Incorporate The Fasting Mimicking Diet For Hormone Balance

Sharon Stills, ND

Hello. Welcome back to Mastering the Menopause Transition Summit. I’m your host, Dr. Sharon Stills, and as always, I’m excited to be here with you, bringing you another amazing interview. I’m super excited today because I have a very special guest, a very smart guest, who, as you can see with his head, is kind of blocking part of it. But he’s from L-Nutra; he’s from Prolon. There we go. And Prolon really changed my life, and it’s changed the lives of so many of my patients. And I wanted to make sure it was part of the summit that you can get educated because, if you are perimenopausal or menopausal, fasting and understanding longevity is such a part of what we’re doing here, and there are many different ways to fast, and we have different interviews. But Prolon is really special to me because I was never very good at fasting. And when Prolon first came out and I found out I could fast and get the benefits of autophagy and all of the lowering of inflammation, all the wonderful things that we’re going to talk about that go along with it, and I could do it while eating crackers and drinking soup, and having a Choco Crisp Bar. I was like, This is awesome, and it is really awesome. And that’s why Dr. Joseph Antoun is here today to really tell us about science. And so you really walk away understanding what this is and how it can play a major role in your hormonal journey. So welcome. It’s so great to have you here at the summit.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Thank you, Dr. Sharon. And hopefully by end of this call, we would have changed somebody’s life.

Sharon Stills, ND

I bet we will. More than one. So, you have this bio of all these accomplishments that would take the whole interview to really talk about. But if you just want to briefly just introduce yourself and how you got into being the CEO, the chairman of L-Nutra, and why you are so passionate about it.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

I started my career as a physician. I’m an MD, PhD, and my passion is to help patients and people live a healthy, long life. And then I discovered I wanted to be a cardiologist. And again, I did Harvard and Hopkins in the top schools. But I discovered that I’m being taught a little bit to diagnose an issue. But first, meeting a person after they’re sick and talking about menopause. The day of menopause is a clock that says, Hey, you’re getting old. So maybe you can do some preventive stuff. And we’re going to talk about that. But in my clinic, I was seeing people after they getting sick; I was practicing sick care, and then I was putting them on multiple pills, which they have to take for the rest of their lives. No one pill was reversing any of the chronic diseases, so I had to put them on a pill for cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, blood sugar, etc. I was a little bit of a rebel in that sense, and I decided to go and do health policy and public health. These were the other masters you see in there, a little bit under my belt, and I wanted to bring prevention to the market, and I did that in many countries around the world. When I was helping governments reform their health care systems. I founded also the Journal of Health Care Systems and Reform, and then I became director at the University of Chicago for Health Systems and Policy Reform. The more I look at prevention and policy reform, a lot of us know already, like the education that we did in the last 15 years, now the average person on the street knows that they have to eat healthy, they have to exercise, they have to stress less. The problem is that it’s difficult, and people want products to consume. They want solutions in their hands.

This is when I decided to go more on the biotech and nutritech. Our company, L-Nutra, is the first nutri technology company. Meaning, how can you apply science of longevity, science of staying healthy to food so that you bring trustworthy, ethical food that can help people stay and give people a chance to stay healthier longer? And I met the founder of L-Nutra (L stands for Longevity, and Nutra is for nutrition), an amazing gentleman by the name of Valter Longo. He’s very famous for the Longevity Diet book, which I recommend everyone here today to go and read the book, The Longevity Diet Book by Valter Longo. He was nominated and selected by Time magazine to be top 50 most influential people in Health for that book. The book describes what you should eat to have a healthy, long life. And if you have some health conditions, you can also read what to eat for those. And the concept is that food is the only product we consume every day of our lives. How come we never put through science behind food? So to help people what to eat if they’re healthy and want to stay healthy long? And how come we never put enough research behind nutrition to help people with cancer, to people with diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and autoimmune diseases? And this is what our company is about: putting pharma- and biotech-level  science behind nutrition for longevity and medicine.

