5 Pillars of Longevity You Need to Know | Dr. Halland

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Hey everyone, welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I am your host, Dr. Axe. Each and every week on this show, we cover the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and life to the next level. On today's episode, I'll be interviewing Dr. Haolan Chen, and this is gonna be a great episode. We're going to dive deep into regenerative medicine, cellular healing, and longevity. And Dr. Haolan is known as the Longevity Doctor. He's a double board-certified physician, and he specializes in Regenerative Functional and Cellular Medicine, and he really focuses on helping his patients heal faster, feel better, and live longer, healthier lives. And so we're going to dive into so much, uh, great stuff today. Again, we're going to talk about anti-aging, longevity. We're also going to be talking about the mindset of healing. Dr. Holland, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much, Dr. Axe. Great to see you again.

Yeah, you as well. I know we got to be on a panel together for Apollo Neuro and for Oura Ring. I know we've both used those apps or those, uh, you know, devices for ourselves and for our patients. And so I was really impressed with a lot of your teachings there, and so wanted to have you on the show. And I am a big fan and practice myself functional medicine and longevity medicine, and I wanted you to share a little bit about, uh, well, I want to dive deep into all those things today, but I'd love to start off asking you about— I know earlier in your career you practiced more conventional medicine medicine, and then sort of over, you know, after a couple years you realized, hey, you really wanted— you, you weren't seeing the results. You wanted to help people break through. Walk us through that experience for yourself.

Yeah, no, thanks for the introduction. And, you know, my background is in traditional medicine. You know, I went to— I did PM&R, which is physical medicine rehabilitation. So we work with people with strokes, TBIs, musculoskeletal injuries. I then did a fellowship in interventional spine, so people with pretty bad back pain. And so what you learn very well is how to be a great diagnostician, you know, diagnostician, solve problems with, you know, using advanced equipment. But then we realized a large part of what we were doing was just giving people more medications, more cortisone injections. And I fundamentally felt there had to be a better way. You know, if this guy is on chronic pain medications, well, the thing that would get rid of his pain is to heal the problem. And so I very much, you know, over, over a decade ago got into regenerative medicine. And so back then it was even more basic. It was just simple things like PRP and bone marrow, whereas now we have so many things in terms of regenerative medicine. There's exosomes, people are using adipose, and there's mesenchymal stem cells. So I'm very— I'm a big fan of doing research. I've always been involved in research ever since medical school. So I think I always had a knack for it. And that whole journey, even with myself, I had a gut issue, and we're talking 2010, nobody really knew how to solve it. And so I guess you kind of solve your own problems through and helping others by sharing that journey. So I became very much into functional medicine. Again, back then it didn't really have a label, but it was really about, you know, the things that we don't necessarily learn in med school became this new set of medicine. And I, I talk about it. I'm actually also working on a book on what are these cornerstones in this sort of longevity, uh, A framework and then longevity mindset, because it's both the brain and the body.

Yeah, that's so good. You know, one of the things I— there's an article that came out recently based on a study, uh, at Stanford, and, you know, they were looking at certain organs, uh, aging faster than others. Did you, did you see this, this, uh, this study? Well, what do you— what are your thoughts on that?

You know, I think it's interesting. I, I think there's an even larger epidemic happening in that I think a lot of us are aging faster than we want to. And I think there's a large part of endocrine disruption. That's one component. There's two, we're not really getting— well, we're getting exposed to lower quality foods, AKA more processed foods. And then the third component of it, our bodies are just full of inflammation. And so inflammation is one of these key reasons why we age. Now there's this whole 9 Hallmarks of Aging, which has then been expanded to 12 Hallmarks of Aging. And they really kind of are pretty much approaching things on a cellular level. I also think there's this mental level, which I'll get into it a little bit later with you. But I think the reasons why we age or why we're even seeing earlier cancers in younger people is that our bodies are no longer in regulation. And so it really comes down to, I think, 4 key things in your body. It's inflammation, it's detoxification, it's your immune system, and then stress. The 5th one I call is your mindset. And so that's that longevity mindset. And these are what I consider the 5 pillars when I really approach a patient's or a client's health, because these are doable, they're very discrete systems, but they all interrelate. And I think that's the key thing that's missing in traditional medicine, is that a lot of us operate in silos. If you're an endocrinologist, you may not talk to the GI specialist. The GI specialist doesn't— not all of them believe in, let's say, certain aspects of the microbiome in the sense that they're not specialists in it. And that's okay, they, they went for a certain training of it. But you know, there's a little bit of an old school doctor and then the newer breed. So obviously I'm part more of that new breed, even though I'm a little bit older than that. I think it's— medicine has evolved so much quicker where now you have an audience who's very educated, and now it's hard to figure out what information is good or what information applies to me.

Yeah, that's good. You know, I'd love to go through these 5 factors of aging, and, you know, in particular, let's talk about inflammation. I know a lot of times these experts— I've got a friend who's written a pretty extensive paper on this. He's a researcher at University of California, uh, Irvine, and He also has a clinic, a stem cell clinic in, in Mexico. And, um, and so he wrote a paper on inflammaging and really the connection between inflammation and aging more quickly. Walk us through how inflammation causes us to age more quickly, and what are some things that we could do about that?

