Women Are Aging Too Fast… And No One Is Talking About This | Dr. Mani Kukreja | Ep. 113

Intro and Dr. Maniu2019s Background 0:00

There's a time in your life and I call it the decade of golden transformation. And that is 35 to 45 years of age, because that's the age your estrogen start to decline. Because of decline in estrogen, you lose your bones density by 1% every year. So by the time you reach to your 50 year old, You've already lost 20% of your bone density, which is a huge number. Would you say cancer is in metabolic disease? It is kind of metabolic because Today we have Dr. Mani, how are you? Dr Manisha Kukreja is an internal medicine physician with 14 years of clinical research in oncology and metabolic disease.

She founded LiveAgeWell and wrote Age Stronger, Live Longer. she helps women use testing and simple habits to stay strong as they age. What are some things that you can tell us about what these young ladies are putting their bodies through when it comes to these BCPs? They have a lot of risk factors for clotting or endometriosis. They are basically just to block the fertility. they are not used for the optimization of health. Is testosterone the male hormone? Why do women need testosterone? Either we are male or female, doesn't matter.

Everybody needs testosterone. Women start to lose that after the age of 40 and then they suffer. What are some of the symptoms that women should really be watching out for that could be affecting their sexual life? In general layman term is because of three reasons, I think. Welcome to another episode of a Healthy Point of View podcast. I'm your host, Sam Tahata. And as usual, we're bringing experts from all over the world to talk about health, wellness, beauty, and mindset. Today, our guest comes all the way from Orlando here in Florida, but it's still a bit of drive.

She has an expertise in women's health. Spent lots of years under the umbrella of oncology and also medical research. Has a master's in public health, she has a true passion on bringing rejuvenation to the masses. Today we have Dr. Mani, how are you? Welcome. All right. Thank you for having me here, Sam. It's my honor and my pleasure. Oh, it's a pleasure to have you here. You know, its always great to get the medical perspective from different experts around the world when it comes to the longevity space and age management, which I know you have quite a bit of experience in different areas, oncology being one of them, medical research, you majored in women's health.

So I think this is a great time to actually talk about women's health due to some things that have been on the news recently. But first, before we get into any of that, I want the listeners and viewers to get to know who Dr. Mani is. I wanna know about your upbringing. Where did you grow up? How was life? What did your parents do? Just so we can get know you a bit better. My parents are entrepreneur. I was born and raised in India. i did my medical school in india and came here to united states did My licensing and after that i Did practice for an year and then i wanted to study about women's health because i always had passion for prevention you know more like a proactive care than reactive care and I wanted to get my master's training in women's health and clinical research, so I did double major at Tulane University.

And I think that was well worth it. And after that, I did more than a decade, almost 14 years of clinical research leading in metabolic disorders, cancers, and heart disease. That was really eye-opening for me. I myself did learn a lot looking at the data, looking the datasets and the outcomes, the quality of life of all these uh subjects that we have in the study and you know what i have learned again and again is that uh intervention at early in The age of your life is being always more impactful and what I learned was women suffer more you, know women, suffer, more because all these chronic diseases.

I mean, there's a time in your life and I call it the decade of golden transformation and that is the decades of 35 to 45 years of age. You know why? Because that's the age where I saw that that's the age when you have the decline in metabolism. You see that your hormones are a little bit off and you see your cellular functioning or the cellular repair is not efficient as when your were in your teens or when were you were 25. So that is the ages when start to see the signs of what we call aging, like, you know, graying of hair, a little bit of, the wrinkling on the skin and because of the collagen loss, fatigue, brain fogginess, tiredness, energy loss and joints are not as flexible as they used to be when you were in your teens.

So all those symptoms, they kind of just blend and they are accepted as the signs of aging. But in my, that's not what I advocate for, That's Not What I Feel. I feel aging is not a decline, it's about slowing down. It's all about stepping up into the opportunity of health transformation. Because it is a very special decade of your life when you are seeing all those transformation in your health.

Aging, Inflammation, and the Golden Transformation Decade 5:48

But when take care of you health during that decade, you are basically shaping how your health is going to be in 50s and beyond. And this is what I've learned as a physician, as clinical researcher, and as wellness advocate and wellness expert that when you blend science with some science-backed, evidence-packed lifestyle techniques and lifestyle practices, you are able to basically step into that part of your life and you're able take care of you own health. You can take control of Only when you know your biology, when are aware of the health transformation, When you have those tools in your toolbox and you're well aware your own biology then you can take all those steps for your health optimization.

And that's what I call bio-optimization. And that's what my book is about age, stronger, live longer, which is all about it's a practical guide to health optimization or bio optimization and longevity because this book has been written in a very simple manner. So even the layman person can understand it. You know, professionals, the executives, CEOs, they all can. And this is one hundred and sixty two page only. you can read it in the plane or in your pool. It's very easy to connect with the audience and the readers who can who can just simply follow those very foundational steps.

