Dr. Ian K. Smith: EPISODE LINK

BOOK: EAT YOUR AGE

TRANSCRIPT:

Colleen: Welcome back to Hot Flashes and Cool Topics podcast. Today we are talking with Dr. Ian K. Smith. Welcome to the show.

Dr. Ian: Thanks for having me. I’m glad to be with you

guys.

Colleen: Well, you know, I heard about your book, Eat Your Age and I thought that was such

an interesting title, it really catches, like okay that makes sense like we want

answers to questions to eat your age so we’re going to talk about that obviously in

the midlife realm women 50 plus but the book is called Eat Your Age:  Feel Younger,

Be Happier, LIve Longer why did you decide to write this book?

Well I wanted to write this book several years ago and my editor at the time didn’t think it was enough to put in a single book and so we had an editorial disagreement it didn’t

get published I changed houses not because of that but I changed houses had a new

editor and she loved the concept and so I’ve always wanted to write this book and

the reason why I wrote it was because so many people who were in their 40s and

50s and 60s plus would ask me why is it that I can’t eat the same foods as I

did in my 20s and 30s or my body’s responding differently to these foods. Why can’t

I move the same way I did in my 20s and 30s. And what I realized was that people

weren’t making adaptations. You know, our bodies change physically and physiologically

every decade. It’s just that’s part of aging. And people think or have thought that

the things that they were doing in their 20s and 30s, they can just keep doing

forever. And it just doesn’t work that way. And so, I wanted to write a book that

broke down per decade starting in your 30s. What are your top power nutrients for

your decade? What are the best and safest exercises? What medical screening tests do

you need for your decade? What are the medical conditions that are lurking around

the corner? And then at the end of each decade, I give a 30 -day customized meal

plan that will incorporate all of those power nutrients that are most relevant for

your decade of life. And so this is arguably my most comprehensive health book

because I just don’t talk about nutrients even though the titles each your age. I

talk about exercise too. What are the best exercises for your decade? What do they

do? And then I have QR codes in the book that people can use, hit with their

phones to get demonstrations of these exercises. Some exercises you’re doing your 30s,

you don’t need to be doing in your 50s and 60s and 70s, but you still need to

exercise. So what are those exercises and how should you do it?

Bridgett:- Yeah, that’s what I really liked so much about your book is that you broke down through decades and Colleen and I, like she said, our podcast usually has listeners in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond. And what really hit me is when you get in the 40s and the

50s in your book, you talk about, this is the time when things are creeping up on

you. Can you share some of those things that are creeping up on us and why 50s is

so important?

Dr. Ian: – Yeah, you know, 50s, well, let’s start in our 40s,

okay? 40s are a real time of hormonal changes and energy changes.

Changes in your energy demands versus changes in your energy supply, what you’re

actually able to do. Life is busy, family’s busy, career is taking hold for most

people. So it’s really a very tumultuous time in our lives. And what people have to

be mindful of is that the behaviors that they participated in in their 20s and 30s

are now starting to manifest, you know, in your 40s,

particularly your mid 40s, mid to late 40s. And so people need to be mindful of

the need to increase energy levels with things like antioxidants to be

careful of things like heart disease, early signs of heart early signs of heart

disease. So MUFAS, monounsaturated fatty acids, extra virgin olive oil,

avocados, examples. These are things you need to be mindful of. So in your 40s, I

think it’s the time to start saying, okay, I’m not exactly the youngest kid on the

block anymore. I’m also not the oldest kid either, but I’m in a transition phase.

What can I do now to set myself up so that in my 50s and 60s plus,

I’m not having early heart disease, strokes, type two diabetes, hypertension,

high blood pressure. So that’s why I look at the 40s, okay? Then you get into the

50s, which is my decade, by the way. And I’m very mindful of how I feel,

okay? I’m 55 and I’m not kidding you. I feel like I’m 25. I have the same energy

level. I can lift more weight than I did when I was 25. I really don’t have much

change. Yes, sometimes in the morning, I will feel a little ache here and there,

you know, but in general, I feel as active. Why is that? I asked myself.

Well, I think the biggest thing is, when I exercise a lot, people underestimate the

importance of exercise in your middle ages. They underestimated and we’ll get into

that a little bit, particularly in the ’60s plus and what type of exercises. But

the other thing is, I think about what I call my food vices, okay?

