Is Aging Inevitable?

Overview

In Episode 3 of the Redox Revolution podcast, the discussion centers around cellular damage, aging, and strategies for potential reversal, emphasizing the importance of exercise, diet, and sleep as foundational pillars for healthy aging. Dr. Seeds and the team delve into the decline of cellular efficiency and flexibility that accompanies aging, particularly highlighting the diminished function of beta cells and mitochondria, which are vital for energy production. The episode further explores the significance of optimizing circadian rhythms and sleep patterns, suggesting a consistent bedtime and reduced screen time before sleep for overall cellular health. Additionally, the importance of cognitive engagement, such as reading, is discussed as a proactive measure for maintaining brain health. The conversation concludes with a focus on consistency in health routines and previews next episode's topic on peptides that influence cellular health, reinforcing the commitment to helping listeners reverse cellular damage and optimize their metabolism.

Notes

Introduction to Cellular Damage and Aging(00:00 - 12:23)

• Podcast topic: Cellular damage, aging, and potential reversal strategies
• Three pillars emphasized for healthy aging: Exercise, Diet, and Sleep
• Even patients doing 'everything right' may still have cellular damage
• Cell efficiency and flexibility decline with age, affecting carbohydrate, fatty acid, and protein metabolism
• Cells lose adaptability and resilience as we age, making recovery more difficult
• When starting optimization, practitioners build on patients' existing healthy habits

Cellular Metabolism and Treatment Approaches(12:23 - 24:39)

• Metabolism involves beta cells which become less efficient with age
• Aging process leads to loss of beta cell mass and efficiency
• Mitochondria described as the 'powerhouse of the cell' - crucial for energy production and cellular signaling
• Treatment focus: improving cell efficiency, especially mitochondrial function
• GLP1 receptor agonists identified as effective entry point for metabolic optimization
• Circadian clock mechanisms critically important for cellular health
• Specific peptides mentioned: Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide (VIP), Epitalin, and Thymolin

Circadian Rhythm and Sleep (24:39 - 34:11)

• Circadian rhythm optimization is foundational for cellular health
• Performance protocol focuses on improving circadian rhythms
• Specific recommendations: consistent 9-10 PM bedtime with 8 hours of sleep
• Reduce screen time before bed (ideally 2 hours before)
• Eat dinner around 5-6 PM (not too close to bedtime)
• Melatonin supplementation creates negative feedback that reduces natural production
• Special peptides like VIP can help people who work shifts or frequently travel across time zones

Brain Health and Reading(34:11 - 44:09)

• Aging demographics shifting, posing threats to economic viability of social systems
• Proactive vs. reactive approach to medicine
• Reading identified as crucial for brain health - 'anti-aging approach for the brain'
• Brain stimulation required for maintaining cognitive function
• The brain requires active engagement and challenge to maintain function
• Supplements alone cannot improve brain function without stimulation
• People approaching retirement often find their 'golden years' compromised by health issues
• COVID-19 demonstrated how better health preparation led to better outcomes

Consistency and Final Thoughts(44:09 - 50:35)

• Wisdom is a benefit of aging but needs to be paired with health to be useful
• Weekend disruptions to routines can significantly impact progress
• Consistency is key - maintaining schedules as much as possible
• Even temporary breaks from optimization protocols help patients recognize their benefits
• Next episode preview: 'Peptide Pulse' focusing on top three peptides affecting cellular health
• Commitment to helping people reverse cellular damage and optimize metabolism

00:47
Dr. William Seeds
Welcome to another episode of Redox Revolution. Today we're going to talk about cellular damage and aging and can we reverse it? Are there things we can do to change the landscape of damage to the cell and the potential of improving aging? And that's what we're going to do today. Joined as always, Matt and Madi, my team. Matt, take it from here. 

01:17
Matt Seeds
If aging is inevitable and you want to use it to your advantage, then what are some concrete ways that you would say you are able to reverse cellular damage to use aging to your advantage? 

01:29
Dr. William Seeds
It gets back to those three pillars. Exercise, diet, sleep. It gets back to that, right? If we can do things to bring the three pillars back to being important and a priority for our patients and help them in truly getting into participating in all those areas with our ability to use peptides, small molecules, repurposed drugs, modalities and other aspects of treatment, we're going to help that patient age gracefully. We're going to help them age with a better knowledge of how to avoid chronic disease or enjoy that longevity that they potentially can have. 

02:23
Dr. William Seeds
And, and that's where we talked about before, that when your patients, a lot of them come to not even having any of those values in eating or sleep or exercise, and you have to give them, you have to help them get better, to want to continue that conversation, to lead them into exercise or sleep or diet. 

02:45
Matt Seeds
But some of those patients do come to you with those values. They may be doing all the right things, but they may also still be demonstrating signs of cellular damage. So when you come across those instances, you know, one area that you guys always bring up is insulin resistance being kind of a sign of cellular damage. If you have these people that are doing things right and feel like, gosh, I just don't know where to go next, what I mean, Matti, what do you usually tell them? 