Yeah, that's a, that's a great topic. And really, aging is a process of inflammation, right? Hence the term inflammaging. And so in general, there's so many aspects of your body that could be, you know, inflamed, right? People who have inflamed joints, that's arthritis. Right? But in this aspect, when we think about longevity, I really look at it as inflammation equals gut health. And really, your gut is such a large, big component of longevity because if you have a dysbiosis, which means a bacteria imbalance, right, too much bad bacteria versus good bacteria, too much or maybe not enough of a certain aspect in your diet that's causing this dysregulation, you're not going to absorb the nutrients properly. There's going to be— your gut is a massive sensor of how we input, you know, our environment, right? They actually say your gut is your second brain. I do believe that, right? For every nerve down to your brain, there's like 5, 6 going from your gut. So it's a pretty large sensory organ, which is why that 'trust your gut,' you know, phrase probably came about. And so when I think about inflammation, most of the people that we work with have a lot of gut inflammation, you know, especially here in America. I, I think we— you know, I've talked about this on other shows. When I go over to Europe, I do quite a bit of work there and also research. All my gut inflammation, or let's say things like gluten, doesn't bother me. Gluten bothers me here in America, but over in Europe I can eat bread and it's never a. So there's definitely a component of diet being a big issue. And then I think also there's a component of people need more supplementation just because we might be eating something that looks like a carrot or tomato, but the nutrition content is lower because the soil, um, you know, nutrient density in the soil is not as good. So there's, there's a lot of topics that relate into that whole gut inflammation thing. And so I think that's also the reason why this concept of leaky gut— I think back in the past, leaky gut was just sort of this diagnosis or let's say even IBS, it was almost like this diagnosis of what I call 'I don't know' syndrome, right? The doctor kind of worked you up, it wasn't really something super obvious, so it's just IBS or leaky gut. But now we really know that this inflammation in your gut causes a lot of other problems, right, throughout your whole body. So I think inflammation really starts in the gut and then kind of spreads from there. And obviously when you think about how important food is, I know you're expert in that, That's why you're so passionate about it, because you're really helping people heal just from step one. So that, that's a big component of where I think, at least for us, we do testing. Testing is another big aspect for longevity, and I think gut microbiome is one of the first things we always do.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think one of the things— my brother's a functional medicine practitioner in Tampa, and he does a lot of GI maps, and he's really found for himself— and he had Hashimoto's thyroiditis and reversed that naturally with diet and supplementation and lifestyle medicine. Regenerative medicine we're talking about. And so he, he really loves using— this is something I used in the past— is GI mapping in order to see what's going on within the gut microbiome. And I totally agree, you know, that inflammation typically starts in the gut. And then of course from there we know the gut's connected to almost every organ in the body in some way. And so it's really important. And then the next one here I would love to, I'd love to hear you talk on, which of course the gut, there's a connection there as well to the immune system. Talk to us about the immune system and how if it's imbalanced, how that can cause us to age more quickly, and maybe some things that people can do in order to support their immune system to slow that aging process.

So the immune system is this overarching thing. Not, not only does it fight infections, your immune system actually also regulates stem cells in your body, right? And so when you think about, do you recover quickly after you're traveling, or let's say some people have a lot of they work overly too much or they're having late nights, your immune system function goes down. And so I think a good strong component of also longevity is having a strong immune system. And a large part, I use that interchangeably with what's going on cellularly in our body. And so what are the things that boost our cellular function? Well, sleep is an easy one, but it's easy, not easy, right? Despite all that we— I mean, that's why I have my Oura Ring here. Despite all that we know about sleep, It's a component. Well, now, how much deep sleep are you getting, which is more that restorative sleep that also helps heal your immune system, allow your bodies to secrete hormones? They've done studies in men where if they get less than, I think, 6 hours of sleep, their testosterone levels are that of someone who's super, you know, a significantly older, over 60, right? You could be a young male in your 20s and 30s, but if you get less than 6, 5 hours of sleep, you might as well be 30 years older. So sleep's a very important thing that I think finally, you know, it's no longer been glamorized that, oh, I'm just going to work harder, I survive off of 5 hours of sleep. People now realize that sleep equals your immune system. Sleep equals a lot of regulatory things in your body, right? We flush out our brain glymphatics, which is the toxins come out of our brain. That's, that's why I addressed detox as a second key component in the body longevity system. So I think from an immune system perspective, one is sleep. I'm a very big fan of cold plunge. You know, I've done the whole Wim Hof training in Poland, and we've climbed mountains in our, you know, our swim trunks and jumped in, you know, freezing rivers. And, you know, this was many years way back when, and I loved it. You know, back then I remember getting off the plane and I was already catching a cold, sore throat, runny nose, and I'm like, oh, we're running around the woods in our swim trunks barefoot. I'm just, I'm just going to get pneumonia. And like by day 3, 4, my body became so strong and all my cold symptoms went away. So that's already been proven, a large part of that. You can activate your immune system by stressing it out and fortifying it. And so I think those are some very easy ways, obviously. Supplementations, vitamin C, healthy diet. But, you know, on my side of the research thing, you know, immune system's so much affected by your stem cell population, right? So mesenchymal stem cells, exosomes, and whatnot. So this is a very big growing area of research, and we're very passionate about doing clinical studies, you know, clinical controlled trials that we can actually publish. We're already talking to several universities on how we can collaborate with them, because I think where we're going now is not only personalized medicine— I think medicine will already go into this cellular aspect. I mean, we've already been exposed to some of these things, right? Even if you look at the COVID vaccine, that was an mRNA vaccine, right? So that's already by nature very cellular, right? And so now I think these therapeutics are going into this more cellular realm. And I think that what gets interesting, hopefully, especially if you're working with your own stem cells, it's going to be a lot safer because it's not someone else's stem cell, it's your own stem cell, it's your own genetic material. The body has a tendency to know how to self-regulate itself.

You know, I had a really serious medical condition about a year and a half ago, and a spinal infection. And I was able to— well, and part of this is sort of a crazy story. I got an injection of stem cells. Somehow I got infected from that. But then part of my healing process was going and getting different stem cells. Actually, this time I did umbilical cord, okay, um, that were cultured. And I just saw phenomenal results with the IV. I mean, I literally woke up, you know, the next day— well, over the course of the next few days, my joints felt so much younger. I know it really helped heal my, um, you know, help my healing process. And then, I mean, I've been doing research and actually getting stem cell to some degree for, you know, the past 10 years or so, about 9 years. And I really think it's an amazing therapy. I'd love to hear you talk a little bit more about, um, just your thoughts on stem cells, where they come from, the benefits of them, what they do. And then after that, I have a question about NK cells and related to immune system for cells. But But would you share a little bit more on stem cells?