You know, my philosophy is make your foundation strong if you want to be living a good life. So if your life is your house, your Foundation is all those basic pillars that you need to set standards right and high. Right. Now, Dr. Marty, why is it that when people start aging, that whole blanket of symptoms that she just mentioned, Why do people accept that as part of aging? So biologically in our body, round about that age, around the age of 30 to 35, every single cell, Every single system and every body organ, they start to go through this gradual decline.

And this gradually decline is due to the inability of the body cells to remember how to repair and regenerate. That is what exactly is going on. So aging, You know, in general layman term is because of three reasons. A lot is going on in your body. So we have almost like 30 trillion cells in our body, we had 20,000 genes in each cell. Every cell in the body is on a constant work. It's functioning. The function of the cell is basically is constantly replicating and all the organelles are constantly duplicating.

And what's really going is it's going through a biochemical reaction which is basically nothing but just an ATP production. And through that process, a lot of ROS, or byproduct, which called ROS that is reactive oxygen species is being produced. That reactive Oxygen species, ROS when it collects and your body is not able to clean it away at a very efficient manner, that ROS causes a lots of oxidation and inflammation. Right. And that inflammation and oxidation when it inflames the cells and causes a lot of oxidation throughout and in a chronic nature.

that causes aging and that accelerates aging. So if your body is able to remember and how to basically repair and, you know, reset those cells and those genes, so we have that genetic, which is called the blueprint in each cell, we had that blueprint. That blueprint, if you're able, to efficiently activate that blue print or genes to switch on and off to able repair, and heal, you're able to basically take care of that aging component. And so basically what really happens is that round about this age, you know, when people start to see the manifestation of all those signs and symptoms, they just think that it's a part of aging.

But that's not what I really think. I think you can you could just do a lot because any age related disease, because aging is not a disease. All these are chronic, chronic diseases like, diabetes, obesity, coronary artery disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, these are all chronic inflammatory disease which are basically occurring because of the chronic inflammation. But the good thing is that they are not completely dependent on your genes. They are like hard and set rule. There are only 20% genetically dependent and there are 80% lifestyle dependent.

So there's a lot that you can do. The external environment. What are some of the top things that cause us to age a lot quicker? To age, a little quicker. I think we are in the soup of toxins all around us. So like I said, there are endogenous and there exogenous factors which causes aging. Endogenous, we have already covered, which is ROS or oxidation and inflammation. And then externally, We are exposed to UV light, we are expose to radiations. We're exposed so many toxins. we're expose so so much pesticides and you know, phthalates and microplastics, which are all around us.

They are inevitable. You know they are in our water, they're in skin care products, in makeup. they everywhere around, unavoidable. But we need to be constantly doing something to detoxify our body in order to optimize. Right, right. So that's also mental stress. Oh, yeah, which is inevitable. That's never to be forgotten. Especially in today's world. In todays world, I mean, mental, stress in of constant nature, chronic nature is so bad because when you know, every thought in our because mind is no separate from your body.

Mind is a part of your We say physical health and mental health is all in synchrony. They all are in harmony. So when every thought that you have in your body, in you mind, that your thinking, either you're sad, happy, you are excited, motivated, or whatever you thinking. It's related to a hormone. There's a hormon basically which is regulating that. If you go through constant stress, Right? And if you're not optimizing your stress, there's a hormone called cortisol, which is on a constant elevation.

And that causes the chronic inflammation. That inflammation basically causes inflammation of all the cells. and that inflammation, when stays for a longer time, it just wrecks our body. Yeah, yeah. No, I hear you on that. Now, now, doc, you know, when it comes to a lot of the modalities on taking care of your body, before we talk about any of that biohacking techniques and stuff, a. Lot of people look at that and says, well, that's too expensive. What are some of. The things that people can do that are free to to take control of their health?

I mean, there have been so many advances and expensive modalities in biohacking world. And there's been, so much exposure to us. We all are aware of the knowledge is all there, but they are expensive. I always feel that those foundations, like your deep sleep, taking care of your nutrition, you know, Taking care off your diet and strength training and mental stress optimization. All these are the four very important pillars or foundations which you can just take care. I mean, it's all free, right?

And if you're able to do that, I think that health that decision about the health, that goes long way. It's not a temporary or your your decision. Those kind of decisions about your health. They are they are long lasting and they sustain. And that really helps. Right. Yes. Now, Dr. Money, you had a pivot in your career during the pandemic. What was that pivot? That pivot was 14 years of clinical research, seeing the data, the output, and seeing outcomes and the quality of life of the patients. The pivot was that people just wait too long throughout their health journey.

And my message was to intervene very early throughout this journey, earlier you intervene, it's more impactful. It makes more difference on your health's journey and that made me shift my career to basically change to concierge practice, helping women, mostly women to basically teach them on a mass level, educate them and help them to transform the way they think about health and vitality. and educate them and doing the steps like hormonal optimization, biomarker testing, strength training if they need to, functional nutrition education.