03:12
Madison Lepore
You've been doing all the right things. So now that you're at this step, everything you've been Doing is only going to help what we can do for you work better. 

03:20
Dr. William Seeds
Yeah, that's very good, Madi. Yeah. That we build on their knowledge and we build on giving them that insight that you have been doing things right. But what you don't know is that if we get down to the cell itself, there's some things that have been working against that cell through time lose its flexibility. Well, ooh. That cell has lost efficiencies. That cell has lost its ability to be flexible in how it handles carbohydrates, fatty acids, and proteins. And that is actually awesome, Madi. That's the key to helping them start to understand that, hey, you may be doing things right and you may be feeling like you're in the right place, but, you know, there's an area you want to optimize. Well, guess what? You're right. 

04:17
Dr. William Seeds
Because you have some things that have been working against that cell in maintaining its efficiency and maintaining its ability to control redox and to adapt to life every day. Because adaption for that cell is getting harder and harder. So that's why when an older person says, boy, I got worn out faster, I. I can't lift as much as I did. I can't. It's not that they can't. It's that the cell's not permitting that to happen right now. And we gotta open that door. 

04:53
Matt Seeds
So let's dive into some specific examples of that then. If you're trying to reduce the oxidative stress load, if you're trying to reverse the cellular damage, what are some of therapies? Whether it is something that as is as intensive as peptides, or maybe there's just some everyday takeaways. I mean, where do you start. 

05:11
Madison Lepore
With those GLP1s are a great one. 

05:14
Dr. William Seeds
So that's a great question. And, and that is actually something that. Why the dialogue with the patient is so important. Because where do you start? Because remember as this process. So we're talking about a healthy person who thinks they're pretty healthy, which they are. If we, if we want to gauge that in where Western medicine is. But from our standpoint, you're. You can be opt. You can optimize that. 

05:42
Matt Seeds
There's always room to be proactive. 

05:44
Dr. William Seeds
There's always room to better. Right. You can never be good enough, but there's always room to improve. 

05:49
Matt Seeds
Well, it's like what you taught us with reading, right? Every day you're not reading, you're falling behind. And so every day you're aging. 

05:57
Dr. William Seeds
That's right. 

05:57
Matt Seeds
So you gotta stay in front of it. 

05:58
Dr. William Seeds
Right? So if we can keep the cell resilient and strong and then it can adapt because that affects metabolism, that affects immunity, that affects the microbiome, it affects the brain. I mean, you gotta talk to the patients and see kind of where do you want to start? You can almost, you can almost say as we're aging, we're getting into a pre diabetic state. And there's some definitions of what pre diabetes is. If you want to use glucose and as a marker, a 1Cs as a marker, there are ways to tell that we're becoming more insulin resistant as we age, which is absolutely true. 

06:47
Matt Seeds
And it's a sign of cellular damage. 

06:48
Dr. William Seeds
It's, it's a sign of cellular stress and damage to that beta cell that we talked about before, which is. So if you haven't seen our first episode, please, if there's one thing you do start with our first episode, go back to that. Because we really touched on, I think, a very big beginning of discussing this right now. Like, so what can we do? We're looking at metabolism. We're looking again at what can we do to specifically address this aspect of, gosh, I'm feeling pretty healthy. My, my cells are working pretty well, but I'm showing signs of cellular stress because my glucose is a little higher. My insulin is not as sensitive to the cells as it was. What's that all mean? Can we improve that? The answer is absolutely we can. 

07:50
Dr. William Seeds
And we can go about it by making the cell more efficient in its flexibility of using what you eat to manipulate the cell, for the cell to manipulate itself in controlling that oxidative stress. So what do I mean by that? Well, we can look at a patient and we can say we have many ways we can go at working on metabolism, because this is all about metabolism. It's all about getting back to that beta cell and its job of being more resistant, handling stress, being that energy sensor. So let's go back to that and say, well, what happens when we're aging? Have we lost beta cell mass? Yes, we have. Has that. Is that beta cell as efficient as it was in producing insulin? No, it's not. 

08:47
Dr. William Seeds
And is there a dysfunction in that cell to create, that's creating more reactive oxygen species, more stress? And is the cell handling it? No, it's not. So what is our job? Our job is to, let's look at it from three, from two respects. One is if we help the cell do a better job with metabolism, then that cell is going to do a better job in controlling that oxidative stress. Then we set up that beta cell to do a better job of improving its insulin sensitivity, improving the utilization of glucose. And also what has never been discussed and I think this is what we really need to hit on here is within that cell we are, there are transcription factors, things that change that help the DNA make things in the cell to be more resilient, stronger, resist this stress problem. 

09:54
Dr. William Seeds
So that's what turns off as we age. And you actually with peptides in particular, we can go at improving efficiency. So let's just say we do something like we want to improve mitochondrial efficiency because it's truly what comes down to. Mitochondria are energy producers, but they're also the biggest signaling agent we have in the cell. 

10:25
Madison Lepore
They're the powerhouse of the cell. Whoa, coo again or just eighth grade science. 