Sure, absolutely. So I mean, it's really evolved over the last decade or so. I even filmed something for HBO. We had this episode called Engineering Immortality. And there's only certain things you can do here in the US. And I think that's why a lot of these other stuff that you see are in Mexico or Panama or even in Europe. That's actually why I travel a lot to Europe. I'm very keen on what they're doing because they actually have quite a— they're pretty strict like us in the US, right? They have their own version of FDA. They're really big about safety and compliance. So where stem cells have evolved, you know, a lot of people think PRP is stem cells. It's, it's really not. PRP are just your platelets. It's concentrated. They have growth factors and that helps the body. But that's a really good way to sort of start, right? Because regenerative medicine is about how do I use my body's healing ability? And so from there, you know, things had evolved because the orthopedic surgeons were using bone marrow and they were using bone marrow aspirations because there are stem cells there. Different type of stem cells, right? You have hematopoietic stem cells, which are more the bloodline, and then you have mesenchymal, which are the things that can turn into cartilage, soft tissue, tendons, things like that, right? So that's kind of where things really start getting more advanced now, because you can get stem cells from your adipose. And so it's not that the fat itself is a stem cell. These mesenchymal stem cells hang out like a web around these fat cells, because if you think about it, it's a safe place for them, right? Bone marrow is, is a safe place because you're inside a bone. Fat's a safe place because it's soft, it's cushioning, there's a blood supply. So mesenchymal stem cells became very hot too. And I think that's actually where a lot of the research will go these days, because right now the ability to isolate stem cells from fat— because, you know, people have in general a decent amount of fat, so they don't mind sparing some stem cells from there. And then the other aspect is if you have that source and if there's a way to expand it, which is where I think the future of this research is going, you can really pretty much— let's say you have a condition with arthritis, for example, or, you know, some of the studies that are coming out are trying to treat long-hauler COVID or neurodegenerative diseases. You can now harness these stem cells and get them in high enough quantities to treat your body. And so this is where it's— this is where I think the magic of like the stem cell world comes in, you know. Because no one does a lot of the research or there's not enough research in it, we really actually have to define what is the standard dose, right? Is it 10 million, 20 million? You know, it's really around 200 million stem cells, right? Based off of some of the research. So it's a very high quantity. So that's actually one aspect. And then this other aspect is, do you do it IV? Do you do it locally? Do you inject? Right. And so that's one component. Then you have this new world also called exosomes. So exosomes are kind of like these messenger signals. So they— a stem cell secretes this little packet of info It's called an exosome. And so they're very small. They're like nano-sized particles. And those come in the billions, right? So again, what's the appropriate dose? 10 billion? 20 billion? I mean, we've seen doses as high as 400 billion in someone with liver failure, and they were able to reverse their liver failure with exosomes. Now, obviously, these are experimental, and there's things that you have to do in terms of like clinical studies and, you know, measure out efficacy. But there's a lot of interesting case studies now now coming out where people can recover their, you know, from their body because of stem cells. And that's really what your body is doing anyways, right? When you take an antibiotic or you're doing things to help heal the body, your body's producing stem cells regardless. It's just, is it producing stem cells at the level of a 50-year-old, or is it producing stem cells at the level of a 20-year-old, right? And that's why young kids, when they fall off the bike, hit their head, or you're a teenager and you get in a bad car accident, they bounce right back up. But, you know, someone like your mom, you know, my mother is pretty elderly. She, she had, she had some surgery and it just took her a long time. And so these, I think that's where the world of stem cell is going, is really creating some standards around the things, efficacy, safety studies, all the things around it, and getting the dosing. So I think that's why I'm so passionate about it. I love collaborating with other people, whether it's here in the U.S., traveling around the world. I'm, I'm a seeker of knowledge, so it's not, not abnormal for me to fly out somewhere just to visit a lab to see what's going Yeah, just for everyone's information, you know, if you are looking at stem cells today, one of the reasons I've referenced a Cannemal, Dr.

Can— Mexico, Dr. Holland referenced Panama, another clinic there, and then of course Europe. You know, the laws are all different there. In the United States, a law passed not too long ago that said if you culture your stem cells— and culturing, imagine culturing is similar to— not saying exactly, but, you know, fermentation. You're expanding, you're creating new things, but basically you're multiplying your stem cells. You might get it, draw out a million, and now you're able to have 100 million stem cells. So you get a lot more stem cells. But what happened, uh, with our, you know, the, the medical association or the, uh, you know, the body that basically legalizes, uh, drugs is, is they said when you take your own stem cells from your body, but when you multiply them, you're essentially turning it into what it wasn't before, and that needs to now be considered a drug and go through a really long process. And who knows when you'll ever be able to do that. Uh, and Dr. Holland, feel free to talk on that or feel free to skip that.

No, it's a great, it's a great topic. I mean, you know, the stem cell world, I think we're at a point now where people realize, you know, let's say 5, 8 years ago, people thought stem cells were bad because you were killing babies. And back in the days when they were using embryonic stem cells, unfortunately there was that component. Now embryonic stem cells in some aspect is pretty passé. There, there are many dangers to not use an embryonic stem cell because it could actually become a teratoma, a type of tumor. It's it's also very highly unregulated in your body. So I think the high-quality research, which is what you're talking about, the FDA wants to make sure when you have a stem cell, you're not— well, when you have a stem cell and you multiply it, that's considered a drug because the FDA says they have a thing called minimal manipulation. That's kind of a buzzword. You're, you're, you're allowed to take your bone marrow out, you can put it into your body the same day, same-day procedure, which is a criteria, but you're not allowed to manipulate it, which is in general multiplying Now, I think that's where the research comes out. Now, the FDA is not saying you can't do research in it. They want research. They want high-quality studies to show that it's safe and efficacious. Right. I think what happens is in the stem cell world, unfortunately, you have a lot of people misrepresenting what it can do, that they're trying to cure this or, you know, this miracle XYZ. I'm very conservative when I think about like in terms of what can you get from a result, what can you achieve and what's practical. So I'm very much on the side of I believe in innovation and I believe in safety. And so that's, that's why the FDA exists. And I think, you know, to a large component, the reason why stem cell therapy hasn't been mainstream is that the technology wasn't there. It wasn't there in terms of affordability, scalability, you know, the people who knew about it. Now, because it's much more affordable to do things right, there's more affordability where you can actually have bigger labs conduct these type of studies. There is that research interest. In fact, in the longevity world, or let's say biotech world, there's massive funding now. And so you can actually have private labs and individuals who want to get grants to do this type of research. And I think that's where it will go. And I think pharma probably will go that route too. I think they've already done it, right? If you think about some of the things that are involved in, you know—

yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I totally agree. Um, and, and that's why this group I'm talking about, even though they're out of the US, they do— they are doing some injections called Re-Health. They're out of Cancún and Cabo as well. Trial. But they, um, you know, but they're also doing research in the U.S., uh, and they actually are doing, I think, some cultured stem cells, NK cells, and exosomes, uh, as part of clinical trials currently. And so they're going through that process you're sharing. Talk to us a little bit about NK cells and how those work and operate, uh, in real— you know, which are obviously very different, but, but what those do exactly, because— well, I'll let you share and then I have a comment.