I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t eat much red meat anymore. I don’t eat a lot of

fried food. I don’t eat a lot of processed foods. I do like sweets,

so I do have my snacks. I bake and stuff like that, but I don’t overindulge. My

good friend Rachel Ray, when I was always on the show, she would always say to me,

“Dr. Ian, everything in moderation.” And yeah, almost everything in moderation. It’s

the 70 /30 rule. 70%, reasonably healthy, 30%, have some fun.

So that’s been my personal guide in how I’ve lived. And I think that people in

their 50s in particular need to be very mindful of how they fuel their bodies.

Fuel, food is medicine. And I think that people have a mindset where they resign

themselves to disease. They resign themselves to loss of function.

They resign themselves to a withdrawal from society. And that’s not, that’s not how

the way it should be, I think just the opposite. I’m trying to get people to

change your perspective and realize that aging is opportunity, not loss.

Colleen: – I love that. – How do you do? – You just gave so much information in that one question,

Bridgett:- No, that was wonderful. – Oh, it’s great,

it’s a great answer.

Colleen: – ‘Cause I think that we need to, you know, explore that a

little bit. So in your fifties, What foods, not necessarily should you avoid,

but should you kind of enjoy  today? I need to take this on a daily basis.

Dr. ian: – Yeah, so in Eat Your Age, what I do is I give you 10 of the power nutrients

per decade. And by the way, just for the record, some of the nutrients appear in

several decades, things like calcium. You always need good calcium, anti -oxidants,

always good. But when I think about the ’50s, I think about Two major things,

I think about gastrointestinal health first, okay, GI health. As we age,

our gastrointestinal system slows down, what does that mean? The one of the big

reasons or one of the ways our gastrointestinal system works is regularity. That is,

you’re able to digest food, move waste out of your system, that’s how the body has

to work to keep the body functioning well and don’t have a buildup of byproducts or

toxins. As we age, the gastrointestinal system’s ability to move.

Our gut is like a worm, by the way, a hollow worm. And it’s twisting and twisting

and moving to move things and to absorb. So you have the food in the gut,

you absorb the nutrients into the lining of the gut and you twist and move and

move the waste out. As we age, that twisting process, that movement slows down,

which means it’s more difficult to process to digest, which is also why,

as you get older, you should consume, and there are other reasons for this, but you

should definitely start consuming less red meat. Red meat is very difficult for the

gut to process. It takes a lot of work, takes a lot of time. And think about it,

If your gut is getting older and it’s not doing its job like it used to in your

20s and early 30s, and now you have this big bolus of red meat sitting in there,

your gut is in agony, right? Trying to figure out how can I get through this? It

will get through it, but my goodness, it’s sweating, it’s exhausted, it’s saying no

more, you know? So we talk about gut health, we talk about fiber. fiber,

the vast majority of Americans are not consuming enough fiber. The average person

needs about 20 to 35 grams of fiber on a daily basis, and most are getting

probably about 15 grams of fiber. And what fiber does is it keeps you regular. It

helps your gut, and that’s very, very important. So when I talk about 50s, I talk

about gut health, I talk about fiber. I also talked about heart disease and heart

health and blood vessel health. And so I think about omega -3s. Omega -3 fatty acids

are wonderful. They are delicious, beautiful, nutrient -dense things that we need to

eat more of. Now, why omega -3s? Heart health and brain health,

okay? extremely, extremely important. I talk about vitamin C. Vitamin C is critical

because of your immune system. As we get older, our immune system gets tired. It

just does. And the things that our body could fight off in our 20s and 30s,

it can still fight off, but not as well. And so what can you do to boost your

immune system? That’s vitamin C, peppers, tomatoes, all very important.

And so when I look at fifties, I think of immune system, I think of

gastrointestinal health, and I think of heart and cognitive health.

Bridgett:  – Yeah, and I love that you put in the book, you know, you have it divided into decades, but then in the back, you also have a 30 day meal plan, but you’re very fair in

saying, hey, this

You know, this isn’t something that, yeah, you’re probably going to look better after

you do it, but it’s for your health that you do it. It’s for your longevity. I do

love that it is in there like that. And I was curious if you could just share

some of the things around the 40s, 50s, 60s. You don’t have to do it all. But

really the most important foods in there that are there for those decades.