10:31
Dr. William Seeds
Yes. 

10:31
Matt Seeds
You ripped that one off of everybody. 

10:33
Dr. William Seeds
Yeah, that was awesome. Powerhouse of the cell is absolutely right. And, and so if I can make that powerhouse working better, what am I doing? I'm going to help the stress of the cell, I'm going to help the energy of the cell. I'm going to help that get back to that basic beta cell mass thing. I'm, I'm going to do things to improve that glucose and insulin sensitivity. So when I'm doing that, so imagine if I'm making that cell more self sufficient and stronger on its own because it can do it, then where is that, what's that going to do for those people that are already working and doing, working out and sleeping, eating the right stuff? 

11:15
Dr. William Seeds
Are we going to make those things they work so hard to develop and work so hard with discipline, Are we going to make those work better for them? Absolutely. And that's the magic. That's the magic is seeing what then at that age, if you can change that dynamic, what does exercise do? Oh my gosh. You see this resurge of incredible passion and excitement and it's a privilege and humbling to see these people start talking about their workouts and start talking about their training and start talking about what they're doing with their diet and the influence then that they're having on other people. That's the, Isn't that the most amazing and just the greatest thrill we get in working with people? I mean, yes. And, and it's so, it's what makes it just so exciting. 

12:11
Dr. William Seeds
It's that you get them to that state of where they finally are. We've given. I always say we're, we're evening the playing field for them. It's like that. You just gotta give them. They've been working hard and training and with their diet and sleep and so forth. They just need a little bit of help to win that game. Right. And to be dominant in, on the playing field. And so all of that becomes a much bigger part in moving forward to keep building and working on efficiencies of the cell. I can be more direct if you want me to be. 

12:50
Matt Seeds
I would love you to be more direct. And that would answer today's question. What would you say this episode's performance protocol would be? 

13:00
Dr. William Seeds
So based on the patient and working on metabolism, it's all gonna be tailored towards. Okay, do I do things to improve? Do I need to go first and work on this circadian clock mechanism? Let's just say that. Why is that important? The circadian clock is kind of what sets how the day starts for people and then how they sleep at night. Why is that important? Daytime is when they're in a catabolic state of rebuilding. They're breaking down things to, for the cell to utilize to rebuild at night when they sleep. So it's a catabolic anabolic state. Catabolic day, anabolic at night. You know, it's why cortisol rises in the morning, because cortisol is catabolic. It's, it's turning on things, it's. It's getting the body revved up and also, but it also enabling it to start repurposing things to be rebuilding at night. 

14:04
Dr. William Seeds
So that circadian clock mechanism is so important to get back in place because you have this central pacemaker in the brain and you've got circadian clock mechanisms in every cell and organs with every cell. And they're all different and they're all in different times. And, and so what people don't realize also is. And we'll get into this is going to be another video vault talking about NAD and all the bullshit out there about nad. We're all about your body making its own nad. We're all about giving your body the mechanisms to make that NAD that's necessary. And guess what? 

14:48
Dr. William Seeds
With a circadian clock, if you get the clock right, what happens in the morning, you turn on what's called the salvage pathway that leads to production of nad, where the cell, by the way, not the person in giving you nad or precursors or whatever, the cell knows where to use that in the nucleus, in the mitochondria in the cytoplasm, all in different concentrations. So we're working on metabolism by actually going at that circadian clock or we go right at metabolism and just influencing the mitochondria and doing some things we know as people getting older. We can influence with particular peptides. I can improve something called beta oxidation of fat. I can do we. That make the cell do that better. 

15:34
Dr. William Seeds
We can, we're working on that flexibility issue of okay, hey, let's empower the cell to improve its own production of ATP and oh, what nad again. Hello. And that empowers the mitochondria then to control its signaling again to everything and build more antioxidants, make the cell more resilient. So that's a way to go at it or, and that's with certain secretags in particular peptides. Or we can go at another way of using something called a GLP1 receptor agonist that has many roles and many pathways in establishing metabolism also in, in rebuilding metabolism. 

16:33
Matt Seeds
So your performance protocol for today is focusing on the circadian clock, but that isn't applicable to everybody because I'm, I'm. 

16:43
Dr. William Seeds
I, I guess what I want you to get is it's different performance protocol could be different for everyone but could. 

16:52
Madison Lepore
Like the safest way for everyone because if you start with a ghrh, that might push someone too far the other way. But if you just start everyone with the GLP1, couldn't that just get their metabolism back in check and not have to worry about pushing them too far the other way? 

17:10
Dr. William Seeds
Yeah, that's a very, that's a. Wow. Brilliant. So she's right. So a GLP1 is an excellent inroad into working on metabolism in without. Without potentially pushing some other mechanisms that may not be ready yet. So it's. So timing is real important here. But I would say if you. In the majority of our patients, we're focused actually we do go, we tend sometimes to go right forward circadian mechanisms. Because if you get that circadian clock right then it sets you up to start working on metabolism, immunity, other things. And it's amazing when you just get that clock not maybe perfect or not even close to perfect, but you get it functioning right again. What do we hear from people? 