Sharon Stills, ND

Well, we are grateful for that, because we know why big pharma doesn’t look at food and all of these things as medicine, because it would interfere with their agenda of popping pills and keeping people; it’s sick care, not health care. What’s going on in the mainstream? Let’s talk about, most of the ladies watching are either in perimenopause, they’re menopausal, they’re postmenopausal they want to stay healthy. They know that this doesn’t mean that they have to get sick or lose their vitality. And so let’s talk about why fasting and what the fasting mimicking diet is, and why it’s so important at this point in life.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Yes, well. Menopause is, in a sense, it’s also a time clock that’s telling us, Hey, our body is transitioning to a new phase, and it’s related to aging. And this is one of our core research areas: women’s health and aging. We have more than eight clinical trials related to healthy aging and prevention, including a woman who has breast cancer as well and other cancers related to that age and diabetes related to that age, etc. So it’s a good focus of our company. We looked at fasting, and we designed the fasting mimicking nutrition as a five-day food that you can consume and keeps your cells in a fasting mode. Because our science and this took a good two decades of research and tens of millions of dollars, we show that if the cells are thinking that you’re fasting, once you cross the second day of fast and you’re touching the third day of fast, the cells start rejuvenating to survive the fast. So we discovered a process, a miracle of biology, that lived with us for hundreds of thousands of years when our ancestors did not have food all the time. They were eating and fasting. It seems the body, when you fast, has evolved to say, Okay, first day of fast, I have fat as a reserve; I’ll spend the reserves. And after the second day, I’ll tell the cells to rejuvenate, to be at their best, and to fix what’s going wrong in order for the entire body actually thrive and to survive the fast. So we discovered that if you fast for longer than two or three days, your body is not just doing a metabolic reset, which we’ll talk about is very important for women around menopause, but also a cellular rejuvenation as well, which is even more important given that menopause is a sign of aging and cellular age is very critical from metabolic age. So obviously, we studied one day, two days, three days, four days, five days, a fast, and longer, and the five days were optimal.

We don’t want to ask people to water fast for five days. We’re actually against going on longer periods of pure water fasts because you’re depriving the body in a way that has a lot of benefits for the cells and and on the metabolism, and you’re depriving essential organs of nutrients. So in order to balance gets you the benefits. But without the starvation, we develop the fasting, mimicking nutrition. So it’s plant-based healthy ingredients, plant-based proteins, low in carbs and/or low in sugar, and then healthy fats. And we started studying how much of every macronutrient and micronutrient I can nourish your body with and at which point in time of the day. In the morning, you have different insulin levels and cortisol levels versus at night. So we started studying 77 macro, micronutrients. See how much I can feed you from each and together to form a diet for five days and a nutrition program for five days whereas you’re eating. You mentioned that when you introduced me, you mentioned the soups. You mentioned that we even have a chocolate crisp. We have all the liquids that you need, the supplements that you need, and the morning bar. So it’s the breakfast, lunch, and dinner that it has in 100 calories, and they want 800 calories a day for days two, three, four, and five. So it’s a little bit of calories, but it’s not starvation. It’s a full 800 calories per day. So it can sustain the body. The formulation is designed so that by the time the ingredients get into the cell, they go around the radius of the cell, the radius to tell the cell that it is consuming food or when they get to the radars. They’re getting at such a low quantity that the cell is not convinced there’s enough food. Basically, we’re creating a physiological and cellular fasting without having to water fast. And for the first time ever, we’re allowing people now, with our science, to fast with food. You’re buying the Prolon box. You’re eating for five days; everybody thinks you are not eating for five days. You do a full metabolic reset; we can talk about that. You do cellular rejuvenation, and together, it’s a very good, healthy aging process that you’d take your body through, and it’s only five days. You don’t have to go on a long-term diet, just for five days. You need to do it two or three times per year to rejuvenate your cells in an effective way.

