12 Warning Signs Your Body Is Aging Faster Than It Should

All right. So you have a number on your driver's license, but your body is running on a completely different clock. And for a lot of people, the clock is running too fast. Why is it that 2 people can age at different speeds? You can have 2 people both at 50 years old. One has the arteries, the muscle, and the memory of a 38-year-old, and the other has the body of a 65-year-old.

Same birthday, 27 years apart on the inside. And we can now measure that gap even with medical testing today. Today, I'm going to walk you through 12 signs that your body may be aging faster than it should. And every one of them is backed by real published medical research. And I'll also be diving into exactly how to reverse those signs of aging.

And I'll give you those fixes in specific numbers you can start this week. And stay with me till the end, because the last 2 signs are the ones almost nobody measures. And the studies say They matter more than even your cholesterol levels.

So over the next 40 minutes, I'm going to show you the 12 clearest signs that your biological age is climbing faster than your calendar and the exact research behind how to fix them. Welcome to the Dr. Axe Show. All right. So let me be clear about one thing to start. Your age in years and your age of your cells, those are 2 different numbers.

Scientists call the second one your biological age, how old your body actually is on the inside. And here's the good news hiding inside that idea. If aging is happening at the level of your cells, then the speed of it is not fixed. In fact, a landmark study in 2018 showed that there are 9 routine blood markers that predict How long you'll live better than your birthday does.

And it showed up to a 15-year difference between people in their biological versus chronological age. And it could be even more than that. Studies of biological aging show 2 people born on the very same day can differ more than a decade in how old their bodies are. In fact, it can be multiple decades. So your DNA sets the starting line, but your daily habits— Set the pace.

So that gap is the entire reason this episode exists, and it's why every fix is something that you can actually control. So where a lot of people think genetics are the biggest driver of aging, which by the way, they're not— now, they can contribute, and all of us have different risk factors and epigenetic switches that can be turned on that can cause us to age more quickly or more slowly.

But the reality is, it's lifestyle and things that are within your control. Yeah. The single biggest things that move the needle for how fast you age are, one, it is overwhelming in terms of the clinical research, all the studies, is your fitness level, how strong you are, your cardiovascular fitness, your grip strength.

I mean, the things related to strength and overall fitness is at the very top of the list. And then we have sleep, and then we have stress, and then we have your overall diet. And then there's some other lifestyle issues, but those are the big ones. If you want to age more slowly, Keep your fitness at a high level, sleep well, keep stress low, and eat well.

Those things will move the needle in a major way when it comes to slowing the aging process. Now, I mentioned this study earlier, this 2018 study in the journal Aging, and they looked at 9 biomarkers that impact how we age. And they said that these markers were more predictive of mortality and longevity than your cholesterol levels. Now, here are these biomarkers.

And by the way, I think that There are other biomarkers that are probably even more predictive than these biomarkers for a longer term that I'm going to get into later on in the show. So we'd call those— those are my, Dr. Axe's top biomarkers for longevity and mortality.

But let me go through this study that was more effective at predicting your age than cholesterol or your mortality and longevity. One was albumin. This is really tied to liver and nutritional status. Creatinine, this is kidney function. Your fasting glucose, your blood sugar, of course, that's incredibly important. Yeah. Number 4, C-reactive protein. So that's important for inflammation.

Your lymphocytes, of course, that's your immune balance, your mean cell volume. This is tied to your red blood cells, red cell distribution, alkaline phosphate. This is tied to the health of your liver, sometimes bone, and then your white blood cell count.

So it's really looking at things like your liver health, your immune system health, your blood health, inflammation, blood sugar were some of the primary markers that you could get tested for, and they determine if they stay healthy, whether you age slowly or you age quickly. By the way, before I dive deeper, I wanna encourage you to do something. Subscribe here to the podcast.

It's the number one thing you could do to support the show. It's also the number one thing you could do to make sure that you're getting this incredible content on a regular basis. Also, feel free to share this if you know somebody who needs to hear this information. All right, so let me dive into the 12 signals your body is sending. That show that you're aging too quickly.

And this is based on medical research. Number one sign you're aging and maybe aging too quickly is you're losing strength and muscle. Now listen, everybody is going to age and everybody's gonna lose some of their strength and muscle, but the more you can preserve it, the slower you'll age.

I mean, I think about myself when I was in my late 20s or around 30, peak of, you know, strength of body weight. But I've really maintained a lot of my strength and muscle mass over the years. And that's something I'm very conscious of. Now, here's the sign. Okay, jars are harder to open, right? Stairs leave you winded and your grip strength isn't what it was.