18:15
Madison Lepore
I feel so much better. 

18:17
Dr. William Seeds
I feel so much better. And it's, and it's an interesting approach but it's necessary to start building foundations for people. 

18:26
Matt Seeds
Well Matty, you're talking with patients all day long. And this circadian optimization might not be possible for everybody because you have people on second and third shifts. So how do you take those environmental and those life circumstances and still apply these principles? 

18:41
Madison Lepore
Try to make it work best for them. And there are certain peptides that we yield, we'll use for the shift workers, just so. Or like people who travel across time zones frequently, just peptides can help keep the circadian clock in a rhythm when you're off shift or traveling. 

19:01
Dr. William Seeds
And. 

19:02
Madison Lepore
And just try to lessen the damage it does on your body. 

19:05
Matt Seeds
What are some of those peptides? 

19:07
Madison Lepore
Vasoactive intestinal peptides. A big one. 

19:10
Dr. William Seeds
Yeah, that's a vip. Vasoactive intestinal peptide is the most populated peptide in the brain. It's the most abundant neuropeptide that actually is. I won't get too much into science aspects, but I'd love to. But it's a very crucial peptide that works in the hypothalamus in the accurate nucleus. It's. It's what. When light. So basically the circadian clock, when the optic nerve, when you wake up and you open your eye and light gets in and through the eyeball, it travels through the optic nerve into the hypothalamus and arcuate nucleus. And, and that is through vasoactive intestinal peptide signaling, starts turning on this circadian clock that starts telling all the cells, hey, time to wake up. Here we go. And so it's a way to work with other things in improving the clock. 

20:16
Dr. William Seeds
Now, that's one of many ways to start the conversation and to get people engaged. But we use other peptides like epitalin and thymolin, which are immune regulators and DNA work on DNA and circadian clock. They all work together to set again, that foundation of where we don't want people relying on melatonin at night. People don't realize when they take melatonin at night, it creates. Creates a negative feedback and turns off their own melatonin production. And that's why they have problems over time when they're trying to do things like that. Like, we're here to educate them, help them understand, build a little foundation that, hey, we can make you feel better. And, and then we can start building from there. And, and that's with that process. 

21:10
Dr. William Seeds
But sometimes we may use a GLP one, sometimes we may use a secret guys, sometimes, again, it depends on the conversation. But overall, I think the. I think the circadian clock is the strongest way to go at it because everyone has, in my opinion, everyone has Some disruption in that circadian clock mechanism because of the health of the cell has deteriorated to some degree. That clock is so sensitive and if you can work on the sensitive parts first and then have that working, wow, you're off to a great start. 

21:52
Matt Seeds
So if you could boil down today's performance protocol essentially into one sentence. 

21:59
Dr. William Seeds
So today's performance protocol is focused on improving the circadian rhythms. And things you can do right now to empower yourself are set a bedtime that is consistent and I'm going to tell you're not going to like it, but it's around 9 to 10pm that is consistently the time we should try to go to bed and at least eight hours of sleep reduce before that sleep. So here's the other keys. So we've talked about the pillars, right? Exercise, diet and sleep. So we're talking about sleep of getting on a standard program of. This is where I go to bed every night. This is when I turn off my computer. At least I would love it if you could turn off a couple hours before any screen time. 

22:53
Dr. William Seeds
You know, we're not going to get into this now, but blue light, all the things that influence this circadian can damage this process in the circadian rhythms. If you can stop that before sleep and give yourself. This is where reading comes back into play here. Hey, read a little bit maybe before you go to bed or spend some time not on a screen, but a real book. That would be awesome. And the, and the food. The next step of diet is hey, make sure you eat. And here's the other thing people aren't going to want to hear. You don't want to be eating later at night. You don't want to be eating around 5 or 6 o'clock. If you're going to bed at 9, you want to get the. It's. And this is science. This is proven. 

23:40
Dr. William Seeds
We can, we'll dive into this in our, in some of our big topics as we go on. This is what's going to be great to support this. But if you can get your meal in your dinner, which by the way, potentially in this, in the general circumstance, it should be your least calorie, your biggest meal. It should be the probably the smallest meal you have. All right? And that's, we'll go through the science related to that for most everybody. But if you could do that, limit your food intake, you know, to us to just not overdoing it with dinner, five, six o'clock, go to bed, keep that Routine and your exercise. I know people like to exercise later in the evening and so forth, but remember, you get that cortisol surge when you exercise and that can work against people. 

24:33
Dr. William Seeds
Better to work out earlier in the day or the afternoon and we'll talk about that. So. So you can interject all of those together and I'm going to tell you are going to make a difference in your circadian clock. 

24:47
Matt Seeds
This is brutal. 

24:49
Dr. William Seeds
I do everything wrong, probably. 

24:51
Matt Seeds
I know. I usually work out at like 7pm I have dinner at like 9 and then bed at 9:30. 