Sharon Stills, ND

To me, it is like the most paradoxical brilliance: eat and fast. It’s eating fast. I mean, it’s because there’s so much out there, and fasting has definitely made a resurgence these days. And it’s important to understand what you’re doing. But to me, this is something that’s safe; of course, I’m not your doctor. I’m a doctor, but it might not be yours who are listening. Check with your doctor. But it’s like you get the kid, and this is something you can do for yourself that you are rejuvenating. So let’s talk about some of the benefits of what happens when you do this. And if you can also talk about autophagy, that’s an important piece of it.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

There are five benefits. Again, I was thrilled to come with you on this podcast or this education. I do two to three podcasts per week. But menopause is like, if I want to think about Prolon being prescribed for age-specific transition related to aging, I would say, but aging for peri- or postmenopausal women. So as you mentioned, if you have a health condition or if you’re like 85 or 75 and have multiple other health conditions, obviously consult with your physician first before buying Prolon. But if you don’t and you’re feeling relatively healthy and you can sustain a five days of plant-based nutrition, you can try it. It has five major benefits. In the first one, we talked about the metabolic reset. So, for 73% of us, and even more so when we get to an older age, it’s difficult for us to shed some weight. We pick it up fast. We don’t shed it easily. And when you do the fasting mimicking nutrition. Like fasting, the body actually focuses on central fat. So the belly fat, the intro or the organ fat, the core fat, is actually where the body goes after. So you cut fat, and it’s very important at that age for insulin resistance and can sequence, metabolic issues. But at the same time, you’re protecting lean body mass.

We have shown in two studies that fasting, mimicking nutrition, protects lean body metastases. The cells rejuvenation, the muscles, as well as other organs, are doing rejuvenation. Why? We’re against water fasts; we’re for fasting with food because we’re nourishing the muscles that rejuvenating with Prolon. Therefore, we have a very secretive issue in the formulation that we have that actually helps the muscles at night to rejuvenate. So basically, I’m helping now the consumer to lose central fat, and at the same time, we’re protecting lean body mass. This is where most diets fail at that age. You can go on other diets, but you get to lose both lean body mass and you get a lose as well, fat. And you pick up back the fat pretty fast after the traditional diets. A lot of people suffer from that. They learned helplessness. They started a diet. Most of us started on the diet in our lives. And then, after 30 days, we stop, and then we’ve become the weight fast. With the Prolon trials, we have shown that 40 to 60% of the benefit lasts even after 90 days after with the box. And this is why the recommendation is that if today she can do it three times per year, do it once every three or four months, and then you will maintain 40 to 60% of the benefits across the year.

Sharon Stills, ND

I definitely see that in practice. I typically have patients do it once a month for three months. And yes, if they have high blood pressure or their lipid panel is off, or their inflammatory markers like CRP or fibrinogen, or even nowadays, their D-dimer, are elevated, if their rate is elevated, if they need to lose some weight, If they have fatigue, if they have brain fog, I could go on and on and on, and it resets. And one of the things that I hear—the feedback that I hear that I love, that not only did it change my labs and I feel better, but it also changed my relationship to food. I don’t want to binge anymore. I’m not craving anymore. It’s like I did Prolon, and it reset my relationship. And I love that because it’s five days like in the big scheme we can give ourselves, even if you struggle, even if you get a little hungry, when , okay, just got to make it to Friday or Saturday, it’s something that you can do that and that can empower yourself. So I just have to throw that in there. But go on with the benefits.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

That’s actually benefit number two, which is that change, which is exactly what you mentioned, resets your relationship with food, and we see it with almost everyone. right? There are a lot of people doing pull, and they come back and say, Well, I used to eat big portions late at night. I used to feel addicted to size, to sugar, to this and that. And now that I’ve spent five days on a healthy plant-based diet, it just tastes good. So I really don’t need these big portions or these late-night addictions to snacking. But if it’s number three, as you mentioned, autophagy and cellular rejuvenation. So this is what happens in the body migrating from day two to three when the body, in the first two days, rely on burning fat, and then that is telling the cells, Hey, look at intracellular sources of calories and rejuvenate. Autophagy won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2016. So it’s a pretty established concept of fasting when the cells, as a survival protection, a survival mode tries to rejuvenate. So that’s benefit number three. And it’s very much related to biological age, which is very relevant to the timing of the menopause: peri, during, or post.