Dr. Ian: Yeah, it’s interesting. So I’m known for writing diet books, okay, I’ve written many

of them, but this isn’t a diet book. I’m glad that you mentioned that. This is

really a book about how do you eat better for better health, for longevity, for

happiness, for better quality of life, right? However, in my Facebook group, which I

have where there are thousands of people doing this together and I welcome listeners

and our viewers to join, it’s called Eat Your Age, which is the title of the book.

In the Facebook group, people are now finishing the first four weeks of the plan

and they’re reporting weight loss, which is such a beautiful added bonus. That wasn’t

my intent to do that. But what it says to me is that so many people are not

making the best nutritional choices. And by just changing their nutritional choices,

They are allowing their bodies now to shed excess weight and that to me is just a

wonderful and beautiful thing. In our 40s, for example, I talk a lot about the need

for vitamin D, vitamin D. Vitamin D is important because it helps the body absorb

the bones, absorb calcium and phosphorus and it helps the body to retain calcium and

phosphorus. And you need that for dense bones, particularly for women. 30s and 40s

for women, I gotta tell you, are critical for bone density. Because how you treat

your bones in your 30s and 40s becomes an issue in your 50s, 60s, and 70s.

And so vitamin D to me is really critical. Now, there are a lot of vitamin D

fortified foods that people can actually eat cereals or vitamin D for you.

Whenever you see the word fortified, by the way, it means added. They added it to

that particular food. So vitamin D fortified, juices, milks, cereals,

all those things. But also in chapter three, what I try to do because my whole

goal of this book is to make this as user -friendly as possible. I give you a list

of vitamin D foods, whether it’s things like dairy, fish,

you know, some mushrooms that have been in the sun for a long time can have a lot

of vitamin D. And so I think that people need to look and see what are these

vitamin D -containing foods and how they build a lot of it in their 40s. I also,

in the 40s, like to talk about magnesium. And magnesium is important for everything

from helping with hot flashes to helping with blood pressure. And believe it or not,

a lot of people start seeing an increase in their blood pressure in their 40s.

Now, it typically peaks 50s and 60s, but in your 40s, people start seeing those

numbers come up. So we talk about magnesium rich foods and people are surprised that

they’re probably getting magnesium don’t realize it. Broccoli, bananas, black beans,

edamame, oatmeal, peanuts, yogurt, salmon, soy milk. So those are the things that I

think about for people in their 40s. When I talk about 50s, I talk about the

fiber, right? So we talked about things like flax seeds, raspberries, popcorn,

by the way, has a lot of fiber in it. You don’t need all that butter and salt,

but air pop popcorn is great. Also, I want to mention chia seeds. Chia seeds,

if someone said to me, what is one food that has the most amazing nutritional

value? It’s chia seeds, fiber, protein, omega -3s,

low in calories, versatile. You can add it to puddings, smoothies,

yogurts, salads. It’s just chia seeds are nature’s wonder.

I’m telling you.

Colleen: – Okay, so the listeners need to go buy a bag of chia seeds.

Bridgett: – Yes, I have it in a container downstairs.

Colleen:  I just need to– – I know, I put them

in my overnight oats every morning. I liked, And I think it’s, you know,

making things in advance is really helpful as we get older because we have, I mean,

for anybody, really, but we’re so busy that we don’t have time necessarily to say,

“Okay, let me make this,” but if it’s already done, it’s easy.

Dr. Ian: Can I tell you something about overnight oats? For the longest, I thought the concept was not very

appetizing because I like oatmeal, I can cook, I like it warm, I’m from the

Northeast. And then I was writing the recipe because I wrote a recipe book for Eat

Your Ages called the Eat Your Age Official Recipe Book because so many people when

they get my books, they’re like, can you give us more recipes? So I wrote this

little simple book. It’s a paperback book, 150 recipes. All the recipes are in my

what I call my TASH system, Tasty, Affordable, Simple, Healthy. So it’s 30 minutes

or less, few ingredients and about less than $4 per serving of the recipe.

So I was said, let me do an overnight oats. Let me try this thing. And oh my

goodness, can I tell you? I felt like, first of all, I was pissed at myself. How

could I go all these years without eating overnight oats, right? Like, what was I

thinking? But then I’m like, oh my goodness, it’s so good. It’s so yummy.

It’s so convenient and it’s versatile. I put pomegranate seeds, chia or or

filling and it is packed with nutrition packed.

Bridgett:  Right I love it. I always there’s a

place in Florida that has them and always get them there and I’m like boy if you

are constipated that really helps out.

So we’re talking about flushing the system.