24:58
Dr. William Seeds
Well, that's again, so you're younger, you can get away with it right now. But I'm going to tell you as you get to status like dad here, you know, 63 and trying to do everything I can to make everything work for me, which I don't get to do all the time when I stay on a schedule. Watch, watch out because it's amazing. And, and I'm going to say that'll be amazing for you if you can do that. I. That's one of the. That's one of the things we learned a lot post Covid in getting people back on a schedule was huge. 

25:35
Madison Lepore
And getting people to set their alarm and actually wake up when their alarm goes off and not keep hitting snooze. 

25:42
Dr. William Seeds
Yeah. 

25:43
Madison Lepore
A struggle, but it makes sense. 

25:45
Matt Seeds
The best way I view that is setting the alarm just on the other side of the room. You know, I feel like so much of the time we have our phone right next to the bed and it's. 

25:53
Madison Lepore
It'S such a simple, very easy to just click that. 

25:55
Dr. William Seeds
Yeah. 

25:55
Matt Seeds
No, you have to get up and go get it. So smart. Yeah. Since we've established that aging's inevitable, this is a huge problem that as the world is looking how to evolve with an aging population, how do we continue to stay consistent and fight off cellular damage and fight some of the things that come with aging, like chronic disease states and just continue to be proactive so that we can continue to lead productive lives. It's regimenting. It's staying on a schedule. It's staying consistent. It's just making sure you're doing all these little steps and not falling off the rails. 

26:37
Dr. William Seeds
Correct. 

26:37
Madison Lepore
Even when it's hard, still have to stick to the basics. 

26:41
Dr. William Seeds
Well, what do we always know in life? Anything that's good is hard. Everything that's good is a challenge and it never gets easier. But if you give people that incentive and you show them what you are capable of doing in staying in that world of what of the, you know, trying to regiment the process and work on these aspects, and they get a taste of it. It's amazing where it goes. 

27:11
Matt Seeds
So you've been stuck with me for about three decades. If you could, instead of anti age, reverse time. What's one thing from our childhood you. 

27:24
Dr. William Seeds
Would change One thing from your childhood that I would change based on aging. 

27:30
Matt Seeds
And I'm looking back at because the whole thing about anti aging, right, it's about taking out. 

27:35
Dr. William Seeds
I hate that word, by the way. 

27:37
Matt Seeds
I know, I know. But it's about, if you want to narrow it down into a phrase, it's like taking out the wrinkles, right? What's one wrinkle? Like, you look at your three sons and you know, we're all, we all got some things that are maybe a little bit wrong with us. What's one wrinkle? You look back at and you're like, man, I wish I could fix this about my kid. 

27:57
Dr. William Seeds
Wow, that's a tough one. I, I mean, I think I've prepared you well for life. I think that's a soft answer. 

28:04
Matt Seeds
Guns blazing. Come on. 

28:07
Dr. William Seeds
What could I change? Yeah, well, you know me. I mean, I'm all about. I'm, I'm all about. So besides the challenge in the gym, which I think you got plenty of, I'm all about the challenge of the brain. And I don't think there's anything better as a younger person that you can do there. There's nothing that beats reading. And, and I think I, I, I think we're missing the boat. You know, there's so much time spent on these screens and this process of this world of social media. And we've gotten away from some basics, and that is reading. Reading is, I think reading is the, another key to the kingdom of life. You can do nothing better than develop the brain by reading daily and reading as much as you can. And here's why. Like, this is a. 

29:10
Dr. William Seeds
I don't know if you know this, Madi, but when the boys were growing up, that's when Xbox came into the world. And they were all over me to get their Xbox. I know you were five. 

29:24
Matt Seeds
Brian was three when you bought us the Xbox. You bought it with the game that came with it, which was Halo, which was rated M. And me and my brother Brian, were like 6, 5 and 3. 5 and 5 and 3. 6 and 3. 

29:37
Madison Lepore
And you let them play Halo. 

29:39
Matt Seeds
And we're just playing Halo. And anyone who's ever Played Halo. You get lost on that first mission in outer space and you don't know where you're going. And it took us like a year to beat this game. It was so fun. 

29:48
Dr. William Seeds
Well, what I saw was an opportunity. I saw they were so glued in on this Xbox and I got it for him and I said, okay guys, here's the rule. The rule is when you play Xbox every day, which I didn't know was going to happen, every day I want the same amount of time reading. So they had to keep track of how much time they spent on Xbox. And then that day, or I maybe gave you another day or so, but usually it had to be the same day. You had to give me the same amount in reading time. And so they had to keep track of it. And they knew I was, I was very hard on that. And it was incredible to watch over the years, this metamorphosis of game time versus reading time, how reading expanded beyond. 

30:43
Dr. William Seeds
And, and I like to tell you that was your dad's intention. I knew that would happen. I was, I was brilliant. I, I had no idea that was kind of was gonna metastasize into these boys who were motivated to read. And, and now, I mean you can, I mean, I, I, I, that's one of the things I'm very proud of is, are just all about reading and how you guys approach it differently. And, and they're always reading. I mean, I, I, I can't emphasize enough. And, and I think that's a, reading is a lost art and we need to bring it back because it's all about enhancing your vocabulary, your communication skills. There's so much it does for the brain that I, it's unlimited where it can take you, which you don't use atrophies. 