And you just notice, hey, when you're lifting weights or doing certain things, your ability to move that weight has gone down tremendously. Those are warning signs that you're aging. Now, here's the fix. Lift weights 2 to 3 times per week. Now, it's not to say that you're, you're not going to go down over time. I'll give you an example. My dad is 75 years old.

And, you know, in his peak, he was probably benching, I don't know, you know, he would bench 250 pounds or more regularly. Now, my dad, when he does bench press at 75, he's not doing actually bench press anymore, he's doing dumbbells. But the guy, he's great, he's still doing 50s, you know, he's still moving weights. Maybe before he was doing 75s or 70s, but at 75, he's doing really good.

But he has decreased his weight, but it has been slowly over time. There are people Where maybe moving the 30-pounders as a chest press is something you can't do anymore, even the 20s. But the key is, is not to lose any strength or muscle. The key is, is to maintain it at the highest level as long as you can.

Lift weights 2 to 3 days per week, pushing a little heavier over time, and eat protein every meal. Okay? High protein, lifting weights. Muscles are a longevity organ. This is going to help. And there's a study that proves this, by the way. If you only track one physical sign of aging, make it your strength. It might be at the very, very top, if not number one.

It's a cheap measure and it's really startlingly predictive. In one of the largest studies ever done, a simple hand grip test outpredicted blood pressure for who would live and who would die. So this was across roughly 140,000 adults in 17 countries. Okay. Every 5-kilogram drop in grip strength was linked to a 16% higher risk of death from any cause.

This was out of The Lancet, really prestigious medical journal. So grip strength, really big predictor. And a lot of this has to do with, listen, your grip strength is going to be better if you are lifting weights, using bands, but generally doing any type of resistance training. If you're holding onto a bar and trying to do a pull-up, even if it's with a band, your grip strength will get better.

Better. If you're not doing those things, you're going to lose it. Remember the old saying, use it or lose it, right? If you are not challenging your body physically and strength in some way, you're going to lose it. And it really just takes 2 days a week, ideally 3 or more, but 2 days a week. You could do a pushing and pulling day or upper body and lower body day. You split it that way.

But if you can keep doing some resistance training, even just 2 days a week, it will make a radical difference in your health. And if I had one prescription for you for longevity, it's this. Get fit. And a great thing to pair that 2 days a week or more of strength training with is just walking. And then ideally maybe 1 day of cardio where you get yourself a little bit winded.

But if you did, let's say you're doing very little and you went to doing 2 days of weight training, 1 day of cardio could just be 20 minutes, 15, 20 minutes. And then you just walked on the off days, just started walking a couple times a day, maybe 45 minutes a day or so. Yeah. That is gonna get you incredible shape and maintain so much of your fitness.

You know, when I think about health and fitness, there are some people that I followed in the media for a while who it's really amazing at how slowly they've aged and they're still doing the roles they're in even into their 50s, their 60s, their 70s. You know, I think about people like Hugh Jackman. You know, Hugh Jackman's 57 years old and he's been very disciplined with his eating.

He's been very disciplined in just lifting weights regularly. I think about Jennifer Garner. You know, she does kickboxing class and strength training regularly and daily movement. Yeah. Doing a superhero movie at 52. Again, Hugh Jackman will be doing it into his 60s. Denzel Washington, guy's 71 years old.

They said he dropped nearly 80 pounds and got lean through steady discipline and just healthy eating. Mark Wahlberg, again, 55 years old, very healthy, very disciplined, working out every morning. Jennifer Lopez, she's 56. So we see these people, again, I'm thinking about also like Jennifer Aniston. These are people, celebrities that have very, very good fitness routines and eating routines.

But again, Fitness is something they all have in common. And then there's another group of people that I really love to cheer for and root for, and those are Christian leaders. You know, and many of these people I have a close personal relationship with. You know, Michael W. Smith was just on the show here. You should watch his episode. It was wonderful. He's 68 years old.

He shared a lot of his health and fitness routines, but he's gonna be creating music into his 70s and 80s and beyond. He's 68 right now. Wow. And they have chickens at home. He has a greenhouse, they have a big garden. He walks regularly, he works out regularly, he swims. He said that's his biggest thing he does for fitness is swimming regularly. And 68 years old, Michael W. Smith.

You got Joyce Meyer. You know, I was on her podcast here last year. She's 83 years old, still preaching the gospel, leading a church. You've got John Bevere, who's 67, Lisa Bevere, 66, Craig Groeschel, who's been on the show as well, a good friend of mine. Yeah. He's 58 and still doing great.

