on the subject have been New York Times bestsellers. In fact, his book, The Plant Paradox — which uncovers secret dangers in foods you may think are ‘healthy’ — spent over 30 weeks on the bestseller list! And as I mentioned earlier, his new book, The Longevity Paradox, is full of life-changing information about how you can take care of your gut bugs to maximize your life and health.
Dr. Steven Gundry’s books also include The Plant Paradox Cookbook and The Plant Paradox Family Cookbook. Both of these books teach you some simple recipes you can cook at home to get some gut biome-boosting ingredients into your diet!
Dr. Steven Gundry is passionate about helping people live longer, healthier lives. I’m so grateful to him for joining me on the show today to share his research and wisdom with us!
What Are Your Gut Bugs?
Before we could get into too many specifics about things you should or shouldn’t include in your diet, I needed Dr. Gundry to explain exactly how your gut bugs work. Like I said earlier, your body is full of bacteria, fungi, and even mushrooms. You need those kinds of bugs to be healthy!
And those bugs have a massive impact on our health.
“Because they control our fate. And the point of The Longevity Paradox is knowing what these guys — … I call them bugs, good bugs and bad bugs — want to eat. And knowing how these guys relate to the wall inside of our gut, the inner lining of our gut, and that cross-talk that happens across that wall will determine what’s going to happen to you long term and even short term.” – Dr. Steven Gundry
The microbiome in your gut is the key to your health. According to Dr. Gundry, researchers today can look at the kinds of bugs in your gut and predict what health problems you may have in the future. Problems like heart disease, dementia, and even some cancers can actually be determined by the set of bugs you have in your body’s microbiome.
So what makes a healthy microbiome in your gut? According to Dr. Gundry — and a really weird little animal called a “naked mole-rat” — the key to a healthy microbiome is diversity.
“So we know that good bugs like to eat certain foods. … There’s this fascinating creature called ‘naked mole-rat.’ … These are probably the ugliest creatures in the world … and naked mole-rats appear to have no end mortality. … Naked mole-rats have the same diverse microbiome as 105-year-old people, and what the heck is going on? Well, it turns out that naked mole-rats, unlike any other rats, eat roots, eat tubers, and eat fungi that are growing in the subterranean area.” – Dr. Steven Gundry
Naked mole-rats literally live 10 or 20 times as long as normal rats, and they do it by having a more diverse microbiome. Clearly, it’s essential to get those good bugs in your gut!
But how can we do that? By eating them, of course! There are plenty of things you can eat that have all kinds of good bugs that support a healthy gut.
For example, mushrooms are huge! Dr. Gundry says that mushrooms — all types of them — have these compounds called polyphenols that good bacteria just love to eat. In fact, a recent study shows us that we can actually prevent Alzheimer’s disease just by eating two cups of mushrooms a week! Just adding two cups of mushrooms into your weekly diet helps diversify your microbiome and support increased memory and longevity. Eat your mushrooms, guys!