But it’s good for you but it also does if you are constipated hey. You know what

we all have our issues You know, but if you see me in Florida, you know what I’ve

been up to.

Dr. Ian: I’m going to tell you something. I don’t really talk about this very publicly. So I

had a bout with constipation. Okay. And I’ve always heard about it. Never had a

problem. Like I said, I’m in my mid fifties now.

Can I tell you how agonizing and uncomfortable? not just physically,

but mentally. Like I just kept thinking about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about

when is it gonna happen? When is it gonna happen? And what I realized was I was

dehydrated. I was severely dehydrated. I was not consuming enough water. I was not

consuming enough probiotics. It just, I was off. And ’cause I said to myself,

why is it all of a sudden that I’m having this problem? Well, duh, Well, duh, I’m

getting older, the processing’s not great, my GI system’s slowing down, I need to

help it. And so I really hope that people, even if you’re feeling great like I was

and everything was great, be mindful of your gut. It’s so critical, I’m telling you.

Colleen: – Well, our listeners know I was born with chronic constipation my whole life. So I

completely understand what you’re saying and it does get worse as you get older. So

anything that I think can help people process their intestines is thumbs up.

So thank you for, for addressing that. And another thing that I love about the book

is that each chapter is just filled with information that you really is easy to

digest, but so like you want to say, okay, I want to make note of that. I want

to highlight that. I want to star that. And one, you know, even in the second

chapter, you talk about knowing the hidden dangers that people don’t even think about

in their 40s, 50s and 60s. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Dr. Ian: Yeah. So,you know, there’s all kind of data that says, when do certain conditions

typicallystart? And when do they peak? And I wanted to provide people with an idea,

not to scare people, but I believe that knowledge is power. I wanted to get people

to realize, if you have your eyes and ears out for dangers that are coming,

you can better either avoid or handle the dangers. That’s the purpose of that

chapter, is to say, listen, just so you understand that during this particular

decade, these are the kinds of things that happen. And I want people to read that

chapter, for their decade, and then say to themselves, “Okay, so if these are the

kinds of things “that I should be mindful of, “then what kinds of things can I do

“to prevent them or stane them off?” And what I also try to do in this chapter is

I think that we throw medical terms around a lot but people don’t have a basic

understanding of them like what exactly is heart disease like okay heart disease

means something’s wrong with the heart but what you know there are different things

that can be wrong with the heart and so what I try to do is I try to give these

different conditions and some of the signs and symptoms once again it’s one book I

can’t give every single sign and symptom but This is kind of to get you going.

So you have a basic understanding so that when you talk to your doctor or when you

are online searching for things, you at least have a foundational understanding of

what the issues are. But when I think about my people in their 30s, anxiety is a

big deal. We didn’t talk about mental health for a long time. And now,

thank goodness, the lid is off And we can openly discuss it. It’s not taboo.

But anxiety is a big issue for people in their 30s. It can be very debilitating.

And it can be of a crisis level for a lot of people in their 30s.

And I think one thing that the pandemic taught us was the need to really take care

of our mental health.

My grandmother used to say, there’s a silver lining to every cloud, you know, and I found a

lot of silver linings in the pandemic, by the way. I thought that people better

focused and understood the importance now of work -life balance. You know,

I’m not a corporate guy, so I don’t work for a company. I work for myself. So

I’ve always had a whole at home work life, which has been absolutely fantastic. I’m

extremely productive, but I was so excited for other Americans to get a chance to

be home during a regular work day and work from home,

but also have the ability if you want to take a 30 -minute nap in the middle of

the day. And I think that that meant a lot, and I think it did a lot for

people’s mental health. The idea of forcing people back into the office, I have my

opinions about that. I don’t know if we should return to that,

by the way, for mental health reasons. I think that we need to rethink how we work

as Americans. I really do, and I think that that’s impactful. Anyway, another big

thing for people in the 30s is iron deficiency, particularly for women.

Iron, of course, is the building block of heme, which is the protein in the red

blood cell that carries oxygen. So a lot of women and men, too, by the way, are

not getting enough iron, and that causes iron deficiency anemia. And so look out for

that in your 30s. When I talk about my 40s,

I think people should start looking at things like muscle loss.

