The Lifestyle & Science of Keeping Your Cells Forever Young – with Dr. Nick Bitz

Dr. Mindy  

On this episode of The resetter podcast, I bring you Dr. Nick Bitz. So a little bit about Dr. Nick and what you’re going to hear in this conversation because I guarantee you I have never brought you a conversation around anti aging like the one you’re about to hear. So Dr. Nick is a naturopathic physician, he specializes in ru Vedic medicine, stay all the way through listen to his self care, because that was he really brought something new to his daily self care that we also haven’t talked about. He also is a leading voice in natural products in the industry of a toffee G and senescence cells, which you’re going to hear a lot about. And he has this brilliant mind of really looking at the intersection between lifestyle, botanicals, biohacking strategies and how to use that all in conjunction with the body’s natural flow, which hopefully you all know, I am such a fan of us working with our bodies, not trying to force our bodies to create these dramatic changes. And when it comes to anti aging, one of my biggest concerns about the world in which we’re living in right now is that so many people want to slow down the hands of time. And they’re either doing it with toxins, or they’re stepping into the natural space, and they’re overdoing their anti aging strategies. And so what you’re going to hear in this conversation is two major concepts of anti aging that you need to know about. One is called a tapa G, we have talked about autophagy, when it comes to fasting. Those of you who have read fast like a girl have heard me speak about a toffee G, we’re going to dive into what the research is saying about how a toffee G can slow down the production of aging cells. But then there’s another part of autophagy that we haven’t discussed, and it’s called Cinna lytic, or senescence. And this hopefully, you’ve been hearing quite a bit about the production of zombie cells. Dr. Mark Hyman put out a book on this. A lot of the biohacking world is talking about these zombie cells. How do we stop these zombie cells? Zombie cells are aging cells, and they need to get out of your body. And if you don’t find strategies on how to move them out of your body, they speed up the aging process. So what Dr. Nick is going to go through what we talk about here is how do you move these zombie cells out of your body as quickly as possible so that you can slow down the aging process? And at the front half of the conversation you’re going to hear us talk about well, how do we prevent the aging cells to begin with, using the principles of autophagy. This was an incredible interview for me, it took my understanding of autophagy to a whole new level. And those of you that are looking for the fountain of youth, this conversation is a must. So I’m so excited to have brought you such a thoughtful conversation around how we slow down the aging process and stop the zombie cells. Enjoy

Dr. Mindy  

a Dr. Mindy hare and Welcome to season four of the recenter podcast. Please know that this podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again, if you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Enjoy. For starters, Dr. Nick, thank you for joining me and welcome to the recenter Podcast. I’m so excited to have you here.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

It’s so good to be here. Thanks.

Dr. Mindy  

So we’re gonna go down a path just to fill my audience in that we haven’t done before, but actually is one of the most popular concepts on all my YouTube videos, which is this idea of a toffee G senescence cells, what we now know our zombie we call zombie cells cells that are aging quickly. And what do we know about being able to stop the aging of the cells? So if we could start the conversation there, like what is a zombie cell what is a senescence cell? And can we stop aging cells from multiplying? Yeah,

Dr. Nick Bitz  

I love this topic. This is such an interesting area of anti aging medicine, I think it certainly is the most interesting and potentially the most promising fields right now in the A in the in the field of anti aging medicine. So there’s a lot of buzz right now online and rightfully so, you know, you will look at all the biotech companies, the farm companies, the dietary supplement companies, the health influencers, everybody’s trying to get into the space right now. It’s a very neat space, and it’s just start really starting to emerge right now. It’s just bubbling up. So it’s early days. And so I’ll caution this whole conversation by saying that we know a lot, but there still is a lot more to learn. Yeah, so cellular senescence is one of the 12 hallmarks of aging. The word senescence comes from the Latin root cynics that means to grow old. And so cell senescence, then is this idea of a cell growing old. And so we’ve known since the 60s that cells have this ability to replicate, on average about 50 times before they stop replicating. So cells are not infinite, they don’t just keep reproducing, like humans, they get to a point where they just stop reproducing, and the cells then move into the senescent phase. And that, you know, it basically is the end of the lifecycle. And typically, it’s a normal healthy thing, the immune system comes in plucks the cells from the body, and you get rid of them. However, when some of the cells leader inside the body, that’s what we term a zombie cell. And that in essence cell. And so this idea of kind of a lingering senescence cells, that is where it really gets interesting, because it has huge implications for health, and it’s driving the aging process. So okay, so this is really interesting, because the way I had already always looked at cellular death and growth is let’s say, a 10 cell is like the healthiest cell you can make. When that cell goes to replicate, it will replicate a 10 cell. But if it starts to become sick, so it becomes like a five cell or a three cell, it can only replicate as good as strong as that cell is it can only replicate that type of cell. So with these zombie cells, if a cell is got this aging process to it, and and a weakness, let’s just call it a weak link. And our bodies can’t get rid of it. Does that mean that these zombie cells will keep replicating and that will speed up the aging process? Yes. So there’s there’s a couple ways to look at it. So there’s something called replicate of senescence, which is that idea that a cell will replicate 50 times stop replicating then moved into senescence. Okay. And then there’s this idea of it’s called induced senescence, which means that a cell has acquired some amount of damage. So it doesn’t need to replicate 50 times and stop, it can actually replicate once. And if the body deems that cell has been damaged, or problematic, it will automatically move it into senescence and to prevent further replication. So that is a beneficial property. I mean, it’s important that that we encourage cells to move in senescence, but the idea about how we get rid of those cells, that’s the field of analytics, that is so interesting. Okay, so I’m always like, so blown away by the intelligence of the body. And what I just heard in what you just said, is that the body will like tag a cell and go, you’re a senescence cell we need or move it into the senescence state. And once it moves it into the senescent state, then the idea is the body needs to get rid of it. But the zombie cells, the body can’t get rid of it. Am I understanding that right? I think you nailed it. Yeah. So so we have 37 trillion cells in the body, right? So we lose, you know, roughly 50 to 100 billion cells on a daily basis. So we’re constantly turning over, cells are turning over and, and every cell, every tissue has a different rate of turnover. And so we know that, for example, brain cells, neurons, they don’t turn over you have one set of neurons for your entire life, that that idea is starting to evolve a little bit. And we’re understanding this idea of neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. And, you know, we’re getting into that field. And so it’s possible that we can regenerate neurons, but you have one set of neurons. When you look at cells within the GI tract, for example, they tend to turn over every seven days. You know, red blood cells turn over every 120 days. And so every cell in the body has its own internal clock. And so these cells are constantly turning over, which is amazing. And so when those cells turnover, they basically move into senescence, and then they go through this it’s called apoptosis, right? So the immune system plucks

