and life you love.

And one of the most important components to be able to do that is your health.

My guest today is a world renowned expert and fierce advocate in the fight to transform

our healthcare and he’s here to show us how to take back control of our energy, our

focus, and our lives.

Dr. Mark Hyman believes that we all deserve a life of vitality and that we have the potential

to create it for ourselves.

That’s why he’s dedicated to tackling the root causes of chronic disease by harnessing

the power of functional medicine to transform healthcare.

He’s a practicing family physician, a ten time number one New York Times bestselling

author, and an internationally recognized leader, educator, and advocate in his field.

He’s the director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine and also the

founder and medical director of the Ultra Wellness Center.

Mark is the Chairman of the Board of the Institute for Functional Medicine, a medical editor

of the Huffington Post, and has been a regular medical contributor on many television shows

including CBS This Morning, The Today Show, and CNN.

Mark also plays a substantial role in the phenomenal documentary released in 2014 called

Fed Up, which addresses childhood obesity.

Mark Hyman, thank you so much.

We’re finally doing this.

We are.

We’ve wanted to do it forever.

Great to be here.

So let’s start off with your story because I know 20 years ago you got quite sick and

it had a profound impact on who you are and your work.

Can you tell us about that?

Well, I think, you know, anybody who sort of had a life changing experience, like, there’s

always something that, like, shifts them that changes their life.

And I had that.

I was vigorous, healthy, riding my bike 100 miles a day, could see 30 patients, remember

everybody without any notes, and dictate everything at the end of the day and get it all right.

To the next day not being able to walk up the stairs, not knowing where I was at the

end of a sentence from where I started, and having…

I felt like I had depression, dementia, ADD all at once.

I couldn’t focus, I couldn't remember anything, I felt horrible, I couldn’t sleep, my muscles

ached, my digestion completely went kaflooey, my whole system broke down.

I developed autoimmune issues, I developed rashes, I had sores on my tongue.

I literally went from being like a running 5 miles a day, yoga teacher before I was a

doctor, to basically having this total body breakdown.

And it was through the process of sort of uncovering that that I sort of found that

there was a whole new way to think about health and disease that was really about the root

causes, about thinking of the body as a whole system, not just a bunch of different organs.

And I went to doctor after doctor after doctor, there’s a doctor for every different part

of your body.

And instead of having a doctor for the whole organism we have doctors for organs.

So I needed to really look at that.

And I found that I was able to actually understand how the body worked as a whole system, not

just the symptoms.

And that’s when I discovered functional medicine.

And I realized it was a whole way of thinking that was completely different than what I

learned in medical school.

They put all the pieces together, they connected the dots that helped me figure out, you know,

why I was sick and what was going on.

And it turned out I had mercury poisoning from living in China and I had picked up some

bug in some lake in Maine and my gut kinda went crazy.

And those two things completely shifted my whole biology and it got stuck and I couldn't

get unstuck.

And it was through understanding how to create health rather than treat disease that I was

able to actually fix myself.

So functional medicine is essentially the science of creating health and it’s very

powerful and it’s the future of healthcare.

That’s why I’m at Cleveland Clinic now, because the CEO of Cleveland Clinic, which

is one of the number one health care centers in the world, has said, “Oh, this is the

future.

We should be doing this and we’re gonna invest in this,” and they’re investing

big.

I mean, we just… we’re building a 6 million dollar brand new 18 thousand square foot center.

We’ve got 2 thousand people on the waiting list.

We’re growing and growing.

And I think we can’t grow fast enough because people get it.

People get that the way we are treating disease doesn't work.

We can’t just be covering over symptoms with medications.

We have to understand the body is a biological system and ecosystem.

Yes.

And that was really the sort of shift that happened for me and it led to me having to

literally unwind my own health, get healthy, and then it’s really compelled me to do

everything I’m doing.

Because I realize, wait a minute, there’s so many people who are suffering that don't

need to suffer.

Like a friend of mine sent me an email of this woman who’s been suffering, it was

her neighbor, and she gave me a list of symptoms and her whole story and I looked at it in

3 seconds and I knew what was going on.

And it’s not because I’m a genius, it’s because I know the right lens to look at the

problem with.

Yes.

You know, it’s like once you understand how to solve a problem, it’s not that hard.

Right?

Right.

So, yeah.

For Einstein to figure out E=MC squared, that was a lot of figuring.

But once you have it figured out, it’s easy.

Right?

So I think that’s… that’s the whole beauty of functional medicine.

It’s sort of like the, you know, what are the laws of biology.

Right?

How is the human organism constructed?

It’s like, how are we this amazing, magical system and how does it actually work?

Like, what are the laws of nature?

And in medicine, we don't really have any theories.

We just have a bunch of concepts of disease based on organs and symptoms, not based on

causes and mechanisms.

Sort of like by geography, where is it, and by symptom, what’s the symptom?

Instead of like by the cause and underlying mechanism.

So functional medicine is that.

It’s like medicine by cause, not by symptom.