So I started to help women. Many people needed it. And I, I studied my own concierge practice after around the time of COVID to move into the integrative wellness prevention field. Now, when you talk about coming to a younger age, specifically, let's say the youth, and we're talking about hormone optimization, how young would you actually start educating people when it comes to that? I think I will start, I say, even though I said the decade of transformation is 35 to 45, but even when your 30 year old, So your estrogens start to decline.

You know, your ovaries start produce less amount of oxygen. Sorry, I will correct it, right? Yes. So, you're estrogen start decline right from the age of 30 year old. Right? So you ovary start producing less of estrogen. And because of decline in estrogen, there's a 1% decline in bone density. You lose your bone's density by 1% every year because of lack of estrogen. So by the time you reach to your 50 year old, you've already lost 20% of your own density, which is a huge number. And right when you are at 50 or You know, either you are peri-menopause around that time because some people don't hit menopausal around 50, they hit manoposal by around 54. Some people do hit Menopasal even at 44 year old.

Free Foundations for Better Health 16:48

So that whole year of those 10 years around about 45 to 55. You have a tremendous loss of bone density. If you don't take action, you can't do much at 65. I mean, You can still be working on it in order to maintain it, but you cannot go to your bone-density status what you have lost. Right. Well, so we know that bone density is how strong your bones are. Right now, besides you falling down and breaking a bone. Yes. How do we test how strongly your So first I'd like to talk about bone is such an important, it's just not important because it is a structure to give us shape and to hold us upright.

Bone is not only the orthopedic, the bone, femur or humerus. It's basically an organ of endocrine system as well. bone when these bones are into action the osteocytes the bone cells they activate our bdnf that is bone derived neurotropic factors which are serotonins which our dopamine serotones is what gives us happiness dopamine is the is a molecule of motivation you know and also these bdf are important for cognition so bone is i always say bone And so bone is very important. I mean, you move, You do everything because motion, the movement.

First, I'd like to talk about the whole locomotion system. So in your system of locomotives you have bone, muscle, tendon, ligaments, and they all together forms the locomotive system, but you are able to move because of that system so everything is important, bone it's important muscles are extremely important and then tendon and ligament, all those tissue connective tissues are very So bone is major because especially women, when they lose estrogen, their bones become weaker. And it is so important because what I've seen is and as per the science also, most of the most or the fracture that happens later age of your life, 80 percent are because of.

The faults, the faults is a major cause of, you know, and those faults are, because your bones are weak. So if you train your bones to be strong, if your train, your bonds to, you know, optimize your faults and fractures are going to much less. And I would like to talk about DEXA scan also. So what really happens, this faults in fracture is just not easy. I mean, the quality of life just becomes terrible when you have a fracture because of fall, because So this is what happens. Movement is very important.

So people who are constantly moving, there's a new data, a 2023 Lancet study, which has been done. And that shows that if you are not moving enough and you're stationary, you have 24% higher risk of all-cause mortality, because of which 20% of latter years of your life you spend in hospitalized care. Waiting for the doctor going to the emergencies and all that stuff that you don't want to be I mean you want have a better quality of life, especially later years of your life. So, this is how important this whole bone thing is and.

So to answer your question, bone density is so important.

Early Hormone Education and Bone Density 20:30

First of all, because bone is a part of your locomotion, helps you move and helps, you know, optimized as far as your whole overall health is concerned. And BDNF, just like I said, it's so important for your brain optimization as well. So when you do the DEXA scan, and I know I've seen so many of my clients, T-score, the standardized deviation score, if it is zero, that means you are kind of just comparing it to the 30 year old person with the perfect bones, you know, because after 30 years it starts to decline.

And if you have minus one, that means osteopenia. That means your bones have started to get weaker. And then minus 2.5 is osteoporosis. Your bones are really weak and you need some kind of medical intervention. So people who have T score of minus two point five, they have four percent increased risk of falls and fracture. Wow. and that's a very bad, terrible quality of life. That's not what you want. And with bones, we have to be just not talking, it's only bones. We need a strong muscle in order to have a stronger bone.

Because you see, muscles are connected to bone through those connective tissue like ligaments and all those connected tissue and cartilage and tendons, right? So this, if you have strong muscles, you're gonna have stronger bones So you need to make sure that you are going through impact exercises. You know, there are many kind of exercises that people do, but in particular, if you're only concerned about bone density and bone strength, so you'll need be involved in impact exercise. What are those like dancing, running and jumping and rope jumping, things like that, where you were basically impacting on your bones, telling your bone to be active and more stronger.