31:44
Matt Seeds
And I feel like reading is kind of like the anti aging approach to the brain. It's keeping the brain young, it's keeping. 

31:51
Dr. William Seeds
It oiled, it's engaged, it's incredible. It continues. Connectivity. No way. I don't think we've even, we could touch on this and you could let me go for a day. I could talk about all the molecular mechanisms of dendritic arborization, synaptic connections, and what happens with what you read, why you're reading it, whether it's fiction or fact, what you're trying to learn. I mean there's so many things that are relatable to that and it's, honestly, it's what's my continued pursuit to learn More is all based on reading. I have to be able to read, I have to be able to understand, I have to be able to question, and I have to get better at my reading skills. And you can never be good enough. I saw. So I would have loved to pushed you even harder that way. 

32:50
Dr. William Seeds
And I had to use a damn Xbox to make that happen. But it worked. 

32:57
Matt Seeds
But if you're not using stuff like that, like staying in the brain for a moment, can atrophy actually start to lead into, say, like, cellular damage? Can you start to not only lose some of that, but maybe not ever be able to gain some of it back? 

33:12
Dr. William Seeds
Absolutely. I mean, that's a. 

33:15
Madison Lepore
Isn't that common saying, if you don't use it, you lose it? 

33:17
Dr. William Seeds
Right. 

33:18
Matt Seeds
But pushing it even past losing it, like, you know, muscle memory, you cannot go to the gym for a year. But you can usually build back to where you were with the brain. If you're not using it, can you build back to where it once was? Or is some of the cellular damage that goes on inside of the neural networks of your brain, is some of that irreversible? 

33:38
Dr. William Seeds
That's a great question. And I think to some degree, I think it is my opinion is it. Is. It is reversible to some degree. It isn't as much as, like, muscle memory. It's a little more. It's a little different because the brain is. Is. Is a highly active metabolic area that has a lot of things happening and creates a lot of oxidative stress and causes a lot of changes. We're just learning. We're learning now. We're learning more. And I might be wrong. There may be. It may. At some point it will be. I. I do know at some point it will be something you can reverse, but you have to stimulate. I mean, it's like. It's like somebody when you're older, okay, and somebody says, hey, Dr. 

34:30
Dr. William Seeds
Seeds, I'm coming to you, and I want to optimize my brain because I want to be smarter. I'm running this company, or, you know, I'm an entrepreneur doing this, or I'm a CEO or doing this, or I'm a whatever, and I want to optimize my brain. And I want you to. Can you. Can you give me something to make my brain better? And I'm. I'm like, well, that. That all comes down to, are you willing to participate with making your brain better? So what does that mean? That means I can help you, but you're the one who's going to have to do the work. Why? Because you have to stimulate the brain to adapt to get better. Just like it's very simple, like lifting a weight. And you see that compared to yours, Matt, by the way, bigger. 

35:22
Matt Seeds
I can't see it. 

35:23
Dr. William Seeds
That's brutal. You can see that Madi, right? 

35:26
Madison Lepore
No, Mike's in the way. 

35:29
Dr. William Seeds
All right, well, it's like lifting weights. If, if you go to the gym and do nothing, you're not going to get bigger, you're not going to get stronger, you're not going to adapt to that stress. You're going to put on that muscle. If you start lifting and start causing, you know, creating stress, creating the cells to adapt to get stronger and bigger. There's no difference with the brain to be stimulated. You can't. All these people who are. I just, I sit back and I taught, I see this total bullshit on social media about people talking about, take this supplement, do this and we're going to make you smarter. And I'm like, that's just so wrong. You gotta stimulate the brain. You have to stress the brain to get better. You can't expect to do it by taking a pill. 

36:21
Dr. William Seeds
You can't expect to do it by doing nothing. And you're never gonna do it by sitting in front of a screen and playing Xbox. Did I make my point? 

36:33
Matt Seeds
I think so. I think the key that we really need to start to get into is optimizing this across different age groups. Right? Because you're talking about reading, which requires focus, you're talking about lifting, which requires mobility. And those things are easy, especially in like the younger age groups. But as we get older, it's finding ways to be able to continue to do that, to continue to stay motivated, to be able to continue to increase that health span. Because why is all of this important, you know, with people living longer than ever? The gap that we are trying to. 

37:08
Dr. William Seeds
Hone in on longer but not healthier. But go ahead. 

37:11
Matt Seeds
The gap is trying to find the perfect line toe between lifespan and health span. Not this longevity thing that you hate, right? And the simple framework. You know, there's a couple key tenets that we've talked about ad nauseam. There's lifestyle choices like sleep and exercise that we talked about in episode one. And then there's like the classic healthcare system setup that you also started touch on in episode one with western healthcare and sick care and all of that. But the biggest one that seems to be of most prevalence when it comes to cellular damage and anti aging concepts is the introduction of chronic disease states Especially as people are living longer. And when you're trying to measure how these chronic disease states are actually affecting you're trying to figure out what is the most useful indicator. 