In number four, it’s an emotional and this is important for women at that age when you do prolonged right at that age you’ve tried many diets you feel helpless a little bit. You’re picking up weight that you cannot set it. You feel a little bit of brain fog. You mentioned the brain fog. Your performance is slowing down, and these are all symptoms. And in menopause accelerates those because you start losing muscle pretty fast. You start seeing your cardiovascular lipids and panel change. And so benefit number four is really that feeling of success in achieving the five days of a diet. I feel better because, again, you’re not losing muscle; you’re losing fat. You’re a faster performer with mental clarity and energy. So there’s a lot of positive emotional experience coming just out of five days. Most people say, How come in five days you can get these benefits? It’s the power of fasting. Fasting is such an acute, transformative intervention to the body that you would feel those in a few days.

Number five is something we just published, and many of the things we’re talking about are published. If you Google Fasting Mimicking Diet and clinical trials, You’ll see all the data that we do in mice and in humans. But we just published, a few months ago, in June of Clinical Medicine, an article on skin. A lot of people say, Hey, if cells rejuvenate, would my skin rejuvenate? A lot of people report that My skin has changed. People think I’m looking younger—all of that. So we did a randomized clinical trial where women, it was only with middle age, did three cycles after all. And once a month, this regimen that you do for three months is a good kickstarter to do once a month for three months and then to start doing once every three or four months. And we looked at their skin, which was done at dermatological clinics and published in one of the top medical journals, the Journal of Clinical Medicine. And we measured skin hydration, skin glowness, skin vitality. And even with ARISA, you can see the cells at the skin texture. And this was very important because with ARISA, you see the, it’s not just the perception of subjective doctor, patient, or consumer looking at it, but it’s actually machines that look at skin texture. And the changes were statistically very significant. And you can see the visuals as well. And what was very surprising is two of the most significant benefits were actually emotional women felt happier and they felt more confidence. And it’s very important. This is with around menopause is something that a lot of women suffer from when their skin starts looking different. The little bit of muscle, and it just touches a little bit. Their confidence and their self-esteem. And this is where fasting with the vibrance of rejuvenation and gets that back back to them. So that was benefit number five, and very important in this case.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes, I did not know that. So yes, I think, and you’ve touched on a bit of pieces, it’s like a lot of humans, but certainly women, it’s easy to have fallen into an unhealthy relationship with food. And sometimes you go on these diets or you say, I’m going to fast, and it’s coming from not the healthiest place. You want to fast, you want to change, and you want to lose weight. But it just sets up a vicious cycle. That’s what I love about Prolon—it actually helps to heal that. So it’s me; I’m always talking about the mind and body. They’re married; you can’t separate them. When I first learned about Prolon, I’m a real naturopath at heart. I practice individualized medicine. Everyone gets different things, even with the same diagnosis. My first thing was, Oh, please, a one-size-fits-all in a box like, No, no, no. But I’m open-minded, and I’m like, I’ll try it. And I thank God, I have an open mind because it blew me away. Like I said, it’s helped myself. If it’s helped so many patients, I know. Now I want to spread the word. And that’s why we’re talking about it here on the summit. And it really is like mind-body healing for your relationship with food and your sense of self-esteem. Like when you finish, I remember the first time I did it, and it was like I didn’t start on Monday. So Friday was my last day, and it’s late in the afternoon on Friday. And I was just like, Oh, I don’t know if I’m going to make it. I’m like, No, you’re going to make it because you’re going to wake up tomorrow and then you can eat and you’re going to wake up and you’re going to say, I did it, and you’re going to send that neural pathway that was connection, saying I was successful, I did it, rather than I failed again. And the interesting thing is when you wake up because a lot of times when you can’t have things, whether it be food, people, or whatever it is, you start to get obsessed with them and you’re like, fixated.