If you’re not active, If you don’t use it, you start losing it. And men and women,

by the way, who are not physically engaging their bodies, start experiencing muscle

loss. Well, some people say, “Who cares?” I mean, it doesn’t matter. You’re still

able to walk. It matters a lot, actually. And when in ’60s, I’m really focused on

muscle gain, it matters a lot because muscles increase your metabolism, which prevents

weight gain. that protect your joints to avoid joint pain.

And muscles are important, by the way, for the strength of being able to lift your

foot off the curb and not fall and trip, which a lot of people in their 50s and

60s start to do because they have muscle imbalance. So I talk about in your 40s,

muscles are extremely important. And of course, for women, perimenopause. I mean,

geez, hello, like, you know this is a big deal and my goodness I’m in the middle

of writing actually a menopausal book but I as a physician could not be any happier

that finally we can talk about perimenopause and menopause without feeling like we

are ostracized or weird or TMI it’s not TMI it’s part of aging like women go And

by the way, women are lucky to live long enough to be able to experience menopause.

If you don’t experience menopause, typically you’ve had not had a really good

outcome. And so it’s not fun, but it’s one of those transitions in life.

And my whole philosophy is I want women to embrace the transition rather than fear

the transition. See, the mindset we’ve given perimenopause and menopause for so long

has been one of fear or one of like, you know, strangeness or eccentricity.

Not at all. It’s it’s the cycle of life. And so perimenopause is a big deal for

people to start looking at in their in their 40s.

Bridgett: Right. And we appreciate you

saying that because that is the truth. It’s not a disease. And I always say, if

you’re lucky to live that long, you’re going to go through it, whether you have

symptoms or not, you’re going to go through it. And another thing that I really

liked that you addressed in there, you were talking about just the importance of

physical activity and exercise. And I really like in your book, how you put the

exercises in there. Like you said, you have the little QR code and you can check,

but that, I love it. Can you talk about how that is arranged and just some of the

things that are in there.

Dr. Ian:  – Yeah, so I’m a big proponent of exercise. And if

someone said to me as a physician, I could only write a prescription for one thing

for better health. I had to choose one thing, it’s exercise. Exercise affects every

organ system in the body, from the brain all the way to your toes and people are

not either exercising enough or they aren’t exercising correctly. So that’s why in

each decade I want to talk about what are the types of exercises you should be

doing and why it matters to you. Let’s talk about 50s and 60s if I can please.

This is very important to me. The biggest takeaway I want to give women and they’re

50s and 60s is this. Cardiovascular exercises or aerobic exercises are beautiful.

They’re good for your heart. They’re good for your pulmonary system, your lungs. But

you have to lift weights. Resistance training is gold as you get older.

What is at the base of resistance training? protein, protein,

protein, protein. Now, let’s break it down. Muscles, as we get older,

atrophy. They shrink, they become weaker. And you can still live,

obviously, with weak muscles. But think about the impact on your daily functioning,

okay? I was on the plane the other day, and a woman in probably her early mid

fifties was trying to get her luggage out of the overhead, okay?

She almost killed herself because it was too heavy. She had no control. She

couldn’t. And so I want women in particular to think about functionality and why

they need muscle strength. The other thing I want to say is we have to dispel this

myth. It’s nonsense that women are going to bulk up and become unattractive because

they got all these big bulky muscles. Listen, there are people who are in the gym

three hours a day who are training for big muscles and they can’t get them. It is

a true science and effort to get muscles. So don’t worry that by adding strength

training to your regimen, you all of are going to look, you know, no longer

feminine or not look attractive. Forget it. That’s nonsense.

You need muscular strength for daily functioning, for your metabolism and for your

joints. And the way you get it is two ways. Protein and lifting weights.

There are animal sources of protein. There are not animal sources. The book goes

into that for you. But here’s the key. How much protein, how much? You need between

0 .75 to 1 gram of protein per desired pound of weight.

What does that mean? Let’s say you want to weigh 130. That means on a daily basis

you should be consuming about 130 grams of protein. Not enough people are consuming

enough protein. They’re typically consuming about 40 % of the amount of protein that

they need. So in the book, I separate the exercises into body parts and into how

you perform them, pushing, pulling, complex, which means multiple kind of ways of

doing an exercise. And I give you videos so that if you’re in your 60s, I don’t

expect you doing burpees. I mean, you can, but you don’t need to do burpees in

your 60s, okay? And so that’s how the book is broken down. What exercises are good

and safest for your decade? How do you do them? And then the nutritional side of

the book says, this is what you need to do to fuel your muscles.