And then Candace Cameron Bure, she's still doing television and media and creating a lot of shows, and she's in her 50s now. And by the way, all of these people, I know them well. Michael W. Smith, I was talking to him about pickleball and swimming. John and Lisa Bevere, they're playing pickleball. John golfs regularly. Joyce is lifting weights.

Craig is lifting weights and doing all kinds of activities. Candace Cameron Bure, very similar thing. They're all very active and fit. They're hiking, they're working out. And the other thing I love about these people is they've tied their fitness and health, and they're doing it to glorify God, and they're doing it with a sense of purpose.

But again, the number one sign, number one thing you need to do to age more slowly is focus on your fitness. Number 2 sign that your body is aging more quickly than it should: your energy crashes by mid-afternoon. Okay, you wake up tired, you have to rely on coffee to kind of get you through the day. That daily crash, maybe it's around 2 or 3 o'clock, you're exhausted.

That's mitochondrial fatigue. Okay, that's your hormones being imbalanced as well. That's a sign your body is aging more quickly than it should. Now, what you want to do is protect these power plants, get them morning sunlight. Really, a lot of this has to do with balancing the hormone cortisol.

Get sunlight, walk 10 minutes in the morning, go to bed on time, get some good nutrients that support mitochondrial function like coenzyme Q10 and herbs like ashwagandha. These are going to help your cells age more slowly. Pomegranates, right? Blueberries. Doing more of these foods rich in polyphenols and antioxidants and ellagic acid will help you age more slowly. They help your mitochondria.

Also, balancing out cortisol is critical. To slow aging. So as you know, I focus a lot of time on gut health and getting to the root cause, and it's one of the most important systems in your body. And what you feed your gut matters. And that's why I want to tell you about Manukora's Manuka honey. They conducted a study where participants took 20 grams of honey daily. That was 10 grams twice daily.

And the results were impressive. 79% Reported reduced occasional bloating. 71% Reported positive changes in gut health, and 60% reported less occasional reflux. Now, that's the kind of data I look for before recommending anything to my community. And honestly, it lines up with what I've experienced myself since I started taking it.

And that's the kind of data I look for before recommending anything to my community. And I can also say this lines up with what I've seen in my clinic when I have patients start using Manuka honey. It changes their gut microbiome, their immunity, and it's the greatest health swap out there for sugar. And it's a great addition to your morning health regimen.

You can add it into oatmeal or a smoothie or some herbal tea, or just do a spoonful. Your journey to better gut health starts right now. Head to manukora.com/axe and grab the starter kit at 31% off plus $25 in free gifts today. Sign number 3, you're aging too quickly, is your skin is wrinkling and sagging too early. Listen, everyone's going to get wrinkles. Everybody. Okay?

Everyone's skin is going to start to sag. But if you notice over a period of a year or 2 years, wow, this has really come on more quickly. You know, I think about this. I think about if you've ever seen presidents from when they start in office and after they leave office, how their hair will go so white or gray. And their skin will change so much.

I mean, for most presidents, you'll see they really age pretty quickly while being in office. And that's a sign of this stress, which then affects the skin. You know, biggest ways to improve that. One is lower the stress levels, lower cortisol. That's very helpful. And then cut the sugar and refined carbs.

You know, excess sugar causes these things called AGEs or these glycation end products that cause oxidative stress. It's like taking a bite out of an apple. It starts to age there when your body has all of its antioxidants used up with oxidative stress. That starts to brown an apple. It starts to age your skin and your internal organs.

So doing more vitamin C, more collagen-rich foods, more colorful fruits and vegetables, more things high in omega-3 fats like wild-caught salmon, and then of course cutting the sugar and inflammatory fats and fast foods, that's going to help that in a big way.

Number 4 sign that you are aging too quickly is if you are carrying more weight around your midsection, especially around your belly and your hips. That weight is typically hormonal. Okay. And so if those hormones are off, it's going to cause cortisol to be up. It's going to drop estrogen, progesterone in women. In men, your testosterone will drop and your estrogen will actually go up.

It will cause you to age more quickly. And so if you are storing Fat around your belly and in your hips. Actually, did you know this, that your body fat is an organ? Muscle's an organ. Body fat's an organ. You want to keep your body fat very low because the more body fat you have, the larger that organ is.

But body fat, especially visceral fat that sits around your organs, that tends to give off inflammatory compounds and also sends hormonal signals that disrupt Your thyroid, of course, your metabolic health, your brain, your heart, your blood vessels. It causes your entire body to age more quickly. So you want to do everything you can to get rid of excess visceral body fat.