38:08
Matt Seeds
And different people in different countries and different socioeconomic statuses make it kind of hard to compare across the board. Diagnostic thresholds change over time. I mean, recently, in the last decade or some of the biomarkers for hypertension got lowered. Right? So now all of a sudden, like data now is not comparable to data from the past. So then what is the best way to really diagnose how chronic disease is affecting you? And what it seems to be is irrespective of the patient's health. Chronic illness is pretty much best defined as how can people execute their day to day tasks, how are they feeling determining this impact of long life on economies, healthcare systems. This is a big thing right now, especially in the world. 

38:57
Matt Seeds
I mean, you see the biggest instance of this is in Europe where a lot of their population is starting to age into these years, where these social systems are dependent on more young people coming in and not as many old people being there. And those scales are being tipped inappropriately. So people as big as the European Commission are looking into this question very seriously. So as these aging demographics are shifting and it's posing a threat to economic viabilities, how do we measure the ability for somebody to maintain a healthy, active, intentional lifestyle? 

39:40
Dr. William Seeds
Well, and that's a great, that's an awesome question. It's, everybody wants to know, how can we measure? What are the markers we need to use? What if I pose this question to you? What if we said we don't care what that is? What if we just start a process of improving cell health for everybody in the hopes that we're going to prevent chronic disease, that we're, we're not going to get to that state, that we don't need those biomarkers that were where we're being preemptive and we're making the cell better and starting to get patients engaged in their own health before that even becomes a question. 

40:26
Madison Lepore
Shifting from proactive medicine instead of being reactive medicine, which it's been, and patients are starting to actually want to come to the proactive side and asking, why isn't this more widely known? Like why wouldn't we be doing this to keep us from getting in that chronic illness state. So patients are catching on to that now. 

40:49
Dr. William Seeds
Listen to this, listen to this statement. I'm sitting down, Madi and I and Grace, and we're talking to Our patients, and they come to us and they're. They feel like they have the capability of living longer, but they come to us and say, doc, I've worked so hard. I've gotten to this point, I'm thinking of retiring. Or I've got a way that I can really decrease my workload and still keep myself engaged. But, Doc, what happened to my golden years? Because I don't feel. Feel good. I don't feel like I can do this. I don't feel like I can hang with my grandkids. I don't feel like I can go on this trip. I don't feel like I can. I. I can't go to the. I can't enjoy. I'm not enjoying it. I'm not like, this isn't supposed to happen. 

41:45
Dr. William Seeds
This isn't like, you know, watching Leave it to Beaver when everybody's happy and you retire and life is great. It's, where are those golden years and. 

41:57
Matt Seeds
What is redox's role in all of that? 

42:01
Dr. William Seeds
Beautiful question. Because it's all about Redox. It's all about Redox's role in. Is helping the patient to empower themself, to reestablish, to pull back that power of living again, to improve their ability to enjoy life again without, you know, without the disease states and slowing them down in their later life or early on in optimizing and keeping them so. Perfect example, Covid, that came through and just wreaked havoc and destroyed us. It affected the population. It affected so many things. The people that were in better health and prepared did better. They did better. So that kind of opened the door to people wanting to know, my gosh, is there a way to empower myself here? So when this happens again, because it is going to happen again in some way, some fashion, can I do things to optimize myself? 

43:16
Dr. William Seeds
Because people are going to rely now. They're not relying on the medical system, the fix it. They're like, I'm taking this into my own hands. What can I do? 

43:24
Matt Seeds
So you're saying stress factors, environmental factors, things that are out of our control. Those things are inevitable. 

43:31
Dr. William Seeds
Yes. 

43:31
Matt Seeds
But would you say that aging is inevitable? 

43:34
Dr. William Seeds
Aging is absolutely inevitable. But how can you make it work for you? How can you. So, so here's the good thing, right? Getting older is awesome. Why? Why wiser? Why? Yes, wiser. Because it's always. Let's just take this for example, Matthew or Madison, when we've been posed with problems, and your dad says this or your boss says this, and you guys go, yeah, but I've got this idea here. And I'm like, well, okay, let's see where we go with that. And then you come back to me and go, you were right. You were right. It's. It's life experience. Let me just say, as you get older, you get. You learn things, and you've been through that, you've done that. And so it truly is a repository of incredible knowledge because I've made the mistakes, and I don't want to see you make the mistakes. 

44:31
Dr. William Seeds
And so knowing that is empowering. Right? So that part's great. But if I can't utilize that and I'm in pain, or I. My memory's not working as well, or I'm not as happy doing something, or I'm not. Then I can't. I'm not going to be effective in helping you guys develop. Right. I mean, what is our goal as. As, like, fathers, mentors, and so forth? We want to see you do better than we did. That's my ultimate. My ultimate goal is to have you, my son, do a lot better than I did and not make the mistakes I did. What's my job as your boss? My job is to make your job, make you do things or give you the power to do things better than I did because I made all the stupid mistakes. 