Dr. Nick Bitz  

stem from the body war, they go through apoptosis, which is this idea of self destruction. Right? Kind of like cell suicide. Yeah. And so so that’s, that’s these senescence cells have these proteins that can actually evade apoptosis. They create almost like a shield to then the body doesn’t go through apoptosis, and then they linger. And so that’s the mechanism of action that we’ve identified. And because we’ve identified that we know how to undercut those cells and how to eliminate them from the body.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, so the first logical question that I have would be, is there a way to avoid a cell from going into a senescence state? Or is that naturally going to happen as we age?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, I mean, there are things that you can do. And I know you’ve talked about a toffee G, on your show. Yeah, a toffee G is really the way that we prevent senescence. It’s anti senescence, a toughie. G is the repair mechanism of the body of cells. So anytime there’s damage, a cell can generally repair itself, so that it moves from, you know, maybe a five cell backup to maybe an eight or a nine cell. And so that’s that idea of a toffee G and a toffee G is critical to cell health. However, we know that in certain instances, you can have disabled by autophagy. So your toffee G just isn’t as strong. Yeah. So but there’s ways to undercut that there’s a way to promote a toffee G, as you know, fasting is one way, whether you’re doing a complete fast, a water fast, whether you’re doing a low calorie, fast, those tend to promote the autophagy mechanisms of the body. And so that is the best way to undercut it. We know that exercise, as an example, is in part promotes autophagy, but it’s in part it senolytic as well. And so it helps the body just prime itself to get rid of the senescent cells in a very efficient manner.

Dr. Mindy  

So there’s two parts to this getting at the zombie cells, one is stopped creating zombie cells, which is what a toffee G can do. And then the other part is make sure that that once it turns into a senescence cell that the body goes into this apoptosis and gets rid of it. Is that correct? Yeah, that’s correct. So when we look at a toffee G, something you said, That’s really interesting. And I want to highlight this, because I don’t think most people realize that the autophagy inside a cell can be turned off. And that like like COVID virus, what I had learned was it actually was shutting off a toffee G do all viruses do that? Or was that just unique to COVID?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

My understanding is that it’s fairly unique to COVID I think there’s a subset of viruses that have that tendency overall. But I wouldn’t say that’s a property of all viruses per se, and this idea of disabled a tautology, it’s new to the hallmarks of aging. And so the hallmarks of aging, very interesting topic, I think it’s this model of the separate ideas, separate but related ideas that drive the aging process. And we started with nine hallmarks. And just recently, in January of 2023, we added three more so autophagy was one dysbiosis, which is that imbalance of, of microbes in the body. And then inflammation is in the house. And and so now we have this, this really kind of clear picture of these 12 mechanisms that are driving the aging process. And so disabled a toffee G is one of those Yeah, and so we know that if you have disabled a toffee G, if you’re not able to repair a cell then can move into various states of dysfunction and cellular senescence is one of those states

Dr. Mindy  

and what are the other nine just out of curiosity, all the hallmarks Do you know? Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

So the the main ones the primary drivers are genetic instability. So damaged DNA. Yeah, telomere attrition, which is kind of the the caps that protect DNA that shorten every time a cell replicates, you have loss of proteostasis, which is the really like the quality of proteins. inside cells that decrease as we age, you have the disabled a toffee G, which I which I mentioned, cells also lose their ability to sense nutrients. So whether or not they need more or less. So deregulated nutrient sensing. mitochondrial dysfunction is another one. Stem Cell exhaustion. Another one, there’s a change in intracellular and intercellular communication is another one. And then I’ve mentioned cellular senescence, chronic inflammation and gut dysbiosis. So

Dr. Mindy  

and what I hear what I hear when you list those 12 out is building a fasting lifestyle is going to help you with all 12 of those that I mean, it’s a really interesting the way you said it. I think it’s this is why people are so attracted to fasting because it really has an impact to make a difference in all 12 of those.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, absolutely. Leave it. I think it really undercuts the primary drivers. Yeah. Namely the disabled, the top injuries that we talked about the telomere attrition gets in there. And if there’s no damage to the cell, then you actually don’t have this expression of aging over time, which is cool.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. So when we look at how we can trigger a toffee G, we know fasting, I now correct me if I’m wrong, but in the research that I’ve seen, fasting is one of the best ways to stimulate a toffee G that we know. Would you agree with that?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

100%? Yes.