And listen, you don't typically fight this with really with crunches. You do with a combination of eating a good diet high in protein and fiber and lower in processed foods, good sleep, And then strength training and walking, things like that is going to help tremendously slow that aging process in addition to helping you lose the unwanted visceral body fat and weight.

Number 5 sign you're aging too quickly. You feel stiff, achy, and inflamed. Okay? You just wake up with stiff joints. Your joints are complaining. And again, these small injuries take a long, long time to heal. Now, here's the reality. You know, I feel like I've talked to several people about this recently. I was talking to Michael W. Smith. I was talking to my wife.

That, you know, the older you get, the more you just, you just feel it in your joints, you know? And I'm getting down playing with my girls all the time. And of course, I don't feel like I did when I was 18 years old. I'm in my mid-40s, but I still feel, I still feel pretty good. You know, my joints still feel pretty good and I want to keep it that way as long as possible.

But if you notice that your joints are achy and stiff, and especially if that's come on more quickly and suddenly, you want to do everything you can To calm that inflammation. In fact, in medical journals, sometimes it's called inflammaging because the inflammation is causing your joints and body to age more quickly. And here's the fix for this.

Consume a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids, so wild-caught fish. Take a good fish oil supplement. In addition to that, use extra virgin olive oil, use turmeric, use ginger, use boswellia, eat a lot of fruit and a lot of vegetables, and then just move daily. Lots of walking, if you can do time in the pool, things like that.

But whatever you can to move your joints and reduce inflammation of your joints and body, that's going to help reverse that type of aging. And then here's another one. Your sleep is short and broken. Okay? You fall asleep late, maybe you wake up around 3:00 AM, and then the rest of the time you're kind of sleeping is just broken. You're not getting back into deep sleep after 3:00 AM.

You just never feel fully rested. Sleep is when your brain literally power washes itself. Okay? It is clearing, it is healing. This is also when your mitochondria, your body's batteries, are getting recharged while you're sleeping at night. So if you're not sleeping well, you are definitely aging too quickly. Guard your sleep like medicine, right? 7 To 9 hours, the same wake-up time every day.

Typically, you know, it's— you're going to bed at, you know, 9:30, you're waking up at 6:30, something like that. That's what you want. You want your room to be Cold and dark, probably 65 degrees, no screens. You want it to be as black as possible and just in a good nightly rhythm, right? No, no blue light before bed, sun early in the morning. Those things are gonna help you heal and stay younger.

You know, my parents now, they have a practice where pretty much every morning they wake up, they both do, you know, a superfood breakfast, superfood smoothie, and they immediately go outside for a walk. They'll typically go walk for 45 minutes down this kind of long path. And they're in Florida.

So even when it's the middle of the summer, they're also trying to wake up early before it's, you know, in the upper 90s at, you know, 100% humidity. But again, they're out there, they're doing this every single morning.

And I do this as well in the morning is I like to wake up, go for a walk, and then I just, I like to do a 20-minute walk in the morning and just be grateful, praise God, and just spend some time getting my mind right is so powerful to do that. And that even prepares you for sleep later on in the evening.

You know, there's a system in the brain, it's called your glymphatic system, which actually clears and removes metabolic waste, including amyloid beta, roughly twice as fast during sleep as during wakefulness. And the same goes for your mitochondria recharging. Your body is going to recharge way, way more when you're sleeping. And also, this is why it is big at reducing dementia.

If you're not sleeping well, it increases your risk of dementia versus if you are. Decreases the risk. The number 7 sign that you are aging more quickly than you should is you are stressed and you are running on cortisol. You feel wired but tired. Your mind won't switch off and you're leaning on stress to get through the day, right?

Chronically high cortisol breaks down muscle, weakens sleep, and has shown to shorten the protective caps on your DNA, your telomeres. Here's the big— my biggest piece of advice for this. Have more margin in your life. Okay? Don't say yes to everything. First, know what your priorities are and really focus on those things and say no to everything else.

Don't have something scheduled from the second you wake up to the second you go to bed and then all through the weekend. You know, take Sundays and make that a Sabbath where just total rest, just God and family. That's it. Have Saturdays. Now listen, you might have kids that have sports, and so sometimes you're traveling and doing stuff, but if you don't, try and create some space and time. Yeah.

To just relax, carve out some time to spend with God, even if it's just 15 minutes. Sometimes a 20, 15, 20-minute reset can make a really big difference. So build in real recovery, time for prayer, time for reading the Bible, time for outside, time for a walk, more family time, time where your body can catch up and get refreshed and get out of the fight or flight state.