And it’s so powerful and I see, you know, so many people who actually don't get the

solutions that they actually can get when… when they don't understand this model.

It’s so frustrating and inspiring at the same time.

I mean, your work has impacted me personally, I’ve gone through so many of your books,

I’ve changed how I eat thanks to you and thanks to some other friends, our mutual friend

Kris Carr.

Yeah.

And it’s so exciting because I feel like we have an opportunity to just transform not

only healthcare but how people live on a day to day basis and our longevity and how we

feel and how we perform.

I know there was another big pivotal shift in your life that came from a trip to Haiti.

Yeah.

Tell us about that.

So, you know, I spent almost 20 years studying biological networks, like genetics, biochemistry,

physiology, like how our molecules work.

Right?

And… and it was amazing.

It’s like an amazing magical mystery tour.

And I was treating people one on one and focused on doing that and then Haiti happened.

The earthquake in January 2010.

And just before the earthquake happened I was given a book by a friend of mine…

I’m sorry, I was given a book by a patient who was referred by a friend of mine who was

a shaman.

And he’s like you have to read this, and I’m like ok.

So I took a vacation, I was actually in Machu Picchu and I read this book, it profoundly

impacted me.

It’s called Mountains Beyond Mountains about Paul Farmer who went to Haiti after medical

school and showed that you could cure TB and AIDS in the poorest country in the world.

I mean, in the western hemisphere.

One of the poorest countries in the world.

Not by better drugs or surgery, but by using the power of each other.

He called it accompaniment.

The people accompany each other to health.

So he got community health workers trained who are their neighbors basically to help

their friends, their family members, their neighbors to get healthy by taking their medication

on time, by getting clean water.

Just basic stuff.

And he talked about this idea of structural violence.

You know, what are the social, economic, and political conditions that drive disease?

That these are social problems, they’re not medical problems so much.

Right?

And I began to sort of reflect and I… and I began to… so then I began to reflect on

this and I was like, well, I really want to meet Paul Farmer.

And then, of course, the earthquake happened and a set of circumstances happened where

I was like, well, I’m a doctor and I was married to a doctor at the time who was a

surgeon, orthopedic surgeon.

And I’m like, well, we need to go.

But we have no way to get there.

So one of my patients who owns a jet texted me and says, “Do you want to go to Haiti?”

And I’m like yeah, actually, we were just talking about that.

So we got a whole team together and I got ahold of Paul Farmer and I said, “Do you

want to come with us?” because nobody could get down there.

So he jumped on the plane with us and I got to know him and it all kind of unfolded.

And we got there, it was the worst thing you can imagine, Marie.

I mean, it was the worst disaster I think that you can… 300 thousand people dead.

300 thousand people injured.

And they were just everywhere.

And we got to the hospital and it’s just… it was a disaster zone.

And we got to work, rolled up our sleeves.

And then I got to know Paul during that process and I got to see what was going on and I asked

the head of the hospital after the first week, we were sitting down to eat some chicken.

It was like this really skinny chickens in Haiti, they don't have these big hormone pumped

chickens.

And I said, “So before the earthquake, like, what was the most common admitting diagnosis

here?”

And he was like…

I thought he was gonna say TB or AIDS, malaria.

He’s like it was heart disease, diabetes, hypertension.

I’m like wow.

And I realized that, you know, chronic disease is everywhere.

And then it was that moment I had the insight that chronic disease is also a social disease.

They call it non-communicable disease, but it’s actually communicable.

And it then began to kind of occur to me that the social drivers are not just affecting

things like TB and AIDS, but obesity and heart disease  and diabetes and cancer because

of our food system, because of the environmental toxins we have, because of the social disintegration

and all the issues that drive bad behavior.

I mean, you can’t find a grocery store in your town that sells vegetables and there’s

only bodegas on every corner that sell processed food, well, how are you gonna eat healthy?

So there’s really structural issues in our food policies and our environmental systems,

in our agricultural systems that are driving so much disease.

And I was like we have to deal with this.

And then I began to look at research when I got back, you know, about like Christakis

from Harvard talked about how you’re more likely to be overweight if your friends are

overweight than if your family is overweight.

Like you’re I think 170% more likely to be overweight if your best friend is overweight,

but only like 40% more if your parents are overweight.

Wow.

So… and if your friend’s friend friend who you don't even know is overweight, you’re

more likely to be overweight because of these social connections that are mapped out.

I mean, it makes sense because I know this just anecdotally.

Right?

You go out with your friends, you go to a party, one person orders something naughty,

quote-unquote, and then all of a sudden it is a chain reaction.

Like the drinking takes over, this takes over, and then it’s a couple of days and you’re

in.

Exactly.

It happens to me all the time.

I go out to dinner with people they’re like, oh, we’re having dinner with Mark Hyman

like… and then they like, dessert menu comes, like nobody orders dessert.

And I don't care if people have dessert.

They can have dessert.

I don't care.

I’m not, like, the food police.

But people have this internal process of like the peer pressure.

Yeah.

So the peer pressure can work for bad or it can work for good.