Yeah, I've heard of people doing, they call it rocking, where you wear the weighted vest. You wear a weighted rest because that's a double benefit, because first of all, you have the weight, so you had the way it's telling your bones to be more stronger, plus also you're walking at the same time, So you are basically getting that impact on those bones. Now your white blood cells, Are they created in the bone marrow? Yes, the Bone marrow is so important. Your white blood cells, which are the cells of immunity, right?

They help you fight against all the bacteria's virus infections. They are all residing in The bone Marrow and bone marrow is the central core of the bomb. So important So the bones have a lot of responsibilities for the body. A lot responsibility as long as, I mean, think about this, your immunity, cognition, mood disorders like happiness, sadness, depression, motivation, all is controlled through the bone. Wow, the bones, man, I like that. So, Doc, you were talking earlier, we were having a conversation about making sure people are getting educated at a young age when it comes to taking care of the health, specifically learning about hormone optimization.

You know, there's a topic that I want to touch up on where we're going to go even younger than age 30, and it's your BCPs, right? Your birth control pills that now we are seeing, I mean, females as young as 12 years old being put on these birth controls pills. And sometimes they put them on the birth-control pills just to manage your menstrual cycle. But one of the things that I've seen with liquevita is a lot of these females, as they start getting into their 20s, late 20's and their 30's, they have a lotta complications.

Complications of infertility, complications of all other sorts of hormonal issues. So you as a doctor specializing in women's health, what are some things you can tell us about what these young ladies are putting their bodies through when it comes to these BCPs? So these BCPs are basically not the bioidentical hormones. First of all, they're all synthetic and these causes a lot of inflammation, right? So this is not good because this not a progesterone that you're putting in your body. It's called projestin, which is a synthetic molecule.

And they are, basically, just to block. the fertility, they are not used for the optimization of health. So BCPs is really not a good idea. And they do mess up. They do have a lot of risk factors for clotting or endometriosis, endometric cancer. Oh, wow. You know, so those are and also for people, I know there are many clients of mine. And they asked me that if you're already on the oral contraceptive pill, do I still need to take hormones, the BHRT, bioidentical hormone treatment? Definitely yes.

I mean, because they need estradiol. They need progesterone. The need testosterone for the optimal functioning. people who have, the women's who lack of estrogen, they suffer from symptoms of night sweats and weakness of bones. And if they are lacking in progesterone, They have the anxiety issue. They are not calm. The are nervous. Their sleep is disturbed and estrogen also is anti-inflammatory. It is cardio protective. it is brain protective, it's not only for bones, but it has for brain, heart, and for your skin for aesthetic reasons also.

And when you compare them to the synthetic BCPs, it's nothing like that. So it is a total myth. It's a wrong concept. They are not the good stuff. Right. Just for the reason of blocking the fertility. But then you have a lot of ovulation. You have lot fertility issues. When they got to be reproducing, we see a lots of complications at that time. Wow. So Dr. Monty, you know, interesting enough, we're talking about women's hormone optimization. And, um, recently. It's been all over the news, and the head of the FDA, who's I believe the 27th commissioner, Dr.

Marty, he just spoke publicly about it of removing the black box warning for hormone optimization for women, which is something really big when it comes to the integrated functional medicine space, because we've been talking about hormone optimisation for both males and females for many years, in the importance of it, especially women that are going through perimenopause and menopaus, So I want to get your insight as a women's health expert, as physician, who's done clinical research. And you know, Dr.

Marty, interesting enough as well, has background in oncology, and he was very adamant about how hormone optimization is actually good for women. A lot of the things that were on this black box warning were just things completely false. So, I wanna get you insight on that. I think he's completely right. There was this study that was done, which was misread. The interpretation was wrong. And it seemed like people were like, OK, it causes breast cancer. It causes clotting. But that's not right, It is completely breast-cancer protective from oncology and from cancer point of view.

and it's a very big and potent anti-inflammatory the patches that we actually give to the patients and, you know, prescribe them. So I really agree with him. And this has to be every woman who are in perimenopause, menopausal, and postmenopas, they need to on the dose of Estradiol, the optimized dose. I think it's very important. Another message that I want to convey here is just don't give too much. Don't get the estradiol or progesterone what your friend is getting. It's always important to do the blood testing and knowing your own levels.

because when you know your own level, then you can actually manage how much estradiol you need, right? And the idea is when to give that, many people are confused about that as well. And I would like to present here that if you are in cycling state, that is premenopause and you're cycling, the estradeol, FSH, LH, all these three biomarkers needs to be tested on day three. progesterone around 19th day to 21st day, any in between those three days, and testosterone can be tested anytime. You also need to test your DHEA because DheA is the precursor of all these hormones, the estradiol as well as for testosterone.