And if you know you're in this state all the time, Just schedule in a few times a week. Here's one thing that I found helps me. Once we eat dinner, we like to eat dinner early at our house, like 5 o'clock or 5:30. After that, do not touch work again.

Play with your kids, connect with your family, read a book, watch a show for a little bit, but not too late because, you know, you're better off listening to an audiobook so you're not looking at that light too late. But overall, just have these little things within your week that allow you to de-stress. This is huge. Now listen to this.

The most stressed women have telomeres equivalent to 9 to 17 additional years of biological aging. 17 Years. So they found in a study that the women that were the most stressed, their telomeres showed that they were 17 years older than other people. Think about that. Stress alone can age you 17 years. And I think that number can be much higher.

Of course, you know, let's say you throw in 17 years of stress aging, another, you know, 18 years of food-based aging, you're aging yourself 35 years. And then there's other things on top of it.

So the reality is, here's the positive thing: you can start to reverse your age really quickly when you start eating correctly, moving correctly, sleeping correctly, and living correctly in tune with the Bible, the way God created. God doesn't want you stressed out constantly and frantic. Think about this, like, you're his child. So like, when I look at my daughters, I want them peaceful.

Listen, I want them using their God-given gifts. I want them being productive. But I also want them laughing and enjoying life and having free time to do the things they love. God wants the very same thing for you. Sign number 8, you're aging too quickly. Your memory and focus are slipping. You walk into rooms and forget why. You lose words mid-sentence and you feel a fog sometimes on your brain.

And sometimes that's lasting for longer and longer periods of time. Listen, a little bit of that is normal. Listen, if you're in your 80s and watching this, and by the way, my grandmother used to always do this. So in our family, it's like everybody's got the name, starts with a J. I'm Josh. My brother's name was Jordan.

My, you know, cousins were Jason and, you know, we got Jeremiah, we've got all these Js. And so my, my, my grandmother would like constantly say, she would literally go through, it was like a, uh, and I'm, by the way, I'm wondering if you have a parent or if you've ever done this or know somebody who would do this. She would go, uh, Jason, Jordan, uh, Josh.

I mean, literally there was always 1 or 2 names before mine when she got to be in her later 80s. And she would do this consistently. Now, she lived to be in her mid-90s and was really an amazing woman and had an amazing life. But again, you could start to see those things happening later on in her life. But listen, if that's happening to you in your 50s or 60s, even 70s, it's, it's too early.

We need to do things to clear the mind, support the brain. There's some things really great at doing this. Number one is exercise, especially cardiovascular exercise. Getting blood flow to the brain via cardio exercise. Is the number one thing. Getting good sleep is important. Omega-3 supplementation, eating wild-caught fish. So about 2 to 3 grams of omega-3 fats daily.

More colorful plants, keeping blood sugar balanced. Herbs— ginkgo biloba, probably my single favorite herb for supporting blood to the brain. Lion's mane mushroom is also wonderful. Doing these things is great and can keep your brain younger. The number 9 sign you're aging too quickly: your gut and digestion are off. Bloating, irregular bowel movements too often, or of course constipation.

Chronic constipation's a big one as people age. Food sensitivities or just feeling just off after your meals. You just know you're not having a healthy digestive system. Your gut is connected to pretty much every organ in your body. If your gut's not healthy, your joints are gonna age too quickly, your brain's gonna age too quickly, your skin's gonna age too quickly.

You need to rebuild the garden of your gut. The way you do that is consuming a diet that's higher in Fiber. So lots of fruits and vegetables and even things like sweet potatoes and oatmeal, a lot of things like bone broth, wild-caught fish, but, you know, fruits and vegetables, soups, good quality nutrient-dense meals, fermented foods like sauerkraut and kefir.

These are great for supporting your gut. And really, you'll also find just reducing stress is big for supporting your gut microbiome. Now, the number 10 sign you're aging too quickly is Your bloodwork markers are quietly drifting over the years. Your bloodwork is getting worse and worse and worse.

And earlier I talked about those 9 blood markers that were done in that medical study that were shown to be more predictive of your lifespan and health than cholesterol levels. It's so funny. I mean, I feel like cholesterol has been the biggest thing that we focused on for years. There are so many signs and signals that are more predictive than your cholesterol levels.

But I want to go through mine. When I am looking at somebody at slowing down their aging process, here are the markers I look at in my clinic. When I'm talking about my local clinic, the Longevity Clinic, that I look at. Also, some of these markers you're going to find at the Health Institute, my virtual clinic where we look at people's blood work.

