The Doctor's Farmacy With Mark Hyman, M.d.

Nourishing our spirit through addressing the inner challenges we all face—whether it’s discontent in a marriage or job or self-sabotaging beliefs about not being good enough—has a major impact on our overall well-being. When we address the lies we tell ourselves and others, connect with our personal integrity, and embrace the spirit we’re often keeping locked away, some truly amazing things can happen.  In this mini-episode, Dr. Hyman sits down with his personal coach and best friend, Lauren Zander to discuss the transformative steps that helped him reach his goals and Lauren shares a wealth of knowledge, and humor, on how to address the lies we all tell ourselves and instead pursue our dreams. Lauren Zander is an executive life coach, author, and creator of The Handel Method® and Inner.U. She is the coach to coaches, gurus, CEOs, and stars. She has 40+ coaches trained in her proven method, developed and taught at MIT, Stanford, and NYU, as well as at Fortune 500 companies and to people wanting to human bette

We have the best hospitals, most highly trained doctors, and people come from all over the world to get medical treatments in the US. Yet, we’re lagging behind almost every other country in health metrics, including life expectancy and infant mortality. That’s because we’re not being set up for success: The policies and systems we rely on for healthcare aren’t supporting prevention, education, and accessibility for all our communities. We are spending a massive amount of money on healthcare (1 of every 5 federal dollars) but we’re not spending on the social services to invest in lifestyle wellness that prevents disease in the first place.  This week on The Doctor’s Farmacy, I sit down with Dr. Anand Parekh to talk about solutions to our country’s healthcare crisis and examine what’s already working. Dr. Parekh is the Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) chief medical advisor, providing clinical and public health expertise across the organization, particularly in the areas of aging, prevention, and global health.

Unfortunately, in today’s world we’ve become exposed to a greater number of environmental toxins than ever before. Heavy metals including mercury, lead, and arsenic pose many threats to our health, from increased risk of cancer to autoimmune disorders, hormonal imbalances, gut issues, and much more. In this mini-episode Dr. Hyman talks to Dave Asprey about the best ways to test for and detoxify from heavy metals. Dave Asprey is an expert in biohacking and reversing the aging process. He is the founder and CEO of Bulletproof 360, creator of the global phenomenon Bulletproof Coffee, a two-time New York Times bestselling author, the host of the Webby award-winning podcast Bulletproof Radio, serial entrepreneur, and global change agent.  Listen to Dr. Hyman’s full-length conversation with Dave Asprey: https://DrMarkHyman.lnk.to/DaveAsprey

We’re up against a chronic epidemic: stress. In fact, it’s estimated that 80% or more of doctors’ visits are due to illnesses related to stress. This can come in many different forms. Socioeconomic stress is a real burden for many people, as is the stress of taking care of several generations within a family, or meeting the demands of our jobs. Stress can also come in the form of bad food and poor or inadequate sleep, which send negative signals to the brain that produce stress hormones. That doesn’t mean we’re stuck with stress though. Today on The Doctor’s Farmacy, I’m joined by my good friend Dr. Rangan Chatterjee to look at the many sides of stress and all the actions we can take to stop it in its tracks.  Dr. Chatterjee is regarded as one of the most influential doctors in the UK and wants to change how medicine will be practiced for years to come. He hosts the biggest health podcast in Europe, Feel Better, Live More, which Apple has announced as one of the most downloaded new podcasts of the past year.

Food waste is one of the largest problems of our time. In fact, about 30% of all food produced globally (1.3 billion tons) is wasted—and it’s costing us. Food waste is also a major contributor to climate change; if food waste was represented as its own country it would be the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter! In this minisode, Dr. Hyman dives into this topic and what we can do about it in our own homes with Kavita Shukla and Paul Hawken. Kavita Shukla is the Founder and CEO of The FRESHGLOW Co. and the inventor of FreshPaper, a simple innovation taking on the massive global challenge of food waste by keeping food fresher, longer. FreshPaper is used by farmers and families across the globe, and The FRESHGLOW Co. has partnered with some of the largest retailers in the world, from Whole Foods to Walmart so that people everywhere can take advantage of this incredible product and the goodness of real food. Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, and activist who has dedicated his life to envi