And so, some time during the week, you might be thinking, Oh, when this is done, I’m going to have that. Whatever it is, fill in the blank. And then you wake up on Saturday morning and you have to eat lightly, but you wake up and you’re kind of like, Yes, it’s like all gone once; you can have it. It’s like you’ve been reset. You don’t have the cravings. You can eat as much. Your stomach size has won’t allow for binging and overeating. And it’s like it’s so liberating. And so it’s like this kit that helps your mind and your relationship. And then it’s doing your skin and your inflammation, cleansing, and making you younger. It’s turning back the biological clock. And you get to eat chocolate while you’re doing it. That just always blows my mind. I’m like, You get to have a chocolate crisp bar. I do want to, because I’m sure there are people listening, because this would be something I was thinking, Well, I’ll just make my own 800 calories a day. Yes, I’ll put a piece of dark chocolate in it. So could you just speak to that? Why it’s like, what went into that and why it has to be these certain things and you can’t substitute.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

It took over 12 years to develop it with $36 million. So it’s important for people to hear these numbers because they exist. It’s such a delicate formulation. So imagine if, and it’s not just about just the calories we actually before were developing, fasting mimicking nutrition for Alzheimer’s, cancer, and diabetes, and each one was different calories. For Alzheimer’s, it reaches all the way to 2200, 2000, to 1400 calories. The elderly need a higher calorie set. Calories are just one function, very important. It’s the nutrients—the macro and micro nutrients because the cells detect. So, you can go and eat a piece of steak and it’s 300 calories, and your body would sense through the proteins of the steak that you have, you’re eating actually. So the macronutrients are very important in the timing of the day. When we mix those into bars and drinks, and soups, the timing of the day is very important because in the morning you have high insulin and you send the signals faster to the to the cells versus a little bit in the afternoon. You’re more catabolic in the morning, and you’re more anabolic at night.

So we actually studied all those, and it’s not we; it’s the University of Southern California, the Longevity Institute that was behind and professor Valter Longo behind the discovery. And then we have 18 other universities that have tested fasting, mimicking nutrition: Stanford University of Miami, University of Leiden, the University of Heidelberg in Germany, Milan, and Palermo. So over 18 universities have done randomized clinical trials on it to prove the point that you can eat and get the benefits of fasting, each in a different and different benefits. So this is a very delicate proprietary formulation that has been tested at multiple universities now.

Sharon Stills, ND

So don’t try it. It’s not a do it yourself.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Well, one thing you mentioned is that after Prolon. Because a lot of; and just to mention here to the listeners, we’ve now sold over a million Prolon. So it’s getting great traction, but a lot of people are saying, Hey, if you turn me into a little bit more of a healthy lifestyle, what should I eat after? We used to recommend for them to do a pescatarian diet, a Mediterranean diet, or a vegan diet, depending on their goals and objectives, whether it’s longevity, whether it’s muscle, whether it’s cardiovascular. But now we’ve started doing food longevity and food elements. We call them the Prolon Everyday. This is not the Prolon Fasting, but the Prolon Everyday. We’re to help them stay on a healthy track with food elements that are clean based on the ingredients; we don’t add artificial and chemicals that are longevity formulation. Again, that does not accelerate aging, and then they have been selected from around the world to be correlated with healthy aging. So, for example, the fast bar and the fasting shake are two products that keep you in a fasting mode. You just replace one meal with those.

We’re launching the longevity proteins, which I think will be key for women in perimenopause. It will be 25 grams of protein in a drink. That does not accelerate, though, the IGF and the insulin. We spent, at USC, the University of Southern California, and in Italy, spent millions of dollars in three years on research to find sources of amino acids to give you 25 grams of protein. Without accelerating as a typical 25 grams of a steak or another source, accelerating the rate of aging in IGF. We just launched yesterday, actually, the L-Spread, the chocolate spread. A lot of people, a lot of us—we kind of snack a little bit on chocolate here and there. And we felt like it was our ethical duty to bring a healthy longevity chocolate to the market. And so we’re bringing a lot of what we’re going to launch the L-Pill, the longevity pill, which is a healthy, anti-aging ingredient, DHEA, antioxidants, and polyphenols. We’re launching that next month. So we’re venturing into saying to people, You rejuvenate with the lower five days. It’s very important for the metabolic reset and the self-rejuvenation. And if you want to still consume products that are clean from the ingredient standpoint, have a longevity formulation designed by the USC Longevity Institute. We’re happy to provide that to you. And we started producing those elements.