But I've looked at all of the medical studies, and these are generally, I think, some of the most important blood markers. When we're looking to make sure that your body is aging well and it's healthy. The first one, and this was on that first list as well, in fact, the first 2 are, and that is high sensitivity C-reactive protein. This is looking at inflammation.

What are your inflammation levels is critically important. You need to be below 1. Now, I do want to mention this, that earlier study, they were looking at CRP, and that's a great, great test. But HS-CRP, this is high sensitivity CRP, is even more predictive. And that's the one you really want to get done.

So Looking at inflammation, I believe the number one thing you need to look at that's going to reveal your true age. Number 2, your blood sugar and insulin. So your fasting insulin, your fasting glucose, your A1C levels. A1C, one of the most important, you know, being ideally below 5. That's where you want to be. Those A1C levels should be lower.

And so many people, you know, I look at the panels of hundreds of people per year and look at their blood work. And so many people today have prediabetes. I have a lot of people Who have full-blown diabetes and they don't know they have it. And so their body is now aging very, very quickly.

So blood glucose and inflammation, those are the, those are the top 2 markers across the board to look at for how quickly you're aging. If you can keep those low for your lifetime, now you're going to be aging more slowly. Number 3, ApoB. This is better and more predictive than overall cholesterol and LDL cholesterol.

We're really looking at your true cardiovascular risk with ApoB and also pairing that with Lp, if you have that, that's more of the genetic marker. If you have that, your risk goes even higher. But being able to look at ApoB, again, way better than cholesterol. And of course, we know cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in America and in Europe today.

So this is why looking at the heart markers like ApoB is so important. And number 4, similar, looking at your triglycerides and your HDL ratio is important as well, right? Your body, To create the hormones you need, like testosterone for men and estrogen for women, your body uses cholesterol oftentimes to make those hormones.

So you need to have those right and the triglycerides need to be lower if you want to age properly and have hormone balance. Number 5, this is related to homocysteine, and this is very much connected to methylation in your body.

If you're familiar with MTHFR, it's not looking at you have that gene, but if that gene is off or you have it and you're not eating very healthy, Then homocysteine will be elevated. And that's really connected to methylation, but also even the health of your brain and your heart. So homocysteine is a very important marker. Number 6 is vitamin D, right? You want to be at least in the 40s, at least.

You know, I would say the majority of people I look at their blood work, they're in their 30s. Now I have people in their 20s and their teens. I have on occasion somebody in their 50s or above, but really, you really want to be above 50. 40 Is the bare minimum though.

And if your vitamin D levels aren't at least 40, ideally 50 or above, your hormones are affected, your immune system is affected, your entire body's affected. Vitamin D is the immune mineral. It's important for so many areas of the body. It's really your immune health and your cellular health. So you want to make sure your vitamin D levels are correct.

And by the way, I could add on some other nutrients here. I think vitamin D is the most important. When I'm thinking about other nutrients, I would also put magnesium and zinc. As the next most important nutrients along with vitamin D. So when I'm doing my advanced blood panel, I'm looking at a lot of these. And the other one would be MMA, and that's looking at cellular vitamin B12.

Those, I think, are also important for longevity. And then there's one called GGT. This is looking at liver health and to a degree, oxidative stress. So we know more oxidative stress you have, the more quickly your cells can age. Uric acid. This is looking at metabolic stress. And so if these stress markers are high, Oxidative stress, metabolic stress. We know you're aging more quickly.

And then there's a marker I really like, and it's called F2-isoprostanes. And this is a full body— it's the gold standard oxidative stress marker. So where GGT looks at oxidative stress and even more in particular to the liver and glutathione, F2-isoprostanes is looking even more at your full body oxidative stress load or your cellular oxidative stress load.

And the number 10 marker I also think can be really important is the health of your cell membranes. Okay, we're looking at omega-3 index. What is your omega-3 to omega-6? Because this is a good marker to really pair with CRP for looking at inflammation in the body. So these are my top 10 markers. If you add on zinc and some of the other nutrients, I guess it could go beyond that.

And there are other great markers like coenzyme Q10 that's looking at mitochondrial health to a degree. So, so there are a lot of good markers out there, but these would be 10 that I think for many If you can know quite a few of these, would be very, very helpful at knowing what your true longevity score is.

And when I'm breaking down and looking at blood work, one of the things I do with patients when I'm giving them handouts is oftentimes I'll also give them what their biological age could be based on these blood work panels. And in some of them, if we do a really advanced panel, I might even look at organ age, you know, looking at how old the organs are.

And listen, you don't need all these markers. I mean, you can if you really want to focus on longevity, but sometimes even having just the right, not The standard markers.