Dr. Mindy  

And then the second thing is exercise. So in my research, it has to be like high intensity exercise, this isn’t just going for a walk, there needs to be an aerobic stress to it. Would you agree with that?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, I think it’s more of the Goldilocks principle. Oh, tell me obviously, don’t want too much. But you don’t want too little. And so there is a right amount of exercise. And so it’s critical that find that balance for you. We know that you know, these these ultra athletes that are running marathons, you know, several times per year, they they have lowered immune function. Yeah. And so it’s critically important, we know that the immune system is susceptible to senescence itself. And so these immune cells can become less functional over time because they move from an active state into that senescence state, especially in folks that do way too much exercise. Yeah. So with that said, it is important to to have some cardio some some movement, I think that that’s critical, but again, not too little. Not too much.

Dr. Mindy  

Got it? Okay. And then sleep. Sleep is a form of autophagy. Correct?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s, that’s when your body really kicks in the autophagy processes to repair itself. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

So in my, the way my brain thinks about this is that if you want to slow down these the accumulation of these zombie cells, you want to fast, you want to have a good balance of of stressful and recovery exercise, and you want to sleep and prioritize sleep. Anything else I’m missing? And what do you think of things like supplements you can take that will affect a Tophet? G?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, in terms of preventing the body from getting there. Another area of research right now is this idea of Telomere Support. So there’s a way to really make sure that your telomeres stay healthy and strong for as long as you live, rather than letting them shorten over time and then move into senescence. And so there are things too, that you can do there sleeping exercise, of course, critically important for maintaining telomeres. We know that selenium and coach you 10 They do a good job of preserving telomere length over time. There is an ingredient that’s widely used by physicians, as well as just in the dietary supplement space. It’s called ta 65. And that’s an A straggle us extract that has some good research for its telomeres activity, which is, I think, really interesting. We know that the blue zone regions of the world tend to have longer telomeres overall. And so some of those diets in particular, the Mediterranean diet seems to be very beneficial for maintaining telomeres as well.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, we were just watching. Are you watching the blue zone series on Netflix?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

I see seen the first three episodes, so good.

Dr. Mindy  

Everybody needs to watch it. And it’s so interesting that and this is why I point this out is that I think in the anti aging movement, right now there’s this like, desire to get the next best thing. But when you actually look at putting all the things together, there’s a lifestyle that comes together, that creates longevity. And if we look at longevity as a one off or needing to be incredibly expensive, then we’ve lost our path and we’re at with what the human body wants, there is a lifestyle that needs to come together. Would you agree?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, I, you know, I promote a return to nature. And I know what he’s really excited about technology. But I am an a naturalist, you know, like, really focusing on the fundamentals. You know, I was for a short time, very involved in the biohacking community and measuring everything and using all of this technology. And it was working for sure. But I think I was getting more benefit by doing less, you know, by focusing on sleep, focusing on a clean diet, stress management, you know, sun exposure, as Huberman talks about first thing in the morning, you know, really the basic things. And so today, that’s what I do. I focus on the basics first, and so may turn to nature, I think is more important than embracing technology and looking for what’s next. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

Before we move into how do we get rid of these senescence cells once they’ve been created? I don’t want to leave before we leave a toughie G. I’m curious what you think of things like spermidine like spermidine has had some really interesting research on it. And I just heard a woman lecture on it in Europe. And she was saying that, like she’s noticing her gray hairs are changing by taking spermidine. So I’m curious, your thoughts there?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, I don’t see any downside to doing spermidine, we’re starting to see it pop up in a lot of anti aging supplements right now. I mean, it works at a very low dose, you know, just a couple milligrams per day. But it is a stress molecule, a very old molecule that the body knows how to use and is used for hundreds, if not 1000s, of years. And so I think that that is a really important molecule that we are just scratching the surface of right now. And you know, one of the things that I love is that it just trains immunity. So the more that you take it, it kind of gradually just builds your immune system over time. Yeah, but I could see it working at really all levels, we know that it is specific for autophagy as well,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah. Yeah. Okay. So now, is there a way now that we’ve addressed a toffee G, you’re going to get senescence cells, even if you apply everything that we just said, correct.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Everybody’s accumulating senescence cells since the moment they were born. So it’s, it’s inevitable. With that said, there seems to be a point where then they call it kind of a threshold theory. But there’s a point in aging, usually after the age of 40, where the rate of accumulation far outpaces the rate of elimination. So up until about the age of 40, we can pretty readily get rid of these senescence cells. And mostly because we have very strong robust immune systems, generally, after the age of 40, we lose that robustness, and we lose some of that cellular intelligence. So cells tend to accumulate over time. And so that’s when we start seeing these problems with cellular senescence, usually after the age of 40. So we know that the rate of accumulation is enormous. And it’s directly it’s inversely proportional to the function of our tissues as we age.