I think what's interesting is that there's always what I call a hot new cell that hits the market. So NK stands for natural killer cell. And so some of the indications that, you know, people want to seek it out for is to treat cancers, right? And so, you know, that's a really touchy subject when you started getting into the stem cell world, right? When you're saying, hey, we could potentially affect cancer. Now, do I believe that that's a possibility? I think anything's a possibility. Do I want to hone in and say stem cell therapy is the best way to do it if you have cancer. I do, you know, I'm an MD and there's some traditional aspects of what I believe in. You know, I think certain things do need chemo and radiation, right? Uh, but then you have these very hard cases like people who have pancreatic cancer, and unfortunately it's not discovered until it's stage 4, right? So you're pretty terminal. I think when you get to those situations, exploring things like NK cells or things that are a little bit more exotic— I definitely believe in exosomes. I'm a very big proponent of that. NK cells, I'm still on the fence about. I I just don't think it's hard, and I think there are people who know a lot about it. So I think the people who know a lot about it, their, their biggest contribution to society is just publish. I mean, that's why everything we work on, we really try to publish it, or I try to share. I'm in a phase of I want to also collaborate with other doctors and teach people things, or work at universities and do research there, because, um, and I love podcasts like this because it's a platform to share a message, because, you know, again And stem cells have such a reputation from the past, right? Let's say the '90s. We're so much different now. We're talking, it's 20, you know, we're in 2000s now, and 20 years later, a lot of innovations has happened.

Yeah, yeah. So, so my experience in research with NK cells has been less on the cancer side. And by the way, there, just for everybody listening, there are a couple ways people are doing NK cells today. One is more of sort of a, uh, synthetic. It's something that we are are, uh, making, um, sort of as a drug today. Uh, not— it's not exactly a drug, but in a similar fashion. The other thing is pulling out your own NK cells and then multiplying those in that same way that you do stem cells. And that's by— you draw your blood and then you multiply those and have those put back in as an IV. And that's where I've seen— again, not particular cancer treatments, but I've seen it to where people with chronic infections, I've seen really unbelievable results. And so with some of them— I'm not saying with everybody, I'm not saying it's a cure— but I've seen some people with things like, you know, sometimes we've had patients who've come in who have had Epstein-Barr and Lyme disease and CMV and just multiple— a lot of chronic infections. And that, that's who I've seen the best results with, is those people that have a lot of chronic infections and have seen some improvements there. What are some things that you, uh, recommend? So, so we've hit on a couple things. We talked about inflammation and the relation there to gut health and inflammaging. We've talked some about the immune system and the benefit of stem cells. Is there anything diet-wise wise or treatment-wise that you're recommending in terms of supporting stem cells, uh, and in, in more, you know, I guess more so stem cells, right?

Well, combination of stem cells and longevity. I'm a very big proponent of NAD+. So people know that as NAD+ or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. And it's a hot topic also, right, because it's a supplement that comes as a precursor. And what that means is it's, it's like it's either as NMN or NR, and then your body takes it in, process it, and becomes NAD+. But here's why it's important. So kind of back into that whole 9 hallmarks of aging. Of these 9 hallmarks of aging— mitochondria function, intracellular communication, cell senescence— these are like the big topics within those hallmarks. Those are all affected by NAD+. And what NAD+ does, it's incorporated by your body's mitochondria. Every cell has a mitochondria, and it produces energy. And this energy is called ATP, which I think we all learned from biology And this ATP is the reason why we have good gene reproduction. Let's say energy, you're feeling alert. So without really NAD, you actually wouldn't survive. And so now NAD has become so popular, there are so many supplements and there's a lot of theories on it. That's actually also why we do a lot of research on this particular topic, because I'm very focused also on IV NAD. I've seen things with the IV NAD version that I don't think you can achieve with oral NAD. You know, people use it for detox mechanism. I've had a patient where they did IV NAD and their seizures stopped. Now everything's case by case, but there's always a different mechanism. But once you put the body, body back into homeostasis, now it can actually regulate properly. So I think NAD is a combination of things. It helps with your body's energy through ATP. It's definitely a detox mechanism because back in the days, NAD was used intravenously for people who are on, you know, opiates and alcohol. I've actually personally witnessed so many people get off of opiates and alcohol just through an NAD detox, and that's actually it's a pretty— I wouldn't say complex mechanism of how they do it. It's usually 10 days, 12-day protocol, very high doses, but it resets a lot of the receptors. So it's without a doubt that IV NAD does have some very strong therapeutic benefit. Now oral NAD is where some of the other camps as well— is oral better than IV? Is IV better than oral? I think they're both needed. And the analogy I usually give is IV NAD increases the horsepower in your body, oral NAD is kind of like the gasoline, right? When you combine them together, you now have a supercar. That's essentially what some people describe that's happening in their body. They feel stronger, more vibrant. Example, when you do IV NAD, let's say post-flight, a lot of people feel better when they sleep. They don't have that jet lag. That's because NAD also affects your circadian rhythm. So it's one of those, you know, universal molecules that your body does use. So whether it's helping your immune system, whether it's detoxing the body, whether it's supporting these natural biological processes. That's where I think the other big area in what I call cellular health is. It's really NAD+. And that's, that's, that would, that's the other area that I'm very focused on in terms of research, really combination of basic science run, but we're also very into clinical, right? Comparing different groups, IV versus oral, finding out how to test the levels.

So, you know, when you're talking about NAD+, I just, for, for everybody listening, I think that there are, there are multiple forms of this, right? And so I want to get into this. I'd love for you to explain, uh, the relationship to vitamin B3 or niacin, and then also get into— there's a lot of different supplements today. We've got NAD+, we've got NR, we've got NMN, uh, which I know was taken off the market, essentially, you know, not being able to be sold right now. Uh, so, so, uh, yeah, share to me a little bit about that pathway and then the forms.