Colleen: – And I do really like the way the book is laid out because it’s so comprehensive. And you even talk about, like in chapter six, you talk about the top seven physical fitness

tests, which as soon as I heard physical fitness tests, I thought back to grammar

school and I was like, ah, really? But these really are like, you know, single leg

balance. You know, we’ve had guests on that say, when you’re brushing your teeth,

stand on one leg and then the next day, switch to the other. These are so that we

age in a healthy way. It’s not so much about fitting in a certain outfit size or

As we get older, it’s to live a healthier, longer life.

Dr. Ian: Well, my perspective is this. What is going to make you happier as you age? This is just me.

Being able to physically do what I want to do. Being able to get from the TSA to

my gate without being winded. Being able to play with my kids and grandkids.

Hopefully I have grandkids. These are the things that I want to be able to do with

my life and I do not want to be physically impaired I don’t want to be compromised

in that way because that would impact me not just physically Mentally that would

really do something to me. And so the question is when you look at Where you are

you have to have an assessment of where you are in  that chapter six is so

much fun the purpose of chapter six and the fitness test is not to be demeaning to

you or to make you feel bad about where you are, it’s to say, let’s take stock of

where you are and what it means, and then let’s go from there to get you where

you need to be. So the single like balance is one of my favorite, by the way,

because I’ll tell you why. When I do that test with people, they say, oh, I got

this, this is nothing. I’m talking about people in their 20s all the way to their

60s. Of course I can do this test and almost universally they do not do well when

they have to do the closed eye part of the test. They’re like, what? Wait, wait,

wait. They’re like, let me do it again. What? These are the things, right?

And I love this test. But these are the things that people need to do to see

where they are. Whoever told you that brushing your teeth on one leg, that’s genius

because it’s balance training. And as we get older, we don’t do enough stretching.

We don’t do enough balance training. What I say is here’s a thing for you guys. If

you have shoes with laces, see whether or not you can stand on one leg, lift up

the shoe that want to tie and tie that shoe. If you can do that,

you’re in good stead. If you can’t do it, you got to work on your balance

training. Right. I like, too, that you add in there what makes you feel like, like

you said, I’m not trying to make somebody feel badly about where they are right now

because you put examples in there of people.

Bridgett:  I believe, is it after every chapter,

you’re always like, here’s an example of someone that this happened, and this is

what they did to improve it. So that helps a lot there too. And I do love too

how my favorite was the push -up one, because as I’ve gotten older,

I used to do the push -ups, you know, the full body out push -ups, but for those

test women, be on your knees. And I’m like, “Oh, thank you.”

Dr. Ian:  – Well,

you say thank Some of you said, “Hey, hey, hey, hey, we can do full pushups.” It’s

not saying, I wasn’t saying that women can’t do full pushups, but the way the test,

I didn’t create the test. The way the test was designed in order for the data to

compute, it’s a modified pushup. That’s just how they designed the test. But women,

of course, can do full pushups, but some women get a little upset thinking that I’m

implying that they can’t do it. Of course, none of them, not that at – Yeah, yeah,

it was just the reps. It was like, “Oh yeah, those reps, that’s okay, yeah.” But

it does give you kind of a baseline of something to work towards so that you know

if you’re deficient in any of how many you can do, it gives you a goal,

which is great. It motivates you.

Colleen: Also, you talk about top medical tests and what

numbers, which I thought was really important for people ’cause I don’t think know

what their, you know, blood glucose should be, their kidney function should be, all

that stuff. Why was that important to add to the book?

Dr. Ian: I feel like there are good

things and bad things about the internet and social media, obviously. I feel like

there’s so much misinformation out there and it’s so difficult for people who don’t

have experience to know whether the source of the information is credible,

or if the information is credible. And I wanted to provide a one stop shopping to

say to people, here are basic numbers you need to know.

Here are the latest reference ranges from reliable sources. So I wanna do the work

for you basically. So I want you to come to eat your age. I want you to read

that chapter and say, okay, now I have an idea if my cholesterol is too high,

if my blood pressure is too high, these are the numbers and these are the ranges.

Now listen, medical tests and numbers like anything in science change all the time.

So, you know, the diabetes association next year may say, we want to move the range

of what a normal hemoglobin A1C is. Okay, fine. But at least you have a starting

place. So that you have, because I believe that one of the major issues in this

country, when it comes to disease and lifespan is that lay people don’t possess a

basic knowledge of health topics, and they rely on others to do that.