Dr. Mindy  

And and so when a cell moves into the senescence state state, this is what we’re calling a zombie cell is though, it’s already moved into that state, just because that’s a popular term right now.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yes. And just to elaborate on that idea a little bit more. And so when a cell becomes senescent, it essentially lingers inside a tissue. So it’s taking up space that otherwise healthy cells would be taken up, right? So that tissue loses both structure and function over time. But, uh, see, senescent cells are called Zombie cells because they secrete these compounds called SAS factors. And they’re senescence associated phenotype compounds that are inflammatory in nature. And so these these cells, the SAS factors, can really infect or influence all of the cells that surround them within that microenvironment of the tissue. We also are finding out that the SAS factors get lodged systemically. And so they move through the circulatory system, and they impact tissues and cells throughout the entire body. So these senescence cells are creating this low grade inflammation over time as we age and they’re really driving a lot of the inflammatory processes that we see as we age. And so that is that kind of that zombie idea. So it’s infecting otherwise healthy cells and turning them into senescence cells. And so you really only need a couple senescence cells to quote unquote, infect other healthy cells around that senescence cell.

Dr. Mindy  

Well, that sucks, that’s that they don’t just stay to themselves, they actually go and like, recruit and destroy other ones are like a, they’re like a person who’s a negative thinker, and then they go out and like get everybody else to start complaining and become a negative thinker. That’s right. Okay, that’s now is there a way to measure how many senescent cells we have in our body?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

You there’s there’s not. So there’s there’s not a predictable or reliable biomarker presently. So there’s a lot of work being done right now, with that said that there is a way but it’s not very practical. It’s not very usable. It’s not very repeatable. We can do biopsies of tissue. And so there are a few studies using some natural ingredients before and after a regiment of doing muscle biopsies. Okay, which is so fascinating. I don’t know how you recruit anybody to say, Yeah, we’re gonna do a muscle biopsy before this regimen as well as after Are you in? Yeah, I don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t raise my hand and say, Yeah, that sounds cool. You couldn’t even pay me to do that. But but so that is a very direct measure, but again, not not super user friendly. So I don’t think that’s going to be usable moving forward. We do know that senescence cells do secrete certain compounds. Beta galactose is one of them and so we can actually measure that in the body but We’re trying to figure out if that’s a reliable biomarker or not. And as of today, it’s, it’s considered not the most validated biomarker that we that we can find.

Dr. Mindy  

Could you look at something like CRP in your bloodwork and just say, well, if CRP is high, inflammation is high. So therefore, if inflammation is high, I know I’ve got more senescent zombie cells. Yeah, it’s

Dr. Nick Bitz  

not a direct measure. It certainly is correlative, and I know, we are running studies on one of our senolytic products, looking at CRP, looking at inflammatory markers, to to determine does it actually shift that that marker in the body? We suspect that yes, it will. But there’s a lot of things that can shift that marker, it’s not specific only to senescence cells?

Dr. Mindy  

And are there symptoms that people could look at knowing that, hey, you may have a few more of these zombie cells like, like, if you scratch yourself, and it doesn’t heal very quickly, or you get an you get a cold and it just lingers or you have joint pain? Are there things that we would say, Hey, you’re probably accumulating a lot of zombie cells right now.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

I mean, there’s really no tissue in the body that’s untouched by senescence cells. And there’s no reliable way to say, Mindy, I know exactly where the senescence cells are going to lodge in your body versus mine. There is a lot of individuality. And we’re trying to tease that apart to understand why certain people accumulate senescence cells and joints, where others might accumulate them in skin. But There literally is no tissue in the body that’s unaffected by senescence cells, especially late in life. And so I think when you talk about symptoms, or signs that that can show up, it’s really individual. We know that they can impact the lungs, they can impact the kidneys, the heart, the brain, the skin joint, literally every tissue and everything. Yeah, so yeah, that, you know, I would say what we find to be the most predictable cells or tissues that do get infected with senescence cells are our joints, number one, the immune cells, number two, and then skin cells just because it’s so visible. And we find that when people start doing senolytics, they actually see changes in their skin as well. Yeah, I was talking

Dr. Mindy  

to a spermidine expert a couple of weeks ago, and she was saying how many cultures use gray hair and skin as a marker of how quickly they are aging. And I will tell you something really fascinating that has happened to me is as I go out into the world, and I’ve been traveling a lot, when I’m out traveling off my normal schedule, eating foods I wouldn’t normally eat, I can see all the gray hairs start to come in around my headline, and my hairline and my forehead. And then I come home, I start fasting more, I go back to all my good bio hacks and routines. And you can see literally that the hair growing and now is dark again, like my gray hair has become a measurement of how my lifestyle is working for me. And I don’t think he’s got enough credit, right?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

We really don’t I love that measure. And it’s interesting when you get into hair health, the science isn’t very clear. We don’t actually know why. But I think from a clinical perspective, that makes a lot of sense, you know, not my backgrounds in either VEDA. And AI or VEDA always says that gray hair is the result of too much fire. So that pitted LMNT. And so if you have a healthy a healthy balance of pitta, especially if you’re a Pitta or fire body type, you can actually maintain normal color of hair. But if your pet gets out of control too much fire to wrong lifestyle, traveling, food, whatever it might be, that’s when you see this uptick in gray hairs it is