Sure. So, you know, NAD+ is produced in our body through several different mechanisms. So a lot of this like biochemistry, and there's a thing called the Krebs cycle. So when you think about vitamins, and you can get— you can ingest whole foods that will have like niacin in there, right? Or, you know, your whole B complexes. And really what it comes down to is what stage in the Krebs cycle that you're getting it in, right? And so when you think about natural ways to consume it— leafy greens, nuts, legumes, certain aspects of that— you can get enough vitamins in your diet, but to some degree supplementing it externally with like, let's say, an NMN or NR, you can get at a higher level faster. But again, this is where I think that a lot of the research comes into play to find out, well, what's better? And I don't even know if it's necessary what's better one versus other, what's better for you, right? Because some people, maybe some people might have a certain gene mutation and they don't absorb things properly. Some people have leaky gut, and for example, they're not absorbing all the nutrients from the food. So I think a large part of where that comes into play is because it's really personalized medicine. And even the topic about NMN— NMN got recently— not recently, but relatively not too long ago— pulled from Amazon because NMN might be considered a drug now, right? And that was filed, and that's a long story, but the longer story short was that someone, you know, in the biotech community wanted to patent it essentially. And so it was this over-the-counter item that was really a supplement that says, hey, this might have biological drug factors. And that's the reason why Amazon's like, well, look, if it's going to be a drug, we're not sure if it is, you can't buy it online. But it doesn't mean it's bad, right? It just means that's more, again, about regulatory.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's so many regulatory issues. Even when you look here versus Europe and Canada, well, it's just so different. I own a supplement company and, you know, we have to completely relabel our package and do different doses for Canada and for Europe than the US. And so anyways, it's, you know, it's all the legality around so much of this stuff. Is, um, yeah, it's, it's an interesting topic. So let's hit on number 3. We've, we've talked about, uh, inflammation, we've talked about immunity. Let's talk about detoxification now as one of those other areas that can really, you know, slow us, you know, slow the aging process, help us heal. Um, what are— how, how is detoxification, or our detoxification channels, how do those support aging, and what are some things we can do about it.

So, you know, our bodies are constantly— you're almost like a big sponge, right? And so unfortunately, our foods have a lot of poisons in them, right? Microplastics is a very big topic right now. And not only is it a big topic because it's not great for your body, it's an endocrine disruptor, right? So the things in your body— when I talk about detoxification, is removing things that can interrupt your hormones, right? Low testosterone— I mean, infertility is at an all-time high right now. That actually just came out in the news. Why shouldn't it? Shouldn't we be more fertile? We have more access to food, more information. It's just there's something going on. So in, in my theory, I think a lot of it's our bodies are accumulating toxins. Uh, for example, I have a lot of— I, you know, I'm a very big thing when it comes to detox, you have to test. So I've done 3, 4 heavy metal tests over the last several years, and it's like no matter how hard I try, my mercury level is always high. And I've been detoxing, detoxing. It's a little bit better now, or at least 50% better, but I've really put in a lot of work. And it's— I was like, okay, I think I have to just stop eating sushi or any fish that's bigger than 10 pounds because there's so much mercury out there, right? And then, for example, my arsenic levels are high. Like, who's, who's putting the arsenic in my water? No one. It's in the rice, and the rice is getting it from the soil. So, you know, it's like, how do you— if you didn't test, you wouldn't know. And so I think a hard part is a lot of people, they may do like a very simple heavy metal test, but it's missing even things like the arsenic or the other things. Other than, you know, we think of heavy metals as lead and mercury. There's a lot more heavy metals that are bad for you. And so detoxification, I think at a very simple level, is you've got to get the heavy metals out of your body, right? That's a very big component because once you remove the heavy metals— like, I know for me, when the mercury level started to decrease, my energy level significantly improved and I wasn't as tired when I woke up in the morning. And, you know, I was still trying to get more hours of sleep because unfortunately, due to my heavy travels, I sleep less. But like, I didn't think the heavy metals would have affected my, my energy level like that because I'm usually super positive, always on the go, but you just can't fight it if you're— if your adrenal gland is literally carrying heavy metals in it, it's not going to function properly. So that's a very big component of detoxing, and, and there's different ways. I know people talk about IV chelation. I'm actually more on the natural ways, like using certain supplements, using, um, certain products that actually help promote the excretion, because it's not always easy to get these heavy metals out of your body. They're very deep in the tissue, especially in the fat, so you got to slowly pull it out, and then you bind it because it gets secreted in your gallbladder. So there's a lot of things you can do from that aspect. And then obviously I just talked about NAD, so that can help too.

Yeah, what are some of your favorite maybe supplements or herbals or foods to support, as you're talking about, rather than chelation, you know, your body's, uh, own ability to detoxify?

Yeah, there's a product called Cellcore. I'm a very big fan of their system only because it's, it's so simple to some degree, right? They have all these different supplements. It's, it's pretty intensive. It's like a 4-month program and you take like 3 of the supplements in the morning. And there's a lot of things that basically help bind and secrete. There's also some binders in there. Uh, Quicksilver Scientific, they have a great heavy metal supplement routine. They even have a great heavy metal test, so I'm a big fan of that. I mean, anything that can promote the freeing up of a heavy metal and then binding it in your gut, because you'll secrete it through your gallbladder, right?

Yeah.

Um, I mean, I'm not against chelation, if in the sense that I think you should at least do this for a few months and And then if it's still not going down, you could lightly touch it. The key is not to overdo it. I think we're hoping that if I do 10 rounds of chelation, my problems are going to go away. It's a bigger problem, right? Even with me, like, I've done 2 very, like, 8 months worth of detoxing, and my heavy metal mercury is still high. So, and I live a pretty healthy lifestyle, so it's, it's, it's, it's very hard. And I, and I feel for people who are super busy, and, you know, a lot of us take care of so many other things in our lives, right? Our families, maybe it might be a parent or you're working 50, 60 hours a week, like, there's so little time for your health. And then hopefully whatever you are doing for your health, you're maximizing it.