Birth Control Pills and Hormone Optimization 29:30

It's a precursors, so you need know about your dhea levels and also your cortisol level. So you to have the whole panel tested and then you So I'm going to pretend like I know nothing about hormones, right? So someone would probably say, well, you said testosterone, isn't testosterone the male hormone? Why do women need testosterone? Even 100% need to testosterone in much, much lower doses. but they need everybody. Either we are male or female, doesn't matter. Everybody needs testosterone. It's good for your cognition.

it's it it is good. For your confidence, motivation, for you muscle repair and your muscle building is really important for women as much as it s important. for testosterone So women start to lose that after the age of 40, and then they suffer. But they need to be on a very slight dose, depending on what their blood level is, they needs to on very tiny dose of testosterone. It really gives that nudge, it's very, very helpful. And what are the benefits to women get on being on testosterone? I think muscle building and muscle recovery is one of the big benefit and it is also for cognition.

And when you think about confidence and motivation, I mean, a hundred percent, yes. So within Equal Vita, we have our five pillars which we call putting people through the VITA journey, right? And one of the pillars is sexual health. And when it comes to testosterone, I know for the males, it increases libido, which is more of a thought of sex, your sexual desire. Does that also happen with women? 100%, and I'm sorry I didn't touch that. it does increase the libido, which is so important for especially around the women who are going through menopause or post-menopausal.

I think libidio, it increases the Libido which, is important because I, think when it comes to mindful living, It's just not about your physicality. It is not your muscles and bones. Its all about, its all in harmony. You need to be happy. you need to be having that oxytocin, you know, the love the loving hormone, You need To be feeling valuable. You Need to Be feeling worth it. And that's what gives you the confidence. Because when we talk about optimal health, it's, It's about living with confidence, vitality, beauty, and energy and strength, everything, right?

We talk about all those elements and definitely libido, it increases the libidio. That's a very important factor. Now, Dr. Mani, I know that with men, that when men have an issue with libado or erectile dysfunction, that could be an issue with an hormone imbalance. But furthermore, men who have erectile dysfunction, which is a blood flow issue, many of the times it's other issues that can be causing it, like cardiovascular issues. So with women, are there any of these signs or symptoms that they're having that potentially be related to something else within the body?

Definitely, I agree with you, Sam. And that's a great topic that you nudged into. Blood flow is very, very important when it comes to libido and sexual desire and erectile dysfunction, because same thing what you are talking about the male component is actually in the female. version as well. And I mean, I'm a big proponent of taking an NO2, which helps to open up the arteries. There's a product called Venia and I love that because it's not only, it has a nitric oxide component into that and also Resveratrol and it opens up arteries so that every cell, the heart cells, brain cells everything just is so efficiently optimized, you know, and The blood the blood flow.

That's a video by Bio Harvest, correct? Exactly. I take it myself. Yes. They actually came out with some new choose. You choose and they are delicious and easy to take. Yeah. And I think that also helps with mental focus. So really good stuff. Amazing. So, okay, so we're on the topic of women, right? I want to go a little bit more into women's sexual health, because I think overall women health has been ignored quite a bit, especially when you look into the function of medicine space and biohacking.

It has been very male driven. And now you're starting to see a lot more women's health being implemented, right. Now there's different testing urine hormone testing, etc. But with women sexual health. There's a lot of things that women have to go through, right? Especially postpartum, after they have kids, where they pelvic floor issues, sometimes prolapsed uterus, Sometimes they issues with vaginal dryness. What are some of the things you can put out here on the podcast, in case there's someone out there who's listening or watching this podcast who might be scratching their head right now and saying, I might be one of those women because I have this or that symptom.

What are some of the symptoms out there that women should really be watching out for that could be affecting their sexual life? I think vaginal dryness is one of the main symptoms that women deal with, and also frequent UTI, as per the physiology of their gynecological organ, how they are situated in the pelvis. So I take regular exercise. You know, squatting and the pelvic floor strengthening exercise. They are very important for vaginal dryness. There is a there's a cream that contains estradiol, and that is very, very helpful in order to keep that area moist and less inflamed.

And also progesterone helps a lot. Progesteron has a lots to do with calmness It reduces the anxiety and then testosterone because that increases the libido plus also some kind of nitric oxide Reservatol kind Of element that if you add that Increases the blood the gush of blood is increased through vasodilatation which helps to also Kind of just facilitate the whole thing much easier. So those things and plus I think is also the mindful living, you know, some kind of calm, deep breathing in the morning, getting yourself exposed to 20 minutes in natural sunlight very early in morning the first thing in a morning.

Those are all different aspects that kind just keeps you in flow that all go together. They're very, very important. And I think What I'm a big proponent of is something that people just ignore, is the diet. So no sugar, less sugar and anti-inflammatory diet, which contains a lot of protein. Lot of proteins means how much a women or men require per day. One gram per pound of your body weight, or 1.6 gram, per kg of you bodyweight. And if you're not able to meet those goals, but at least 100 grams per day, you know, of protein, not altogether, like 50 in one meal and 50 gram in another meal.