Well, yes, listen, I have a basic knowledge of accounting and economics.

I’m not a Wall Street whiz, right? You don’t want me investing your money, but at

least I can understand when someone is saying that the stock has gone up, the stock

has gone down, da, da, da. People need better health literacy so that they can

understand what a doctor is saying, what a report is saying. Otherwise,

if you don’t have that health literacy, then like, you’re like, you know, a deer in

a headlight. You don’t know, okay, you know, whatever. Okay, okay, I guess. And so

that’s why I wanted to write that chapter to give people a basic foundation for

themselves and their family members. So when the doctor says, by the way, you’re pre

-diabetic, okay? This is your hemoglobin A1C. They could take the book and say, okay,

wait, let me look at this hemoglobin. So I did it. I thought that it was important

for people to have a good reference.

Bridgett:  I think it is important, especially now when

you have My Charts and you get these blood tests back and you’re like, what is

that? And now you have your book right there.

And that’s better too than even

Googling because when you Google, who knows what you’re going to get when you

Google. So it could be a frightening.

Colleen: Dr. Google can be a very frightening place.

We had, um, we had Dan Butner on to talk about Blue Zones and you referenced those

in the book too and one of the things that he talked about is the need for

community. And so I thought it was great and if you could talk a little bit about

your Facebook group because that offers that level of community where people can ask

questions and feel vulnerable and have someone’s and support. So can you talk about

your Facebook group?

Dr. Iam: I’m very emotional and committed about my Facebook groups and

let me explain to you why.

I spent my entire career trying to empower everybody.

Rich, poor, black, white, men, women, every race, gender orientation,

I could care less, politics, I could care less. My responsibility as a physician and

someone who’s been blessed to be able to understand all this complicated information,

I took on the responsibility of helping other people, whether I agree with them or

not, because we all have just one life. And what I’ve learned over the years is

that people are able to effectuate change better and sustain change when they have

community and support. Period. particularly when you talk about health topics,

which are hard, like losing weight is hard, making changes in how you eat and

that’s hard stuff. And what I learned years ago was that when I set up these

Facebook groups, people were like -minded. They had goals.

We want to be healthy. We want to fight diabetes, we want to fight hypertension,

whatever it is. And the beauty of these groups is that It is a kaleidoscope of

humanity. It is people of foreign countries,

U .S., races, ages, everything. And you go into these groups,

these, my groups, and there are people who are bonding and connecting. And they,

in regular life, their paths probably would never cross, okay? And the biggest rule

of our group is that we are in this together, that this is not a group for

politics, this is not a group for religion, nothing. This is a group of people who

say, “I want to eat better, move better, live longer, and be happier.” That’s it.

And so that’s the thread that binds all of us in the group. And I’m sort of like

the conductor like I kind of guide and I’m in but it’s really the people who make

long lasting friendships in the group I’m serious and the beauty of the internet is

you can befriend someone who lives in London and you guys can have a relationship

and a support system and so yes the name of the group is called each your age I’m

in there I have admins who’ve been with me for almost 20 years So they’re in there

answering questions. I answer questions and I do a weekly zoom like tonight where

I’m going to be answering questions, encouraging and supporting. But the data shows

that people who are able to have the most sustainable changes have a support system

and that’s why I try to provide. That is so great. That’s wonderful. Yeah. It’s

Bridgett:- So important. – It is, it’s amazing too, when you do something like that, if

somebody might find somebody that lives near them or go to a city where somebody

that met in your group was and say, hey, I’m gonna be there. You know, do you

wanna meet up? Or it’s amazing what that can do.

Colleen: – Connection and community, it’s so

important. And this book, it’s just wonderful. Thank you so much for writing it.

It’s really helpful and informative and it’s written well and adjustable. So we’ll

have the links in the show notes for the book. And thank you, Dr. Smith for

joining us today. We appreciate it. I love talking to you guys. I’m also for those

that are listening or watching on my Instagram. I give a lot of little health tips

and hacks. So my Instagram is @Dr. Ian Smith, spell the doctor out I a N Smith.

And I love what you guys are doing. I believe we are all soldiers in the fight

for a better life and no one’s more important than the other. And we all have an

ability and platform to help in different ways and it’s to lift collectively

everyone. So thank you guys for what you do also.

Colleen: – Well, thank you. And please

come back when you finish your new book. We would love to talk about it.