Yeah, you know, when I, when I practice full-time functional medicine and we did a lot of lab work, uh, including heavy metal testing, one of the things I was always conscious of, because I had a mentor teach me this, is that, you know, you, you want to— for most people, you want to detox slower rather than faster. I think everybody wants to come in and say, hey, you know, I just want to, I just want to knock this out in 2 weeks where really you want to, you know, you want to really take your time. And not to say you don't want to do a 2-week process where maybe it's, you know, you're sort of activating everything to a certain degree. But I was really always taught and always did in practice to where, as you're sharing, really more of a gentle, you know, doing it for a longer period of time, making almost a lifestyle to a certain degree. Because sometimes— because as you mentioned, my mentor always shared this with me, and I found this as well— if you dump too much in the gut, then you can start to hurt the gut, you know, and start to affect, you know, have side effects from, from really over-detoxifying. Like, I saw someone recently posting that they were doing coffee enemas every day and, and, you know, and doing this heavy chelation therapy, and they felt awful. And I just thought, gosh, that's probably not the best way to go about it as in terms of just being that aggressive.

Yeah, no, it's absolutely— and sometimes it's, they say start low, go slow, right? And, and this is one of them because because it is a toxin. So you've got to slowly release it out of your body instead of, like, hitting your gut, hitting your kidneys, and slamming them with these things that shouldn't have been in your body in the first place. And so I, I think that's why I give the analogy. We're like a sponge, right? And so unfortunately, our environment isn't the same environment like it was in the '90s or '80s, right? It's, it's been, I would say, increasingly since the 2000s, much more toxic for us, right? Again, kind of alluding to the fact that why are younger people getting so many instances of cancers? Why is infertility at an all-time high, right? It— there has to be some sort of environmental toxin that's affecting our tissues. And so that's why detox is such a key item. Like, really, I say at the tissue level, right? Tissue and cellular. But really, on a macro level, tissues are, are being inflamed. Like I said, my adrenal glands, totally full of toxins, which is why I was tired.

Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. It's so important. Yeah, I mean, we are— I did an episode recently about, about the testosterone epidemic. I mean, I think the numbers over the past 50 years, uh, testosterone has dropped by 33% on average in men. I mean, it's just that the numbers are staggering. Let's talk about the next one, which of course is sort of an equally big, big stress, is just stress in general. So, so walk me through a little bit stress and some things that we can do about that and how that really causes, uh, or promotes aging more quickly.

So stress, I, I put in that system of, you know, nervous system, right? So inflammation is gut, detox is tissue, immune system, cellular. Well, then stress, it's a combination of mental, right? But it's also nervous system. So I, I put stress into sympathetic, parasympathetic system. And so when we kind of look at stress, what are the things that ramp up my sympathetic nervous system or actually don't help my parasympathetic system? Again, back with what we were in our episode we were doing with Oura Ring, HRV is a very good predictor of longevity, right? And HRV is reflective of your parasympathetic nervous system. So I think stress really becomes this big measure of, you know, not only mental housekeeping, right, removing things that stress us from our lives, also having a practice where we decrease stress or have a little bit better control over our, let's say, stress response. Interestingly, when you do a lot of that Wim Hof training with the breathwork and ice, a lot of that was actually overriding some of what we call our autonomic nervous system, right? Because he did a study where they injected him with IV bacteria and he basically fought the infection with his mind. Technically, he should have had a fever and all these things, you know, Wim Hof, but he didn't get sick. So I think that part was actually very cool to show how powerful the mind is. So stress is definitely within the mind and the nervous system. And I think there are so many things that I'll probably touch more into when I talk about the 5 H's of the longevity mindset, because there's a big component of that. But when I really think about stress, it's really about that parasympathetic fight-or-flight balance. And that, that is also why we need to measure— also back to testing— your adrenal function. And a lot of people do cortisol tests, they'll do a blood test. So these are kind of what I call the inside tips. But the cortisol level actually fluctuates throughout the day. And so if you're really going to do an accurate test of adrenal function, you want to do like a 24-hour collection. We usually— it's like a urine collection or saliva saliva. And those are the more accurate ways to find out, am I actually secreting appropriate amounts of cortisol? Is my wake-up response— do I have a spike in cortisol? Like, what's going on? Because people who have, like, let's say adrenal fatigue or burnout, it's— they're not normal patterns.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, so oftentimes people get testing and then they'll go in and say, oh well, you're normal. And it's just either the, the correct lab test wasn't run, or it wasn't like you're saying, it wasn't looking at the full body. Body of, of, of, of what somebody should be, be looking for. And it's just so, so common today. Um, what are some of your favorite lab tests? When you think about the number of patients that are coming in to see you, what are some of the most common lab tests that you typically run?

That's a great question. You know, it's, it's when we onboard new clients, they said, oh, my doctor has some lab results. I'm like, great, show me. And they're pretty incomplete, right? Like, let's say for example, nowadays cholesterol, everyone knows you want a low LDL, high HDL. LDL, but more recently, like measuring apolipoprotein A and all the other, like what we call smaller size particles. I, I'm shocked when I see cardiologists don't, they don't order it because when you order the apolipoprotein A subset, it tells you more about the LDL than just the LDL. And so I, I think there's that we're in a flux of transition where it is very important for people to be, you know, their own health advocate. And so I I think cholesterol is one aspect, but that's kind of to touch upon, you know, you may have lab tests, but they're often pretty much incomplete. One, the biggest culprit, sometimes insurance, they don't cover all the things, right? Two, a lot of doctors when they went to medical school, no offense to some of them, but like they didn't even have Google. Like, you know, look, I— not to date myself— when I was in medical school, Google just kind of came out, right? But it's a different mindset. Like, I'm always curious, I want to travel and learn things. But like, so you also have to think Sometimes they may not know this because they're just not always up to date. And then the third component is that you don't know what you don't know. And so that's the component I like to talk about when we think about testing. One, gut test— have to do a microbiome test, it's such a key thing. Two, heavy metal testing— we want to find out if there's anything in your body that's accumulating. Environmental toxins— if there's a reason, some people's conditions are due to mold or exposure, um, even Glyphosate, right? You can even test for glyphosate if you're having your foods covered in it. The third component is hormone testing. I think we have a massive endocrine disruption epidemic happening right now. And then things like cortisol testing, 24/7 testing, those are the baselines. Yeah, unless we do those 4 baseline things, which are actually quite often very non-traditional in, let's say, the internal medicine family practice world. In the world, you're not gonna get. And then forget about people testing micronutrients, right? A lot of people don't even think about the micronutrient panels. Like, it's not— I don't even think that's a panel that you can get your normal lab testing thing. It's usually a specialized test.