Dr. Mindy  

and then you have to ask like Well, what about the person who gets gray hair at 30? Like, does that mean I mean, there’s a lot of vibrant, you know, healthy, good looking people with a full head of gray hair. And I can’t imagine that they have more zombie cells than me. I think you would just probably have to use measure you against you. Would you think that would be the case?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

I would think that’s absolutely the case. Yeah, I know that you can make generalizations about that. But that’s

Dr. Mindy  

one reason I don’t color my hair because I actually want to see those gray hairs showing up and going away so I can really know if my lifestyle is working for me or not. And it’s and we see this even in our fasting group on Facebook. It the number of people that show how the route of a hair becomes dark the more they fast and they build a fasting lifestyle. And the tip is gray. It we the first time we saw it, we were blown away. But now I mean there’s 80,000 People in this Facebook group and it’s crazy how many people post pictures of the hair changes with fasting.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Believe it I absolutely believe it if that is not an advertisement for are the reasons why you should fast? I don’t know what is. Yeah, exactly,

Dr. Mindy  

exactly. That’s okay. Now let’s go to this idea because what I’m hoping people are gathering is I’m trying to walk us through the process of this cell. So we can lean into fasting, and we can lean into sleep and exercise. So and we’ve talked about to make sure the stem cell stays healthy. But inevitably, it’s going to become a senescence cell. At some point, we will accumulate, but then what I just heard from you earlier on is now we need to make sure the body can get rid of that senescence cell. And it’s when it doesn’t get rid of it, that aging starts to speed up. So why is that? Correct? And what can we do to speed up the exiting Of The Zombie cells?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, so So enter senolytics. And this is really where the all the buzz is right now, in terms of biotech farm dietary supplement, this idea of what is a senolytic. So a senolytic is any substance that destroys a senescence cell in the body. And there’s various compounds, there are drugs that do it. And there are natural compounds. There are compounds found in our diet, there are compounds found in botanicals, but we’re learning more and more about what is potentially a senolytic substance. And this whole area just blew up in 2015. There was one study that came out by the Scripps Institute and the Mayo Clinic that showed that a simple combination of the satin nib and queer sudden had very powerful synergetic effects. And this was the first time the researchers from that study actually coined the term senolytic to really describe this new found compound. And they found that by giving these compounds to mice, it did two things, it decreased the senescence cell burden within those mice. And it provided really amazing functional benefits, which again, is the most important thing, right, you need to have some broad outcome and positive benefit, or why are you doing it? Yeah. And they saw that that it improved frailty, it improved bone health, it improved cardiac function, it improved the health span of these mice, it improved the lifespan. And so these researchers were super excited. And so this was really, I would say revolutionary in the field of anti aging. It was the first time that this idea was really validated. And so from this, I think this this really opened the door to more research into senolytics. And it’s just been fascinating ever since.

Dr. Mindy  

So a senolytic compound has the ability to destroy the zombie cell. It’s your we’re looking at it like a noun, not a verb.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

I think it’s both. Yeah. So I think it’s both I so so yes, they destroy but how they destroyed is important. This, these substances go in and they interfere with certain pro survival pathways that the senescence cells have upregulated over time. And it’s only these lingering senescence cells that up regulate these certain proteins, right. And so these senescence cells are very, I’m sorry, these senolytics are very selective about what cells are being impacted by this function. So they don’t impact healthy cells. They don’t impact any tissues in the body. And so they’re incredibly safe because they’re targeting senescence cells, and they’re disrupting this one pathway that is preventing that senescence cell from moving into apoptosis. And so, by disrupting those proteins, the cell then is able to move into apoptosis, self destruct and basically get its pocket out cycled by all of the other neighboring cells, a stem cell, a useful stem cell moves in, and you get more useful function of that tissue because it’s been replaced by this brand new stem cell.

Dr. Mindy  

Are there certain foods we can eat that have this analytic capability to it?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Well, so we so we know quercetin right. Quercetin is found everywhere in the diet that one of the best sources is in yellow onions, it is the yellow flavonoids compound. However, there was a study in 2018 that looked at a panel of flavonoids. So they were testing the senolytic activity of these different flavonoids and trying to figure out which ones were the most powerful and of course, they looked at quercetin they looked at curcumin from turmeric, they looked at luteolin They looked at EGCG from green tea, but they also looked at this compound called Face button. And face a tin is endlessly fascinating. It’s worth a Google check it out. But this study basically identified Phyton as the most powerful senolytic substance that we know of. And face a tin is found in the diet. You know, we do know that we consume about point four milligrams of Feiss attend on a daily basis. You know, five to 10 is a yellow flavonoids that comes from strawberries, apples, grapes, cucumbers. A lot of fruits and vegetables have this yellow pigmented flavonoids. But the the issue is that you’re not getting the right amount. So point four milligrams per day is a very small amount, and the study is now on fire 10 are using a much bigger dose, they found that you need 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight in order to get that big senolytic effect. And so that equates to about 1400 milligrams of purify sittin in order to have that effect. So yeah, so yes, you can get it from the diet, for sure.