45:25
Dr. William Seeds
Well, how effective am I going to be if I'm not around? Because I want to be productive for a very long time. Because I just keep getting smarter, I think, and I want to keep learning. It's like teaching the SSRP and what I do. And everybody says, gosh, you know so much. And I go, I know so little, But I'm going to know more because I want to keep teaching. I want to keep. I want to give this knowledge to everybody. I want to do this podcast for the next hundred years, but I want to be good at it. I want to be enthusiastic. I want people to look at me and god, that guy's passionate. That guy really enjoys what he's doing. That. That guy connects with me because he's real. That kind of stuff. So does that. Did that help you? 

46:08
Matt Seeds
No. Of course. One last question before essentially, we wrap it up. How much does messing with your schedule by going completely off the rails on a weekend, how much does that impact everything? Can you undo five days of good work with two days of yes? 

46:23
Madison Lepore
It's so hard to get on the schedule, but so easy to get off the schedule and undo everything you just worked on. 

46:29
Matt Seeds
Can you Pay off that debt or. 

46:31
Madison Lepore
Is that it's like starting over again? 

46:34
Dr. William Seeds
Yeah, that's a great question. You can't. In my opinion, it's. It's all or nothing. It's. It's not all or nothing. Like, we can't expect us. You know, I could talk about how regimented I am and how I do all this and I work so hard, but I, I can't do it all the time. I make, I travel, I make. I. I fall into that. Oh, I'm going to stay up a little bit later and I'm going to do this or I eat this meal a little bit later. We all make those mistakes. Mistakes, and I call them mistakes because we know they're not right. But if you can just. The, the goal is stay as consistent as you can. And if you're doing your best, don't feel bad about it. I, I mean, you can really get on yourself hard here. 

47:18
Dr. William Seeds
Don't feel bad because everybody's working the same way. And you see these people on social media that make it sound like you that's all they do. And they're graded. That's too. Everybody has. We all are human beings and we have these inefficiencies and it's normal. 

47:35
Matt Seeds
We just went to go see my brother in Japan and our sleep schedules are just absolutely in the tank right now. 

47:42
Madison Lepore
But I do think when people fall off the wagon a little bit and they feel the difference, it's helpful because they actually learned and felt like, oh, all that hard work I was doing to get myself regimented was actually working. And it feels so want to do. 

47:56
Matt Seeds
Good to get back into that habit and you're motivated. 

47:59
Dr. William Seeds
It's reinforcement. That's awesome, man. That's so true. That's. We learn here. This is what we learn from our patients. This is what we're talking about. Dialogue. What do you learn from your patients? And it's that feeling of, this is kind of how we got into where we got very bold. And I'll go just real quick here on. You start some of these treatments with some peptides and so forth. And then you say, hey, let's just stop the peptides and see what you think. And seeing those changes reinforces that behavior of, wow, I've. I've got something that's working. And so Madi's absolutely right. So there. There you go. There's real life at its best, you know? 

48:38
Matt Seeds
So how do you reverse cellular damage? How do you keep aging at bay? How do you keep your metabolism in check? How do you keep your cells resistant. Think of bedtime and stick to it. 

48:52
Dr. William Seeds
Pick a bedtime and stick to it. Eat earlier at night and turn your phone off earlier so you're not looking at a screen. 

49:02
Matt Seeds
Hey, Europe. There you have it. 

49:04
Dr. William Seeds
Go to bed. 

49:05
Matt Seeds
Easy. Done. 

49:07
Madison Lepore
I'm, I'm here for that bedtime. 

49:10
Dr. William Seeds
I live for that bedtime because it makes it. Here's the other. Here's the end. We can end it like this. It makes it such. It makes a big difference the next day. That's how I'm ready to roll. 

49:25
Matt Seeds
That's it for today. But on the next episode, we're going to be doing a special edition that'll be kind of a recurring theme here, the peptide pulse. Next week, we are going to be diving into the top three peptides, some of the most exciting scientific discoveries and how they are affecting your cellular health. I wonder if insulin is just going to be recurring on the list or not, or if it'll just be kind of an honorable mention, but we'll see. 

49:52
Dr. William Seeds
Well, it's going to be iterations of insulin and that's a great topic to bring up. And we'll. 

49:57
Matt Seeds
The next episode. 

49:58
Dr. William Seeds
Next episode. Let's start with that. So, everybody, thank you for being part of this podcast and the Redox Revolution. I'm, I'm so excited to continue this dialogue. I wish this is what we could do every day, all day, because we got a lot to talk about. So we're coming back at you with more information. Thank you, Madi. Thank you, Matthew, for making this very special. 

50:24
Madison Lepore
Thanks. 

50:25
Dr. William Seeds
See you soon. 

50:26
Matt Seeds
We're a couple episodes in so far, so if you're not already, make sure you are subscribed on YouTube and Instagram to rwilliam seeds and at Redox Medical Group.