It's not. To be honest, that was my favorite test, doing a micronutrient test. I felt like it was so revealing for some people because some people— I'll even share this for myself. When I did my first micronutrient test, I was a triathlete and I would stand up and just get lightheaded instantly. And when I went and looked at my lab work, I was incredibly deficient in B2. I don't know why. I mean, everything else was actually pretty good, but B2 was just so low. And I supplemented with it, boom, just went away, you know. And I, and I get— of course, I was at a functional medicine doctor. I was probably 20— oh, I don't know, 5 years old, something like that. But it really made an— just an unbelievable difference in my health. And so, yeah, that's, uh, these are great, great points. Um, let's talk about mindset a little bit. I know that as a, as a doctor of functional medicine and regenerative medicine, this is something that's still in that field I don't hear a lot of doctors talk about. But, you know, I— this is something I've been talking about a lot the past few years because I really found, as I know you have, is that this is such an important part of healing, especially in a high-stress environment. So walk us through your thoughts on mindset for healing in your protocol to help people with their mindset.

Yeah, you know, that's a— it's really important because I think a large part of medicine has been just on the science side of things, and it doesn't necessarily focus on the, let's say, feeling side. But the feeling is a product of how your body is, right? And so there's a whole physiology, and there's numerous studies to show people, even like in cancer patients, the positive thinkers usually survive, right? You know, obviously if it's very severe, they don't. But the ones who are negative thinking, they almost never survive, right? Because their outcome And, and it's really not just the fact that it's the thinking. When you, and when you don't think a certain way, you don't take the necessary steps. So I, I always call this that self-fulfilling prophecy of like your mindset really dictates. And, uh, I have a thing called the 5 H's, uh, that I prepared, um, for this. And I have a few slides which I actually can share. So if your audience can also look at the YouTube or video version, they'll get a lot of value by looking at the graphs. I, I found it. So obviously I had to get a copy of your book, the, uh, Think This, Not that. And so, you know, I've read it and, you know, you have this graph in here. By the way, this, this book is great. You have— I love the charts and the graphs. You have this graph of the ikigai, which is what your sense of purpose is. And I, I talk a lot about that because in the 5 H's I outline, you know, this whole thing in a very similar pattern where it's about the habits you choose, your harbi— your hobbies, harmony, hope, and your home. And home's at the center. And home represents really your emotional home, mental home, your spiritual home, and relation relationships. And that, you know, of all things, an 85-year study from Harvard revealed the biggest predictor factor of longevity is positive relationships. So I can actually pull up this presentation and kind of just walk the audience through a bit. Um, so obviously the people who are watching this on video, you get to see this, and then for the audio listeners, I'll explain it as clearly as possible. You know, the concept of ikigai is what gives us purpose, as you've described in your book. And so in a similar fashion, when I think about the longevity mindset, everything's interaction of these concepts. So your habits and hobbies overlap, the hobbies you do and harmony overlap, and, you know, your harmony and hope. And it's just this continuum, right? And at the center is you, which is your home, your home. And so I like to link these things on what helps reinforce these things, which I call it the A-team. These are the things that are positively reinforcing it. And what are the things that negatively affect it, which are the Four Horsemen. And so when we kind of look at this as a collective perspective, it kind of makes sense, like, why this would be so important for your longevity mindset, right? But I think equally knowing what to do, it's also equally important to know what not to do. And I call that the Four Horsemen. And typically, and when I look at it from a longevity mindset part, it's usually chaos in your life, imbalance, being disconnected, and uncertainty. And so these relate to the four aspects of what I I call the 5 H's. And then we have the A-team. These are things, if I had to really boil it down, if you focus on these 4 things to bring more happiness, more longevity in your life, it's the attention you put into things, the action you take, the awareness, right? The combination of self-awareness and alignment, you know, really doing things that make you happy, which there's many people who don't do things that don't make them happy, but it's, it's hard, right? So habits are obviously obviously, you know, H number 1, right? Habits. These are routines, the actions in your life, discipline, focus, things that we do and avoid doing, right? Because sometimes not all habits are good habits. And really, at the end of the day, time management. And then you have your hobbies, the passions in your life, things that bring you joy, balance, things you do to relax, time for yourself, cultivating your interests. The third H, harmony. Money. These are the things that I think definitely affect stress, and that's mindfulness, gratitude, meditation, reflection, journaling, spending time to being grounded. And then last but not least is hope, and that's a little bit of the spiritual side as well. Beliefs in ourselves, our self-talk— that's a very big thing for people nowadays, uh, things that we tell ourselves, whether they're true or untrue. Your mind doesn't know the difference. If you, if you say something untrue to yourself, your, your body believes it, right? There's a, there's a book on that and language and goal setting and aspirations. And so what I, the reason why I described the Four Horsemen, I always feel we all have some component of a Horseman causing a problem in our life, right? So for example, you know, if you don't have enough good habits in your life, but you're really good with your hobbies and harmony and hope, you have chaos. The habits bring order in our life. So that's one of the reasons, uh, my, my Horseman is actually, uh, hobbies. I just don't have enough time for hobbies, which I need to, cuz I travel and I work a lot, but that's a lot of imbalance, right? You know, and I would definitely say I feel that because when you're traveling all the time, working all the time, you know, maybe it would be nice to play a little tennis or ride a bike. So I, I'm working on it, and that's why I think it's super— that awareness is important. And so, you know, the alignment of the things that make you happy. Harmony, that's feeling very disconnected, as mentioned, you know, disconnected. I think people are getting more desensitized, and I think a large part social media contributes to that, having less time to actually think about things with yourself can cause disconnection. And then last but not least, hope is the last bucket of the 5 H's. Number 4 in the middle is home. But hope is, if you don't have hope, there's always that feeling of uncertainty. And so this is why I call it a framework because it's very hard to say, hey, I want you to, I mean, you did a great job. So obviously this was separately from how your book describes it, because yours is actually 12 Mind Shifts. Mine was very focused on sort of your body's health. And so I kind of considered it like, I I think these are the things that really bring that body's health into, into connection. And then home is obviously the accumulation of your habits, hobbies, harmony, and hope. It's your emotional home, mental home, spiritual, and relationship. And each of these are such a big topic, you know, there are books on books on all of this, right? But I think what I always try to do when I think— and I call it a longevity mindset— I want things to be easy for people to take at least the first step. That first step is so hard for people. And so if you can at least identify it into one of these buckets, you can doing it. And if you can't find a bucket, you can maybe identify it in these— one of these horsemen that are affecting, you know, my life that I could improve on. And then, you know, just some of these things are obviously what we discussed just earlier about the cornerstones of, you know, if we think about our longevity as a body system and a brain system. Well, there are 4 things. It's inflammation, detox, immune stress, and the last thing which I covered, the 5 H's, which is pretty much everything's in your brain, but your brain then influences all the stuff that goes into your body.