Sharon Stills, ND

What is chocolate spread? You had me a chocolate spread.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

The L-Spread. The spread is so again, we go around the world and we studied people living to 100 and beyond. So our mission is to keep people young until 60 and healthy to 110. And so we go; we study people that live and beyond, and we see what they eat and from which regions, etc. In the New England Journal of Medicine, which is the number one medical journal, has published multiple articles showing that almonds are correlated consistently with healthy aging. So we started looking around the world where to get the best almonds and have the correlation with aging, and in south Italy is known to be one of the longevity areas. They are great-tasting almonds, and they have the people living there in those areas live. They have record concentrations of centenarians—people living 100 and beyond. So we designed the L-Spread, that’s L-dash spread. And the goal is to really it’s 74% almonds. You don’t see any chocolate. Typically, you see the flip side because nutrition companies, their businesses they want to make more profit, so they use the cheaper the cheaper version which is more milk and chocolate versus almonds a 74% almond, pure cocoa, and a couple of other ingredients into it. All natural, all plant-based, non-GMO, soy-free, gluten-free. Ticked to all the kinds of natural ingredients for a plant-based product. And we’re really presented it for people to say, Hey, I want to eat something that’s this great; I want to eat it coming from the centenarian regions around the world, people living under and beyond, and it’s high-end nuts, which consistently showing to be correlated with healthy aging.

Sharon Stills, ND

I love it. So I say, I always said I was going to live to 120. And then, when I started Proloning, I opted it to 130. So, Yes, you’ve got to change your 110 to 130.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

We cannot promise everyone. We’re just empowering people to live the longevity lifestyle. A longevity lifestyle as a nutrition is core, but dieting, exercising, stress, sleep, social capital, and happiness are other pillars. We can do our share, which is to optimize nutrition. But if you do all the other shares, which I think you’re very well aware of, and you practice, hopefully you live beyond your target.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes. And then so. I think. 

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

The goal is to live healthy, right? You don’t want to be sick. That’s the biggest. People talk about longevity. What we mean with longevity is health span. Staying healthy, is part of the notion of healthy longevity. Nobody wants to live sick like we do today, at around ages of 90 and 100. We all want to be healthy to 110 and beyond, or 100 and beyond. And this is our goal.

Sharon Stills, ND

I say we get to 110, where we’re still productive, and then it from 110 to 130, we can get the rocker porch and just chill out and reminisce, and have some tea. But until then, I’m just thinking, well, like everyone who’s listening, I don’t know, I just had this idea of, like, maybe when the summit ends, I’ll do like a Dr. Stills led, and we’ll do like, if you purchase the kit, because I know there’s going to be like a gift, a good deal for you to get access to this. And I am just so passionate about this. It’s like I don’t like to tell people, You have to buy this; you have to do this. But this is such a gift to give to yourself through your hormonal journey. And so I’ll have to figure it out. But we can do it. I’ll lead it, and we’ll all be in Europe, and we’ll all cleanse together and we can. It’s fun to do it with a group. Sometimes, you just need to know like there are other people doing it and you can get support and ask questions. So I’ll figure out how we can work that out. But I’m thinking of the tens and tens and tens and tens of thousands of women who watch this summit, like if we go on to a revolution and we embrace this, we can be that first group that is living to their hundreds, 110, 120. And like you said, I always say, It’s not just about the quantity; it’s about the quality. But I love that health span. Yes, it’s with a good health span. It’s not feeling like crap. It’s feeling good in the process. So I think we’ve got a little menopausal, Prolon muscle building in my brain right now.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

It always makes me happy to hear from a doctor, and just for here, for the listeners, we have over 15,000 clinics in the U.S. only that have registered to offer Prolon. This support from the physician community and the health care practitioners has been immense because, I’m an M.D. Ph.D., leading the company. Our founder is a Ph.D. Our chief medical officer is an ex-Harvard Vice President of Diabetes. The doctors trust us because we show them science. We’re not here to push a salesy new nutrition or new diet. You see that trust coming from us because we did mice trials in universities, we did human trials, and randomized clinical trials. We published them in top medical journals. The doctor read in those journals. They’re used to see drugs. They’ve done that; they used to see nutrition. And now they see the fasting mimicking diet, and they start trusting. Then they try it. The good news is that, in five days, you start seeing results. So you try to get the results fast, and it builds this positive loop cycle. The biggest, actually, Proloners are physicians. Actually, the number one Proloner, I think, has a cycle close to 30 Prolon and is a physician. She’s an OB-GYN and probably specializes in PCOS and menopause, and you cannot reveal names in here, but this is how strong, even, and offsetting a gynecologist. As an M.D., she’s a leading figure in the nation who would commit to this product because they trust the science, so we’re not here to push you guys. We’re here. What inspired you to right the nutrition for your stage of life?