As we see a rise in the hyperlocal movement, urban farming, school gardening programs, and farm to table restaurants it’s clear there are some really exciting solutions in the works for a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable food system. We just need to embrace them and keep the innovations coming. When it comes to innovative ideas that support a more sustainable, nutritious, and beneficial food system, there’s no better person to talk to than Kimbal Musk. I was thrilled to sit down with him for this week’s episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy to dig into our changing landscape of food and how he’s managed to scale sustainable eating and education as part of his model.  Kimbal is a chef, restaurateur, and philanthropist. His personal mission is to pursue an America where everyone has access to real food. He’s been named a Global Social Entrepreneur by the World Economic Forum and is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of three businesses—The Kitchen Restaurant Group, Big Green, and Square Roots—with real food mi

We’re always hearing extreme results from nutritional research. Ranging from the “dangers” of coconut oil and eggs to completely contradictory statements, like that a low-carb diet shortens lifespan and also increases it, we are bombarded with confusing information that can make deciding what to eat totally overwhelming. But with the right knowledge and resources, we can learn to decipher dietary studies to get the real truth. In this mini-episode, Dr. Hyman sits down with Chris Kresser, an expert in Functional Medicine and a leader in nutritional research, to dissect what you need to evaluate to understand nutrition research. Chris Kresser M.S., L.Ac is the co-director of the California Center for Functional Medicine, founder of Kresser Institute, creator of ChrisKresser.com, and the New York Times bestselling author of The Paleo Cure and Unconventional Medicine. He is one of the most respected clinicians and educators in the fields of Functional Medicine and ancestral health and has trained over 1,500 clini

One of the reasons Functional Medicine is so transformative is that it recognizes disease does not occur in isolation. If one part of the body is compromised the entire body is thrown out of balance. SIBO, or small intestine bacterial overgrowth, is a great example of this. It rarely occurs on its own, and is often paired with a number of other issues, from neurological symptoms to migraines, arthritis, and more. When we focus on healing the gut in these instances, the entire body shifts for the better. This week on The Doctor’s Farmacy I’m joined by Dr. George Papanicolaou to talk about the Functional Medicine matrix as a framework for healing, as well as his own journey in overcoming a traumatic brain injury.  Dr. Papanicolaou is a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and is Board Certified in Family Medicine from Abington Memorial Hospital. Over time as the healthcare system made it harder for patients to receive personal care, Dr. Papanicolaou decided a change was needed. He began

We have all heard that meditation can provide stress relief, but the benefits do not stop there. Meditation also provides immune support, can lead to better sleep, and even better sex; it also provides the immune system a rest five times deeper than sleep. In this mini-episode, Dr. Hyman sits down with his own meditation teacher, Emily Fletcher, to talk about the science behind meditation’s benefits. It is possible to let go of the stress we’ve all accumulated throughout life; Emily explains how this works down to the cellular level.  Emily Fletcher is the founder of Ziva, the creator of The Ziva Technique, and regarded as a leading expert in meditation for high performers. She is also the author of, “Stress Less, Accomplish More.” Tune in to Dr. Hyman’s full-length conversation with Emily Fletcher: https://DrMarkHyman.lnk.to/EmilyFletcher

There’s a part of our food system that’s not being talked about: racial inequality. The division of land, government subsidies, and financial resources that are available favor white farmers. Meanwhile, many of our sustainable farming practices actually stem from African and indigenous roots. Since 1920 African-American farmers have lost over 14 million acres of land. Combine this with the fact that Black communities are also at a higher risk of illnesses due to a lack of access to fresh, nutritious food. It’s food apartheid.  This week on The Doctor’s Farmacy I was joined by Leah Penniman to dig into the racial injustice that continues to smolder in our current food system. Leah Penniman is a Black Kreyol educator, farmer, author, and food justice activist from Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, NY. She co-founded Soul Fire Farm in 2010 with the mission to end racism in the food system and reclaim our ancestral connection to land. As Co-Executive Director, Leah is part of a team that facilitates powerful food sovere