Dr. Mindy  

But you then my brain goes to well, then we still have the two major obstacles when it comes to getting nutrients from food. One is what soil was it was it grown in? And two, what kind of gut dysbiosis Do you have. And if those two things are off, you could eat all the yellow onions in the world. And you’re still not going to get enough of that of that compound.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

You’re spot on. Yes. And we know that that our oil, our soil is deficient, a lot of minerals and compounds that really helped to drive the nutrient compound of the foods that we’re eating. And most people are dysbiotic, they have some disruption in their microbiome. And and flavonoids, by and large, are hard to absorb, they have low bioavailability, they generally don’t get into the bloodstream very readily, unless you have the ability to break them down ferment them in the GI tract. And so your microbiome is critically important here. It’s it’s it’s part of the equation. Yeah, in terms of how we use these compounds. And if you don’t have the right bacteria, you’re not using these compounds in the right way.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. And that’s where that’s where the whole thing starts to unravel. Because when you look at what destroys the microbiome, you start to go Oh, my gosh, all of us have some form of gut dysbiosis, if we’re living in this modern world, which is why again, I’m back at building a fasting lifestyle. And then when you add food back in, you’re adding the fermented foods, you’re adding the prebiotic probiotic rich foods so that you can keep supporting those bacteria, because the minute you eat out, you’re starting to get some distraction of that bacteria. So it’s really sad.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, I agree. And fasting is a great reset, because it gives you a moment to rethink all of your habits, and definitely your daily input to make sure that you’re optimizing the microbiome, and you can shift the microbiome drastically in a very short amount of time. And studies show that it takes generally about three days to have significant shifts in the microbiome. And so fasting alone pushes reset, you know, you increase the migrating motor complex, which helps the body just flush some of the bacteria and food and kind of, you know, it’s a drastic reset, which is great. Yeah, and what you put in next is critically important, you need to make sure that you’re getting a very diverse, well rounded diet, because you’re are, you’re feeding those bacteria. And if you’re not feeding the bacteria what they want, those bacteria don’t thrive, and then they go extinct. And so we know that Hunter and gatherers have, you know, roughly 700 800 different strains of bacteria in their gut. And living in California, we have about 200 strains. And so we’re missing a large part of our microbiome that we’ve evolved with over time, just through living in the modern world. And so it’s important to create diversity through a diverse die. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

So going back to this idea of getting rid of these zombie cells, so we, you know, we’ve I hope, again, that everybody’s seen this in a formula, because that’s the way I’m seeing it is, let’s slow down the production of A now let’s make sure our body can get rid of them and move them into apoptosis. So if we can’t get it through food, I mean, we can, but you’re gonna have to eat a lot of it. You all have come up with a really cool a supplement that I’ve never seen. be so simple. And you take so infrequently. So can you talk a little bit about senolytics, and what you created, because I really want people to know this as a resource because you made it so easy for people.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, I love this product. You know, I’ve been taking it now for months, one time per month as a quote unquote, cellular detox. Yeah, it’s a blend of nine botanical extracts. So it’s completely natural. And seven of those are proven in terms of their mechanism. We know exactly how they work. Two of them are new. We’ve introduced them based upon their mechanism of action in the body, and how we know that they can disrupt those scat networks, those upregulated protein profiles that senescent cells express in order to reinstate apoptosis as it were. And so it’s a really interesting blend when you look at pills, they glow yellow, because they are just rich in these polyphenols, especially phi Sciton, which I’ve talked about at that therapeutic dose, which is 1400 milligrams. And when you get into senolytics, and you get into the studies and what’s been done at the clinical level, it’s it’s very interesting because these substances aren’t consumed continuously. They’re not designed to be used every single day to make sure that you’re just hitting those senescence cells day after day. There’s this idea, it’s called the hit and run strategy. And so the great majority of studies that have been successful today, they use intermittent dosing, which is, which is to say that they they do this very short term protocol, and then they push pause to give the body a chance to rest retire. And so that is the most successful regimen that we know of when it comes to senolytics. And so you do infrequent periodic dosing, hit the body hard, and then stop, let it relax, do what it needs to do. And so this product is it’s just two days per month, very easy to do, it’s not a big ask, you know, people can do this on top of any other supplements that they’re presently doing. And you do six pills on day one, six pills on day two, followed by at least four weeks break. And then generally speaking, I will say, you can actually get that by more if you want, you can do it every single month. But depending on your age, and your need and your health status, you certainly can space that out so that you’re focusing on a seasonal regimen, you know, once every three months, or maybe just doing a one time per year, just do this cellular detox every spring one time for two days. So it’s fascinating. It’s really

Dr. Mindy  

fascinating. I honestly, the first time I heard about this product, I was like, wait, you only do it two days out of the month, like how can that work? And and then we’ve been testing it within our community. And it’s been really easy to do, like you said, but the changes are profound, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of detox symptoms, which is always a concern that I have, when we start moving things that are not good in the body, you want to move them out. And again, we’re back at people noticing better energy, we’re back at the gray hair, we got some feedback, the gray hair change, skin changes, I don’t know what else your community has seen. But in our reset Academy, as we have laid this out and brought it to our community that the results have so far been pretty amazing, very quickly, within a month or two.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, and we see a few products that are out there in the marketplace that maybe have one ingredient, which is which is fine. But we wanted to take a very thoughtful approach here. And we know that senescence cells are heterogeneous meaning like they’re, they’re not all the same. And so they’re wildly diverse, they express different proteins that turn off apoptosis. And so there’s no one thing that will touch all of the senescence cells in the body. And so it’s important to have multiple ingredients when you’re doing that, that short term dosi to target the widest network that can in the body. So that’s number one. senolytics are also not equally active in all tissues. And we know this, but we know this is a blend of botanicals right. And we know that botanicals tend to have some specificity for tissues. You know, we know that gingko as an example has, has an affinity for the brain. We know that bilberry has an affinity for the eyes, Hawthorn berry for the heart, milk thistle for the liver. And I mean, on and on and on and on. And so that is a fundamental idea of botanical medicine is that they have this affinity for different organs. And so it’s important then that you’re giving multiple ingredients so that you’re hitting more tissues throughout the body. And so that’s why we’ve combined these nine together to create a unique formulation. And I will say what excites me the most is the fire button. I mean, we’re giving that 1400 milligram dose when you go on to clinical trials.gov and you look at the studies that are using Pfizer 10 The great majority of them are using that 1400 milligram dose. And they’re doing that that intermittent today protocol. Yeah. So we’re we’re deeply aligned with what’s happening in the clinical space right now.