It's like divided in three times a day. You know? Okay. They're spaced out by three meals, 35 grams, 30 grams. So that is something very important, along with 30g of fiber that has also to be accompanied. And I always educate my women clients that eating as much as the diet, which contains antioxidants, Which contains polyphenols and carotenoids. It's so good for your skin. Uh, and it helps to fight with that endogenous as well as exogenous oxidation. Right, right. That you, um, You worked in oncology.

Yes. For for quite a few years. I did the clinical research and in almost like seven to eight years ago. Wow.

Testosterone, Libido, and Womenu2019s Sexual Health 38:00

Yeah. So so obviously you have an expertise in Oncology and now you've been in the longevity side. You know, everyone's always very scared of the big C word, the cancer word. Right. What did you learn studying oncologist? What is cancer? Cancer is actually a overgrowth. Your tissues, you know, as per the biology, we all have like 37 trillion cells, like I said, You know as far as every cell is replicating in a right and efficient manner, it's all good. But any location where these cells replicate or multiply in very berserk manner in an absurd manner, going out of the way, they form tumor and they formed cancer at that place.

And there are so many factors related to these cancer cells. They feed on sugar. On top of that, if your lifestyle is not optimized, If you are eating food full of sugar, you're basically feeding the cancer cell, right? So when I'm connecting the with functional medicine or integrative medicine, it's a lot to do with the lifestyle. Obviously it has some to with genetics, but lot do do the with lifestyle that you live. Right, right. Would you say cancer is a metabolic disease? It is kind of metabolic diseases, yes.

Because, see, I mean, if you see the physiology and the biology of these cells, you know, they divide and they replicate, right? But if you have inflammation going on, which is consistently, constantly chronic in nature, that inflammation is a very big factor to accelerate. The chronic inflammation, is the big to, accelerate that environment of oxidation, alters the structures, the big macro molecules. And what are those macro-molecules? Protein, right? And lipids, fatty acids, and also nucleic acid.

When they damage those micro- molecules like nucleac acid, so that means our DNA is being damaged. Then they actually alter the protein, our enzymes are damaged, when they alter the fatty acids, the hormones are not functioning right. So they are affecting our hormones. They are effecting our DNA and they're effect our enzymes. environment of that kind of mismanagement and a lot of damage to the DNA, and when these DNAs are damaged, the mutation happens. And that mutation is number one cause of cancer.

That is how it is related to cancer, so I would say, yes, it has a metabolic component. I will not say that it's a disease of metabolism, but it a has metabolic components in causation. What are some of your most important cells in your body? The cells. All the cells are important. I think the cell in our brain are very, very important because our brains cells. Are called neurons and they are constantly whiting and fighting with each other. Okay. If we are not having enough sleep or if we have constant stress, if they have.

Constant high elevation of cortisol, these biting and firing is kind of disturbed. right and when our brain is not able to clear all those toxins during the night you know every night when we sleep we have a deep phase of sleep during which our Brain cells neurons as well as our CSF is cleansed out of all I mean all Those toxins are cleanses out and that system is called glymphatic system, right? And that glympatic is very active in the night in deep phase of your sleep. If that is not being constantly cleansed, you have accumulation of beta amyloid.

And when you've a lot of accumulation beta myeloid, that's the cause of dementia, Alzheimer's, cognitive brain disorders. That is when I think it's a, it is a your hormony or your homeostasis of your whole body is disturbed. So I think that's very important, very, so sleep is never to be compromised. It's non-negotiable. We don't talk much about it, but it's one of the very big pillar or very foundation of health optimization. And not only for basically clarifying all those toxins out of your CSF, sleep is important because during sleep you have the spurt of growth hormone, which are important for our repair and for growth.

You also, you know, if you don't have enough sleep, your hunger hormones, the ghrelin and leptin, they are kind of, unoptimized and you will feel hungry, but not for the good food, for for junk food or the sugar. Bad food. Your immunity is a lot altered and declined if you don't have enough sleep of seven to eight hours. Good sleep. If you do not sleep enough, your stem cell activity and your production is reduced to half. And your overall mortality is increased. You know, so sleep does a lots of functions which are very important for our whole body optimization.

What do you to prepare yourself for sleep? For me, I think, even if I'm sleeping or feeling sleepy or not, the biggest practice of mine is consistency. If I train my brain to be sleeping consistently at the same time every night, My melatonin is pretty much optimized. I have already trained my brain that, you know, and then also the exposure of just 20 minutes in the morning, because when you expose 20 Minutes in that sunlight, right, You have the melotonin production. after 6 p.m. or after sunset, you have enough chute of melatonin in order to initiate that sleep.

So you also have the rule of three to one that I teach my client because it's easy, just easy on your food or stop eating three hours before sleep, two hours, before asleep, no fluids, otherwise you'll be rushing to the bathroom in the night. And one hour before, sleep no blue light exposure, cell phones, not iPad. And I myself and I know many biohacker because that's a bio hacking practice. We wear the red light glasses in order for sleep and hormone, the melatonin to be optimized. Is there anything else you would implement to help manage your circadian rhythm?