Food has an amazing ability to heal, but the timing of when we eat or abstain from eating can also have really amazing impacts on our health. Autoimmunity, gut issues, Alzheimer’s, and aging have all been found to benefit from the right kind of fasting. In this mini-episode, Dr. Hyman sits down with Dr. Valter Longo to discuss the Fasting Mimicking Diet, a diet that helps you feel fed and nourished without completely starving the body, and has been found to support anti-inflammatory gut bacteria and support the mechanisms that lead to better aging.  Dr. Valter Longo is internationally recognized as a leader in the field of aging studies and related diseases. Known as a “Guru of Longevity,” Dr. Longo is currently Professor of Biogerontology and Biological Sciences and Director of the Institute of Longevity of the School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, as well as Director of the Oncology and Longevity Program at IFOM in Milan. He is also the Scientific Director of the Cre

Ever notice how a growth mindset leads to opportunity and success and how a poverty mindset leaves you with nothing but want, and often spirals downwards into an ongoing funk? We have to use our physical state to change our mental state, and vice versa. There’s a feedback loop between our bodies and brains, which is why mindset and behavior are so powerful for creating the reality we desire.  This week on The Doctor’s Farmacy I dig into how to do that, and so much more, with Tom Bilyeu. Tom a filmmaker and serial entrepreneur who chased money hard for nearly a decade and came up emotionally bankrupt. To that end, he and his partners sold their technology company and founded Quest Nutrition—a company predicated not on money, but rather on creating value for people with the mission to end metabolic disease, something impacting Tom’s own family. After exiting Quest and generating extraordinary personal wealth, Bilyeu turned his attention to the other pandemic facing society, the poverty of poor mindset. To solve

Creating optimal health and a life you love is about setting the right foundation and putting in the right inputs to get the right results. And the first step is your vision. What do you want your present and future to look like? How do you see yourself? What can you do to get there? In this mini-sode, Dr. Hyman explores with his guests, Mark Bittman, Cal Newport, and Vishen Lakhiani, the importance of creating a vision for your life, particularly in the face of the barrage of food marketing to which we are all exposed. Mark Bittman is the author of more than 20 acclaimed books, including the “How to Cook Everything” series. He was a food columnist, opinion columnist, and the lead magazine food writer at the New York Times, where he started writing in 1984 and still writes occasionally. Mark is currently a member of the faculty of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and is writing a new cookbook called “Dinner for Everyone” to share how simple and delicious it can be to cook at home, no matt

The impact the gut has on the entire body should not be underestimated, but unfortunately in conventional medicine it often is. We are shuttling pounds and pounds of food into this tube we have called the digestive system several times a day and we don’t give it a second thought—it’s pretty crazy when you think about it. The gut is responsible for our ability to turn food into fuel; to absorb and even create certain nutrients; to rid the body of harmful toxins on a daily basis. We rely on it to do so much for us.  It’s also one of my favorite topics as a Functional Medicine doctor—poop, the microbiome, the gut-immune and gut-brain connections—there are so many angles we need to look at with gut health and they can tell us an amazing amount of information about the rest of the body. That’s why I’m so excited for this week’s episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy, where I sit down with my friend and colleague Dr. Todd LePine to take a deeper look at digestive health and the fascinating collection of life forms we carr

Currently, psychedelics are getting renewed interest from the medical community. From anxiety and depression to addiction and even overcoming fear of death, research is showing psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has a lot to offer. And science is showing us that the same part of the brain that is suppressed with psychedelics—the default mode network— is also suppressed in very experienced meditators. In this minisode, Dr. Hyman explores this topic in his conversations with Michael Pollan, Anthony Bossis and Daniel Goleman.  Michael Pollan is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Cooked, Food Rules, In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Botany of Desire, and his latest book How to Change Your Mind, which is all about the new science of psychedelics. A longtime contributor to the New York Times Magazine, he also teaches writing at Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley where he is the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Science Journalism. In 2010, Time magazine named him one o