Sharon Stills, ND

I never kept track of my cycles. I didn’t know. I don’t think I’ve done 30, but I have to go back and see if I can count because I’ve certainly on two hands.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Okay.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes. I mean, for me, it’s like, as you were talking, I was thinking, Because I’m a clinician, I work with patients. And so, there are only enough hours in the day. If you’re working with patients, it’s hard to have a lot of time to do research. So for me as a physician, I’m so glad that there is this company that’s done this research that I can then get in my hands and share with patients and see their lives and their labs and everything change. And, it’s one of those things like, if I could do it, you could do it because I used to try all these on and do the master cleansing, which is a ten-day cleansing, just so. And I can never do it. It’s like my adrenals weren’t supporting it; my blood sugar was dropping. And then when I did Prolon and was successful and felt good and enjoyed the foods, the foods on the fasting, it was just like it was such a gift, and that’s as a clinician. And that’s what I’m concerned with. I’m concerned with good science, but I want someone to give it to me. So then I can say, Here, you’re going to do this because it’s going to help you and change your life on so many levels. 

And I love that it’s definitely the theme of the summit this year that we’re really marrying the mind and the body, and I’m not even telling anyone to, like, talk about it. It’s just organically happening that the mental peace and especially our relationship with food when you fast really give you this opportunity to evaluate and kind of observe what you’ve been doing and how you can do it differently and make better habits. And if it starts to creep back up, well, like I said, you kick it off once a month for five days. There are typically 30 in a month. So it’s only five, not even a whole week out of a month. And then, after those three months, we kind of evaluate at least doing it once a year just to get that cleanse. But when you think about it, yes, it’s going to give you great skin, great hair, and weight loss. But think about what it’s doing inside, because it’s cleansing. It’s getting rid of the dead proteins. It’s rejuvenating your body. And sometimes, when we can’t see things, they’re not as important to us. But just picture when you’re doing this, I’m giving myself a gift. I’m expanding my health span. I am aging gracefully. I am helping my hormones; I am supporting my system. There are so many layers to what you can do with this beautiful little box that it’s easy to follow. Nicely labeled and tasty. It’s almost one of those. It’s too good to be true. But it is good. And it is true.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Yes, definitely. Again, the miracle of biology is fasting. It’s just that we, as humans, are not supposed to eat all the time. And keep aging fast and gaining weight. We’re bringing back fasting to correct, to support, to rejuvenate, and reset, but with food this time to make it easier. This is where the science meets tradition to kind of help us get with new solutions.

Sharon Stills, ND

Mm hmm. Well, thank you. I know you are extremely busy, man. Change and change in the world and keeping everyone healthy. And I’m like, every time I talk to you, there’s a new product coming. I haven’t tried to shake that, and now there’s a spread, so I love it. You guys are constantly innovating and doing good for the world. It’s really just super. So thank you. Thank you, thank you. I know there’s going to be some kind of special for the listeners, so stay tuned for that, and then stay tuned for our menopausal group Fast post-Summit. I’ll have to figure that out because I literally just thought that I think that would be really fantastic.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

It yes.

Sharon Stills, ND

We’ll figure out the details, but it’s just such a good opportunity to embrace and have as part of your health, your health plan, and your health program. So thank you for being a part of it. And coming and sharing your wisdom. Thank you, everyone, for listening, having an open mind, and embracing the world of eating chocolate while fasting, getting younger, and cleansing your body. It doesn’t get better than that. It really doesn’t. So be well. And we’ll be back with another interview.

Joseph Antoun, MD, PhD, MPP

Appreciate you.