I would never take the supplement of melatonin. Why is that? I think it's just a external supplement that you're taking. It's not your own body's natural melotonin and never works with me. Is there any supplement, that's good for sleep? Magnesium glycinate, 400 milligram every night, really helps to calm you down. And I think for women around this age, progesterone, 200 milligram, every day. It not only helps for calm and it reduces anxiety, it also helps induce the sleep. So those two hormones, Ashwagandha is also a good supplement to calms you.

I also think those supplements are a great way to assist in order to initiate the What are your thoughts on meditation? That's a wonderful practice. I always say that having a sleep a night before is always regulated by how you have lived in the morning. It starts in morning, basically. Meditation practices like deep breathing, slowing yourself, because when you meditate and you're doing those deep-breathing exercises like inhale for five seconds, Hold it and exhale for seven seconds. Do it for almost like six breaths per minute and almost 10 to 12 minutes every day.

Cancer, Metabolism, and Sleep Health 46:30

Just 10 minutes, every very first thing in the morning, you basically initiate and stimulate your parasympathetic system to calm, to set your day right. You set you whole day, right? You know, when you actually train your brain with that calming and meditational practices. Absolutely. Dr. Mani, you're a very outgoing social person. I follow you on social media. And I want to hear your insight on how important these two things are for living a healthy, fulfilling life. That's community and faith.

100%. Absolutely. Community is so important for me. My branding, my thinking about healthy life is just not about optimizing your health. That's fine. I'm doing it all right, but having to be very active socially and in your community and your relationships. and managing your stress. Those four things are like hand in hand with optimizing the four pillars of your healthy living. And I feel aging well, living well is a very powerful notion, very, powerful motion to live with full confidence, strength, vitality, and bringing the best of yourself inside out.

You know, when you are looking good, you have the full confidence. When you're living in very healthy in the social and in your community, You have this hormone called oxytocin. Right. It's a it's the hormone of love. You feel loved and you. Are exuberating confidence, right. And you'll feel like next day you want to do even more for your life. Your motivated because of that. And I feel all these things are all together. They are just all synchronized. idea and concept about living well, aging well with the health optimization, following, and I mean, why to even fall sick?

You can prevent the disease, right? I'm mean eventually, we all will have disease but just live healthy life with full of confidence and vitality and stress, you know, stress. And you wanna look good, You want to be representing your business and your brand. So everything falls all together. Absolutely. So Dr. Bhati, right now there's a huge movement that's happening. It's called the MAHA Movement, Make America Healthy Again. I know you have a background in clinical research and there have been some controversial things that have happened out there and some people are for it, some are against it.

You know, Bobby Kennedy is putting a lot of people out there. He's exposing a lots of corrupt organizations that have penetrated into the medical field. What are your thoughts about this movement that's happening right now, the Make America Healthy Again movement? This is an absolutely very powerful and a very inspiring moment. And I think great things are going to happen because they've been so many mis-concept in our medical protocol that we have to follow because of insurance, because FDA, and because all these companies who have been putting their monopoly Like, you know, clogs and sugar and vaccination.

And it's it. It's also commercial that it has not been looking personally into the personal into a human as an individual's life. What is good for him or not? You know? I think that this moment is going to bring a lot of. education as a whole for people to understand and aware and get aware of their health. And there are so many people involved with this whole movement. When this comes together as voice of not as an individual or as group, but whole moment together, I think it's going to have a great impact.

Nice, nice. Yeah, I'm excited to see everything that's happening. You know, it's something that medicine needs. It's a changing course of medicine. And I am happy to be a part of that movement. Yes. So, yes. Thank you for that answer. Dr. Marty, you know we're going to have a little fun really quick. One of my favorite podcasters, Stephen Barlet, Um, who has a podcast called the diary of a CEO. He came up with these conversation cards. I'm going to have you grab that and there it is. You'll open it up and you'll grab two cards out of anywhere.

Yeah. Read the question and he'll answer it. This is instant. So my first question is, when do you feel the most emotionally connected to yourself? I think the answer to that would be my main essence of the mission is basically to help people transform their health, the way they think about the health and vitality. So when I am able to anyone, even a single person, and she or he feels, you know, convinced and satisfied and is able to make any change and it's happy and they come back with an answer or, telling me that they are, they have been able take care of their health or they've been to basically, do the testings and the results are getting better.

I, that's my most, my happy moment. Amazing. Yes. And my second question is, is it ever appropriate to hurt someone's feeling? I think so because I am a very practical person, Sam. Um, not that everybody thinks the same way. If I'm hurting someone's feeling in a way that I trying to help that person. I don't mind if I being truthful. And if am on a mission to correct something, which is right for him or her, I didn't mine hurting the feeling of that. Right. That's all for a good reason. It's for good.