Eating unhealthy food and trying to improve your health is like mopping up the floor while the sink is still overflowing—it just doesn’t work! But it can be hard to decide what we really should be eating for optimal health, considering the diet wars (Paleo or vegan?), the non-stop exposure to sugary foods in every market isle, and clever marketing by Big Food to make us think things are good for us when they really aren’t. Instead of getting overwhelmed and defeated, I like to take a lighter look at food and focus on solutions. That’s what this week’s episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy is all about, where I’m actually the guest. My talented and funny wife Mia Lux interviews me on her show, The Conscious-ish Show, and we focus on taking the many confusing ideas about food with a grain of salt and approaching wellness with humor and action. Mia merges the playful and the profound, drawing on her experience as a stand-up comedian, personal growth junkie, and recovering lawyer. For over 5 years, Mia has been an inte

With deliberate attention, we can create the physical, mental, and emotional health we desire at any age. The first step is identifying where we want to be at “X” age. In this mini-episode, Dr. Hyman speaks with Dr. Peter Attia about his personal action plan for longevity, and as he likes to put it, training for the Centenarian Olympics. Dr. Peter Attia is the founder of Attia Medical, PC, a medical practice with offices in San Diego and New York City, focusing on the applied science of longevity. His approach focuses on increasing lifespan by delaying the onset of chronic disease, while simultaneously improving “healthspan,” or quality of life. To do this, his practice applies nutritional biochemistry, exercise physiology, sleep physiology, techniques to increase distress tolerance, lipidology, pharmacology, and endocrinology. Find Dr. Hyman’s full-length interview with Dr. Peter Attia here: https://DrMarkHyman.lnk.to/DrPeterAttia

Success comes from support. We are actually more strongly impacted by our peers and social networks than by our genetics—this is huge when it comes to changing our health. That’s why I’m such an advocate for community-based healthcare. Putting people in groups, where they can be heard by others in similar situations, supported, and held accountable is an incredible tool for creating long-lasting change. I’ve seen this thousands of times at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, where we provide a Functioning for Life program using this model, and it’s revolutionizing healthcare. I’m really excited to talk more about this on my latest episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy, with James Maskell and Tawny Jones.  James Maskell has spent the past decade innovating at the cross-section of Functional Medicine and community and created the Functional Forum, the world’s largest Functional Medicine conference with record-setting participation. His organization and first book of the same name, Evolution of Medici

Many of us grew up believing that vegetable oils were good and butter was bad. We were told, even by government and medical associations, to use more vegetable, seed and bean oils (like soybean, corn, safflower, canola). Now we know this advice was completely wrong. In this mini-episode, Dr. Hyman explores the origin story of how Americans began embracing vegetable oil with his guest, Nina Teicholz, and we consider what the best oils actually are. Nina Teicholz is an investigative science journalist and author. Her international bestseller, “The Big Fat Surprise,” has upended the conventional wisdom on dietary fat–especially saturated fat. It was named a 2014 *Best Book* by The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Mother Jones, and Library Journal. Teicholz is also the Executive Director of The Nutrition Coalition, a non-profit group that promotes evidence-based nutrition policy.  Find Dr. Hyman’s full-length conversation with Nina Teicholz: https://drmarkhyman.lnk.to/NinaTeicholz

There’s a certain stigma around mental illness, one that can, unfortunately, keep people from feeling empowered that they can change their brain health and get the care they truly need. But think about it—would we ever shame someone with cancer, autoimmunity, or dementia for needing help? Of course not. Unfortunately, the past methods of treating mental health disorders didn’t actually look at what was happening inside the brain. It was a guessing game based on symptoms without knowing the real cause, location, or severity of the imbalance. The good news is that now, with technology like brain scans, we can get a clear picture of what is happening in the brain to get real solutions.  My guest on this week’s episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy, Dr. Daniel Amen, has been paving the way for a new type of psychiatry, looking at the actual brain and using an integrative approach to prevent disease and successfully treat it. The Washington Post called Dr. Daniel Amen the most popular psychiatrist in America and Discove