That's so good. Uh, Holland, you did a fantastic job explaining this. In fact, the graphic you showed— so if you're listening on iTunes or Spotify, go to YouTube and, and look at the graphic here because it really is phenomenal. And, and Holland, one of the things I love about what you shared— I, I— my biggest area of study over the past 7 years, along with psychology, has been Chinese medicine. And so one of the things they'll really talk about is, uh, identity and purpose. And so home is really tied to our identity of who we believe we are, and then that flows out and really impacts our purpose more than anything. So I really see— I, I love that because you essentially have identity at the center with home, and that really impacting the purpose, uh, there. And so even in— even intuitively, even psychologically, even spiritually, just makes so much sense there the way you share shared that.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I think, and I, and this is something I see very commonly in the clients we work with, is, you know, you can do as many of these biohacking things and take these supplements, but if there's something going on with your, like you really aptly put, your identity, or you're out of balance, it's really hard. You know, your life becomes challenging. And I think, I think really mindset's such a huge component of living, living a long life. You know, even if things aren't perfect, life's never meant to be perfect. There's always It's how we handle them.

Yeah, that's so good. So good. Well, I know, you know, you've been able to travel around the world. You mentioned several times you travel a lot. Is there anything you've encountered in particular, any interesting longevity practices and other cultures, or things in terms of traditional medicine you think that are great practices we should consider adopting?

You know, I think a good component— I mean, I wouldn't say there's things that are new, new. I see people overseas diving deeper into topics. So certain things in the biochemistry world, they'll dive deeper in. I think nutrition, there are certain aspects, they're just better aspects of nutrition there where there's less processing of food. Yeah, I would say that's part— I think that, I mean, that's when you look at the Blue Zones, right? There's really, there's only one in the U.S., right? And all the other ones are international, you know. And the one in the U.S. is just this smaller community in Loma Linda, right, in California. But the other ones, they all kind of have similar overlapping components to them. So I think, I think what happens over— I think there's a lot of innovation that happens in the US, and I think with overseas it's not as fast, but whatever they're dialed into, they go really deep into it and they stick to it. That's what I've learned a lot over there. And so you might have a lab that just says, we focus on this one molecule, and they've been doing it for 15 years, right? And you're just kind of like amazed and like, wow, you just, you never changed course, huh? And so I think that type of determination pretty, pretty inspiring to see, especially even if it may not— they don't even have a real purpose for that molecule. I always like to take that and I say, okay, maybe this can apply to something that we're doing here in the U.S.

I love that. Yeah, I, I think that's wonderful. You know, I think that this is something I talk about frequently. Obviously you do with your patients as well, and as you just shared, you experienced it. But really, this idea of like, we've been very superficial and we need to go deep. We need to go deep in our relationships. If you want to go, you know, grow in your career, you need to go deep. If you want to go spirit— you grow spiritually, you need to grow deep. It's idea— and this is another sort of Asian idea in terms of, uh, you know, we're oftentimes compared to a tree. And if you want to grow up, you also need to grow down. You need to have deep roots. You need to go deep in your life if you truly want to be happy, fulfilled, great at something. And so I love that wisdom. That is, that is just so powerful. And there's just— everybody listening, that's such a powerful lesson in looking at your life saying, are you going deep? And it's a very similar way, Dr. Holland, and how you practice in medicine. It's, it's, this is, it's root cause, right? So, so you're not addressing superficial things. You're going very, very deep down to the cellular level and finding where's the root of this in order to help somebody heal. This is also why I think you're such a, you know, such a great and wise practitioner. So really appreciate all the wisdom you shared with us today. Any last piece of advice for anybody who wants wants to extend their lifespan?

Yeah, I think, I think the biggest thing— and thank you for summarizing that, that's very beautifully put— I think the biggest thing is consistency. You know, you have to have consistent, you know, put consistent action into something, make a decision and stick with it. And then to build some sort of routine around it. I think that's the hardest part for people. And then just starting. So if I were to say, what are some quick things you can do? One, do some functional medicine testing, put some consistency about it, like, you know, and just start. I think those three things, you'll already be ahead by 50% of the people out there just who are just thinking about it.

Yeah, that's great advice, great advice. Well, I want to say, uh, thanks to everybody for tuning in today, and a special thanks to Dr. Holland Chen for sharing all of his wisdom with us today. And I want to mention here, Dr. Holland, Um, well, actually, Dr. Holland, let me, let me ask you, where is the best place for people to find you, your content, your information, to where they could continue to learn from you?

We're pretty active on social media, so you can find me at Instagram @drholland, and it's spelled with an A, so D-R-H-A-L-L-A-N-D. And my website is also drholland.com, so www.drhalland.com. And we're very active, so if you send us messages, we always will typically reply as soon as possible. And the same thing for our website, we always will post new content. And likewise, stay tuned on our research. We're very keen on sharing that. So we'll start probably putting some more videos on YouTube, kind of chronicling, uh, showing it, show and telling what we're doing.

I love it. So great. Well, I want to thank again Dr. Holland here, and thanks everybody for tuning in to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. Remember, each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and life to the next level. Hey, make sure to subscribe, like, and share this podcast. Be on mission with us. We want to help people live longer, better lives. Hey, thanks everybody. I'll see you on the next episode.

Great. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.