All right. So duck. I want you to take the next couple of minutes and I wanted you. To answer this, let it come from the heart. I won't you, to let the listeners and viewers of the podcast know what you want the world to know. What is the problem and what is a solution? I think the problem is the medical system because it's been years and years of medical protocol practices that, for example, I'll tell you one example. In medical practices, either the reason is because doctors have been taught this way or the insurance been instructing them to do this, this way.

Community, MAHA, and Closing Advice 54:00

We don't care to check patient's bone density. You don' care. To check the fat mass and fat. Mass is very important because we want to know how much is the visceral fat? How much. Is the subcutaneous fat, I think viseral fat is more important here because if you have visoral fat around that person, even if the person is in the best shape of his or her life, looking good, doing all the athletic protocols, going through the exercise as he or she should be. But visceral fat is not what is visible to me or to her.

If I'm able to see that and if I am able measure the muscle mass, I can combat a lot of situations well in time before the disease or problem occurs. So I think as for the medical protocol, we jump pretty late in the whole journey. We wait for problems to occur. Wait for their disease and sign and symptoms to show, and then go ahead and put the bandage. I feel everybody should be doing their DEXA scan at the age of 40. Right when we go at. The very first mammogram that is at 40, everybody Dexascan in order to know what their baseline bone or muscle or fat looks like.

Because if you know you have a lot of visceral adiposity, that's just like chronic inflammation. Basically, you're on a road or journey to suffer from chronic inflammatory diseases, right? So you can do a lots if if see them by all these advanced technologies at the right time. That's, that's one thing I feel the medical system is kind of flawed. And that needs to be corrected and landlord is happening right with all these advanced clinic and functional medicine clinics coming up you know they've been they been so many.

Um, and I think people are because of awareness, social media and education podcast, listening to all those kinds of medias. People are getting aware plus also the availability of all these functional medicine and functional clinics like yours. Uh, I they are eye opener. Nice. I agree. Doc, if there's someone listening to this podcast as we start wrapping up here and they really resonate with today's message, what is one thing that you can leave them with? So that's almost like a summary of all that we talked about.

I feel knowledge plus action is equal to transformation. That's what I advocate for. If you are equipped with right knowledge and you're equipped, with every tool in your toolbox, if you know the biology of your own body and. You are able to optimize all these health and lifestyle practices. And 80% of the time, you can control the occurrence of that disease. You are actually already on the path of disease prevention. you will not suffer. My message is that in the latter years of your life, it's about enjoying the later 20 years off your live rather than being hospitalized and going to see the doctors or having the replacements of knee or the hip.

My message would be to live last few last years of your life, you know, the latter years in a very exuberant and strong and loving and making your bucket list fulfilled. All those all those factors are so important. You've lived your live. You've had your family, you've your career. You have taken care of your household and you know, You done everything in your life. Now you're off all those responsibilities. And so now those last 10 to 15 to 20 years of life are for you to enjoy. Enjoy it. Right.

In order for that to you don't want to be sick. Dr. Money, you get your book here. You put this book together here, age stronger, live longer. What motivated you to put the spoke together? For me, I never wanted to name my book longevity or anti-aging because there is nothing like that. Aging is inevitable. It's going to happen. My message for this book is that age as you have to be as the humanity and as evolution and God wants you to, but just age in a very stronger way. and that itself is going to add the long years in your life.

And, you know, I've always said, because in the world that we're in, a lot of people use the terminology anti-aging. I always say there's no such thing as anti aging. Age management is what we have to do. It's all about managing and making it right and optimizing it. You cannot prevent the aging, You can not prevent death. Right. Life in the right way. You have to add years to your health span and you have To add life to you Living right it's not about the number of years. It's about how you live and quality of life.

Yes Quality of Life is extremely important. So dr. Manny, where can people find you? I Oh, I am very visible and I, uh, very, um, easily seen on the social media. Um, my Instagram is drdoctor.mani.cookraja. And then I have my website, manikookrajah.com. They can find me there. My email, and my phone number, everything is up there, so people can access me through any of those. Wonderful. Dr. Mani, it was a pleasure having you on a Healthy Point of View podcast. This was very informative, and I really hope that we at least helped one person take control of their health.

It was an amazing talk. I loved it. Thank you, Sam, for having me. Guys, you heard Dr. Monte here. You got to take that proactive approach and start taking care of your health. And it starts with lifestyle. Manage the way you live your life. We have so many different external factors that put an impact on our metabolic health, on a hormonal health if you're a female and you've been going through hormonol issues, Take a deeper dive, reach out to Dr. Mani. Also get her book. You know, you might learn something new on how to take control of your health.

Guys, make sure you take this podcast, share it with your different friends and family members. There might be someone who can really benefit from it. Make sure like, subscribe, do all that fun stuff and we'll see you for the next podcast.