Dr. Mindy  

And that that break I just want to say for everything you know, I think in the health movement, and we’ll just call it the biohacking movement. What’s happened is that when we find something that seems to be like this incredible tool for giving us energy, better mental clarity, you know, all the things that we’re going for make us happy. We’re like oh, if a little bit good, a lot better. But the more we I studied the human body, the more respect I have in how the body wants to always come back to balance And if we keep throwing more of the good stuff at it, you actually now tippet out of balance. And so I’ve that was probably the most impressive thing when I heard about your analytic product was like you take it two days, and then what you’re I want everybody to understand as you are honoring them that the body knows what it needs to do. And that is the deepest form of respect and love, you can give the human body instead of just throwing everything at it, hoping that it’ll do what you want it to do.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, I mean, the Costco mentality is, is widespread throughout the American mindset. Yes. Which, which is funny. I mean, even if you get into as an example, the probiotic space,

Dr. Mindy  

oh, yeah, it’s a great example. Great, go ahead.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

It started with like, you know, 1 billion Cfu. And now, all the products are like 100 billion, you know, it’s like this big marketing point. And the studies show that it’s actually doing harm at that dose, you’re not getting the benefits that you want. And so it’s all about balance. It’s that Goldilocks principle that we talked about, you know, and this idea of hormesis, you know, more is not better, too little is not better, you got to find that sweet spot, which is right in the middle. And you got to honor the body’s innate intelligence, not override that. And so I love that this, the whole field of senolytics, right now honors that. And that’s, that’s the idea, because it makes a lot of sense

Dr. Mindy  

to amazing, you know, in fast like a girl, it’s been really interesting to watch the changes that women are getting, and it’s been a lot of comments of like, I finally was able to lose weight we’ve had so women getting their cycle back, we’ve had women getting pregnant, who couldn’t get pregnant. And it’s the same principle we’re talking about fasting was this incredible tool, but then the whole world took it to an extreme, and it started to damage women. And I would say the same thing was, as we learn about these zombie cells, let’s all keep in mind that the goal isn’t, let’s attack as many as we can get rid of them as aggressively as we can. But to really honor that the body just needs some assistance sometimes, and then you just back out. And now the you know, the body can handle it on its own. One question that did come up in our community is, is there matter a time of day you take this analytic product? Or does it matter if you’re doing it in a fasted state or not? Would you get an amplified effect? If you do it aren’t when you’re already in a state of autophagy.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

You can use senolytics at any time of day with or without food. I personally have been using it on a weekend. First thing in the morning before I consume food. I haven’t seen too much giant digestive complaints from individuals using the protocol. But anytime you use botanicals, that’s always a risk. And so clinically, if I’m given out a botanical on it, it does create some kind of digestive complaints. I would say just take it with food. So the efficacy is not going to change one way or another. It’s just find the time that works for you. And use the product.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s almost so simple. You could discredit it.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

I agree. It sounds far fetched. Yeah, it really does. But, but it’s it’s mind bending,

Dr. Mindy  

ya know, and,

Dr. Nick Bitz  

and you did ask, you know, what are we seen as a compliment from our community? I mean, we’re, we’re at the center of a large biohacking community. And we have people that are trying things out, including our products, and we get a lot of input from them. You know, we did run a couple of studies to date, we run studies on all of our products before we go to launch just to look at tolerability, efficacy, just to make sure that it’s providing the benefits that we’re claiming on the product. And again, to our our conversation earlier, there is no biomarker, you know, we can’t do a blood test before and after, unfortunately, but but there’s ways to test outcomes. And we know that joint health is probably the number one outcome that people experience, especially the older that they are. And so we studied it and 12 I’m sorry, 19 individuals, we did three different cycles. And we got that we kind of shortened the gap between the sessions. So we did every two weeks for three cycles. And we felt we use what’s called Womack, it’s kind of the most validated test for arthritis testing. And we found that it we saw a 50% reduction in joint stiffness and joint comfort. Wow. And so it was pretty profound in terms of the benefit it had on joints in particular. The second study that we ran, was looking at it’s called the SF 36, which is basically this quality of life questionnaire. And it was amazing what we saw we did see benefit from the physical symptoms that people were noting. But the greatest improvements were around emotional health and psychological wellness, vitality. things that you wouldn’t really associate with a very physical protocol like senolytic. And so I would say the range is big. I know I personally noticed a shift in brain fog, there just seems to be a clearing, which has been very pleasant and very nice because, again, the cells that are around the neurons in the brain, they can become senescent over time and lead to a lot of different cognitive imbalances.