But if you're doing just the right 25 markers or right 50 markers, those markers can tell you a lot, even if it's just high-sensitive CRP and some of the insulin levels and vitamin D. Those alone will tell you quite a bit about your health. Let me ask you a really important question. Do you feel chronically run down, foggy, and inflamed, like your body is carrying a load it can't seem to put down?

And you're tired of being told everything looks normal. Now, here's the thing. When toxins and oxidative stress build up faster than your cells can clear them, it quietly drains your energy and drives symptoms head to toe. And conventional blood work simply isn't designed to catch these things.

I'm currently offering a simple at-home blood test designed to measure the right biomarkers, the ones that reveal what's really driving your hormones, inflammation, and metabolism.

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All right, the number 11 sign, and there's 12 total, and then I have a few more tips at the end. But the number 11 sign you're aging too quickly is your close relationships are thin. This is one almost nobody puts in the health category.

But when people lack close relationships, if somebody's struggling with loneliness, if they don't feel like you've got a crew around you, including family and friends that are for you, they're cheering you on, they can pray for you, they give you an encouraging word. You know, it's iron sharpens iron. If you don't have those relationships, it rivals smoking, right?

Loneliness, according to studies, is worse for you than smoking. You know, I talked to Gary Brecka. I'm going on his show here pretty soon and having him again on my show. And Gary Brecka spent years looking at people in terms of their overall mortality risk. And here's what he found. And he told me this.

He said their health insurance would go up dramatically if you would have someone lose a spouse, especially if it was later on in life, they weren't going to get remarried or they didn't have close family around them.

He said, we knew that if somebody was married and their spouse died and they didn't have a really close family around them, that it was typically statistically— he wasn't wishing this, but statistically that person would typically pass soon after because of loneliness. And it's not just loneliness. Listen, loneliness is like a disease.

I mean, it literally— if you are very, very lonely, it is aging you and destroying your health. That's sickness. But also, you might, you might not be sick. You might not feel like you are just severely lonely, but you might just feel like You know what? I don't have people that I really feel like are encouraging me and inspiring me and that I have a close-knit relationship with.

You don't feel like you have really deep and meaningful relationships. So you're suboptimal. I look at this like blood work, right? If you're below 30 vitamin D, you're sick. Okay, we have to fix that. If you're in that 30 to 45 range, okay, you're suboptimal. We need to get that better. But if you're 50 or above, right, 50 to really 80 or 90, then we're like, okay, now you're healthy.

Like, now you're thriving. And so you might not be in that loneliness category, but maybe you're in that category where it's suboptimal. You know, it needs to be better, right? Here's what I would say. If you wanna have great relationships, you need to pursue those. You need to cultivate those yourself. You need to go and look for those.

I mean, this is something that I've been very convicted with in my life, is that if I want to grow, I need to be around people that are ahead of where I wanna be in life. Maybe they've got a great marriage or they're really, spiritually deeply connected to God in that way. And I think that's just so important.

And so, you know, get connected to a church, get involved in a growth group, go and pursue relationships with people that are— listen, don't go and pursue people that are popular. Go and pursue people that are encouraging and loving. Like Chelsea and I, when I think about our closest relationships right now, the people that I spend time with are people that Man, they inspire me. They encourage me.

They love me. They're there for me. They go out of their way to do things for me. I mean, I've got a friend right now, a guy who, his name's Isaac, and he is constantly doing things to make my life better. An incredible 10 out of 10 friend. And then I'm trying to do the same thing for other people around me.

But that should be happening in your life, is you should have people that are going out of their way to love you and cheer for you and help you. Grow in life, and you should be doing the same for other people. If you don't have those relationships, go and look for a church, a small group, a place, or a group of people where that can happen.

And so listen, if you want to meet amazing people, go to where amazing, inspiring people congregate, where they live. You know, I think about it like this. If you're single and you're looking for a great spouse, don't go to the bar down the street, okay? Go to other Christian couples that have an amazing marriage and say, hey, who do you know? And try and connect with the people they know.

But the point is this, listen, according to studies, the evidence is this: relationships, strong, meaningful relationships extend your lifespan. In fact, according to one study, strong social relationships were linked to a 50% greater likelihood of survival.

There is no supplement, there is no diet, there is not a single thing out there that can extend your lifespan as much as a close, community of family and friends can. Nothing else out there. So if you want to do the number one thing today for longevity, go and pursue and develop meaningful relationships. And by the way, for me, they didn't just fall in my lap.

