I have spent my entire career focused not only on how to save lives, but also how to extend lives. I have traveled the world covering global health crises, while also learning lessons from the happiest and healthiest people on the planet. I have operated on brains in war zones, and I have seen cutting-edge technological developments in my own hospital back in the US that change the way we think about our health—and change the way we treat and prevent problems.
Along the way, my appreciation for the human body and its amazing capabilities has grown, as has my fascination with what makes it optimally function. One of the most intriguing processes in that regard is autophagy. It’s a term you have likely never heard, but the scientific community has been studying this for decades—in fact, in 2016 a Japanese cell biologist, Yoshinori Ohsumi, won the Nobel Prize for his research on autophagy. Literally translated, it means self-devour, which sounds scary, but it is the body’s natural way of recycling. When your autophagy is working properly, old and diseased cells are devoured or digested and then used to create energy and the building blocks for new cells. Dysfunctional autophagy, on the other hand, is linked to all sorts of age-related problems, including diabetes, cancer, and dementia.
Like most people, when you read this you are probably already wondering how to tip the scales in your favor.
And, that is why I “devoured” my friend Naomi Whittel’s book. It presents a commonsense, scientifically based program to maximize your body’s ability to repair its cells and fend off the damage associated with aging. Whether it is an autophagy-activating tea, figuring out how to exercise smarter, or finally understanding your sleep type, there are simple, cheap, and effective things we can do to increase autophagy and slow down the pace at which we age.
Naomi has been a leading innovator in the natural products industry. We first met when I began researching the merits of resveratrol, the compound found in grape skins and wine that has been linked to antiaging and disease prevention. Naomi and I then bonded over our conviction that deep within all of us is our ability to heal, if we just nurture the body to function normally. Armed with that belief, Naomi has traveled the globe in search of the purest and most potent ingredients, brought emerging scientific solutions mainstream, and helped countless people not just survive, but thrive.
Naomi is one of a kind, a wellness warrior. Besides her incredible success in the natural products industry, she has a gift for making complex science understandable and relevant. Glow15 is a product of her work with leading doctors and researchers to create a program that essentially hacks your biology to help you to look, feel, and perform your best.
Sanjay Gupta, MD
Chief Medical Correspondent, CNN