Dr. Mindy  

It’s, well, I’m so grateful you created this product. And I’m so grateful you created it in the cadence that of two days a month, because, you know, after a while, when you’re dedicated to your health, there’s only so many supplements you can take. And I’m such a fan of lifestyle, start with lifestyle supplement in and out. And this just works perfectly with that. Before I launch into my last question, how do people find this product and I and we’ll leave links at the bottom. But if you want to try it out, again, you know, the proof is, is in the product. So I would encourage you all to try it. So where can people get this product? And I think you guys have a discount code for

Dr. Nick Bitz 

Yeah, that’s right, neuro hacker.com/dr Pelz is the best place to find product. And we are offering 15% off all qualia products presently. Beautiful appreciate that. We sell all all qualia products, they’re what’s called qualia senolytic, there’s a ton of information on the website, we are an education first company. So we write up monographs for all of the ingredients that we use, we create blogs that that really line up, like our thought process about how we formulate products. And so for senolytic, no different there’s a lot of information there about the science as well as the thinking that went into the formulation. And then beyond our website, we do have a podcast called collective Insights, where we have some really interesting conversations there. And were found on all the social media platforms as well.

Dr. Mindy  

Awesome. And we’ll leave links in the in the show notes here. So with that, we’re going to take a totally different turn in this conversation. Because first year, I’ve been really focusing on people’s self love habits. And I’ve been really wanting people to amplify their superpowers. So tell me, do you have a daily self love practice? And what do you think your superpower is that you bring to the world?

Dr. Nick Bitz 

Wow, those are great questions. I would say my morning routine in general is is my act of self love. I do well therapies every morning. And this has been something I’ve been doing for years. I know my my 10 year old daughter makes fun of me because she gets ready in about two minutes flat. And I take about 30 minutes, you know, I take my time every morning. And I like to, you know, walk into my mornings very slowly, very mindfully. And I like you know, having a regimen doing the same things that I know are promoting health. And so the oil therapies that I do are really twofold. The first one is in either Vedic will massage called ABI UNGA. And oblonga is a Sanskrit term it just means self massage. It’s it’s traditional the IR VEDA, they recommend doing it every single day, it’s typically done before you get into a shower. Well, you start at the head, and you move all the way down to the feet, and then you pay special attention to the feet because they are the gateway to the energy channels that are known as noddy’s, which really facilitate the energy flow throughout the body. And of course, we know that there’s specific pressure points on the feet to that have relationship to various organs and systems in the body as well. And so type B

Dr. Mindy  

type Oh yeah, what type of oil D is

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, so So you should always use body type appropriate oil. Pyruvate is always personalized. The first step in any Ayurvedic regimen is figuring out your dosha or your body type. And so for me, I use sesame oil which is which is great, it’s it’s, it’s really oily, it’s very seeding, it’s very nourishing, so it’s fantastic for my vata there are two other oils that are recommended. If you’re a Pitta kind of the fire element. Coconut oil is recommended. And then if you’re a kapha, which is like the heavier set big boned individual, they recommend a mustard seed oil. And so generally speaking, sesame oil is good for most people. So when people ask me what to use, I generally we’ll recommend starting there and you can read about it online. There’s there’s a lot of videos about how to do that. And additionally, I’ve started doing oil pulling. Oh yeah, love oil and light in the mouth. Yeah. And so for that, too. I use sesame oil, the same oil that I use for the body. My swish it around my mouth for 15 minutes and it’s just amazing. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah. Okay, I love that. That was really good. Okay, and then what’s your superpower?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

i My superpower why? Oh, I would say equanimity. I have been a longtime meditator in the Vipassana Buddhist tradition. And it’s all geared around building equanimity in the mind that kind of even killed mindfulness where you aren’t reacting to everything. And it’s not always there. I feel like I’m strengthening that element that almost like a muscle on a daily basis, and I’m getting better, but I’m able to sink into that even killed state and not react so violently over time. And so I think that’s probably my, my, my superhero power at this stage.

Dr. Mindy  

Well, we need more humans that are not reactive on this planet. So, you know, I think we should all follow your lead, because compassion can happen when we take a moment to pause and not react. So that was so beautiful. Dr. Nick, I, I’ve loved this conversation. I I really geek out on a toughie, G and you you just helped me sort of expanded into a whole nother level. So thank you for everything you guys are doing. And any any last words that you would encourage people that are looking to turn back the hands of time?

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yeah, I mean, I would recommend aligning yourself with products that are tried and true. Don’t use everything under the sun. Yes, I would say that not all products are designed equally. Not all brands are designed equally. But but do try products. I do think that dietary supplementation can be incredibly beneficial for your mind and body. Start using them on a daily basis. Use your body as a laboratory, figure out what works best for you align yourself with an adaptogen find one that works for you. That’s right for your body type, whether that’s ashwagandha, or rhodiola, or ginseng, or Shatavari, which is a fantastic botanical for women use these on a daily basis to really just buffer the effects of aging overtime.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, I’d love it. Well, thank you. Appreciate you and I can’t wait to talk to you again. So we’ll figure out what we could do this again. This was wonderful love.

Dr. Nick Bitz  

Yes. Thank you for having me on. Appreciate it.

Dr. Mindy 

Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.