I had to pursue those and even create some of those myself in order for those to happen and flourish. The number 12 sign that you are aging too quickly is you've lost your sense of purpose. That last sign here, this is the quietest. When people lose a reason to get up in the morning, it's a mission, it's a calling, it's someone that's counting on you.

The research shows their bodies decline faster and they die sooner. In fact, there was a study done on 7,000 adults over 50, and a strong sense of purpose was tied to a significantly lower risk of death from, from all causes. And the best way to do this is anchor your life to something bigger than yourself. And listen, this also happens when people retire.

If you retire, well, what is that way that you're contributing? Still, right? So, so listen, I think for most people you should never, I don't know how to say this, necessarily fully retire. Now I'll give you my mom for an example. My mom is like full-on grandma mode. I mean, she is always doing things with the grandkids. I mean, constantly.

Now she lives in Florida and our family, my sister lives in Tennessee, my brother's in Florida. So she has family there to connect with, but she is always pouring into her kids and grandkids. You know, my dad, even though he retired from work, he kept a job working, you know, really just 10 hours a week. Creating things at home that he would then sell to clinics.

He created these actually things called vibrational platforms to help people boost their bone density. So my dad continued to work and stay active and do things, and they continue to have a mission and purpose today. If you are missing a way of contributing and a mission and a purpose, you age more quickly. So make sure that you have that.

And if you're saying to yourself, well, I don't know what my purpose is, here's what I would say. Think about what are your gifts? And where's there a need and how can you use your gifts to serve that need? Okay. And this is something I try and do on a regular basis. I have a gift of helping people get healthy. And so I'm trying to always use that gift.

And some of it is tied to business and financials, but a lot of it's not. I mean, I'm on a regular basis doing things just to help people get healthy because I know that that's something God has called me to do. And I will do that into my 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s and beyond. So it can be tied to financials, but also doesn't have to be. So if you're wondering where to start, I would say this.

Number one, look at your fitness and activity levels. All these people I mentioned, these amazing Christian leaders and celebrities and the people I know that age the slowest, they're active. It could be weight training, it could be walking, it could be swimming, it could be hiking, it could be all the above. But doing things to increase your fitness is so high on the list.

Getting good sleep, lowering stress, creating margin, doing things you love to do, right, that help you get rest and peace. And then And then eating healthy, right? More protein, more fiber, more fruits and vegetables, things like salmon.

If you are doing that, you are going to be aging much more slowly and keeping your eye on those right blood markers and not standard markers, the right cellular markers to make sure you are aging properly. Now, I created a cheat sheet for you both on blood markers and for longevity.

And so if you want to get my Longevity Blueprint, And you want to get the blood markers that matter most, then go to the show notes and I'm going to have links to both of those PDFs in the show notes that you can download there for my longevity blueprint there that you can follow exactly. And the bloodwork markers if you want that as well.

And if you forget everything else from today, remember this one sentence: you are not aging on a fixed schedule. Okay? You are aging at a speed, and that speed is mostly in your hands. You have control over if you're aging really slowly or really quickly. Move and lift, steady your blood sugar, sleep, eat real nutrient-dense foods, check your labs, and hold on to your people and your purpose.

And if you do that, you don't just add years to your life, but you're going to add life to your years. And by the way, if you want to learn how to do this in the deepest way possible, check out my new book. It's called Heal Your Cells. It really walks through the ideal way to reverse any chronic illness and then promote longevity.

I think a lot of you are going to think it's the best longevity book out there. We really dive into how to live longer, how to heal. There's no book like it that's ever been written. Again, the book is called Heal Yourselves. We're getting rave reviews already. You can go to amazon.com and check out that book.

This is a book that I co-wrote with Dr. Will Cole, close friend of mine, and we thought we were going to write the ultimate book on healing and promoting longevity. So again, you can get it on amazon.com.

And by the way, if you want to get over $500 in free content that Dr. Will and I created, including a free masterclass on healing and longevity, We have a lot of free guides on peptides and a number of other things. Go to healyourcells.com and get the book, and you're going to get over $500 in content for free. All right, do me a big favor before you go subscribe.

It's the number one thing you do to support the show and maybe support yourself in health and longevity. This way, the show always shows up in your feed. And again, I've got so many incredible guests coming up. I mentioned Michael W. Smith. Gary Brecka, Alex Clark, Will Cole. I mean, I'm talking about an amazing lineup of people and solo episodes coming up as well.

So make sure to subscribe and also share and make sure to download all of this free stuff that I'm giving you because it's not going to be there forever and I want you to take advantage of it.

Thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Axe Show where each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. I can't wait to see you on the next episode.