Aging Strong: Lifestyle Medicine for Longevity

Aging strong with lifestyle medicine is possible, but most people are stuck in a reactive healthcare model that waits for problems before taking action. In this episode, Dr. Darren Clair, MD, explains how to use lifestyle medicine to prevent chronic disease, reduce reliance on medications, and build long-term vitality. This conversation is for men and women who are tired of being told that fatigue, pain, and declining health are just part of getting older, and who want to take control of their health before things start to decline.

We walk through what it actually looks like to create your own “health instruction manual,” using foundational habits like whole foods, movement, hydration, recovery, and mindset to support resilience and longevity. Dr. Clair also unpacks overlooked drivers of chronic illness like inflammation and hormone imbalance, along with practical ways to support your body and, when appropriate, reduce dependency on prescriptions. If you’re ready to stay strong, sharp, and capable as you age, this episode offers a more practical and empowering path forward.

Chapters
0:00 Rethinking What Counts As Normal
0:52 Proactive Health And Lifestyle Medicine
2:50 Why The System Rewards Sickness
5:10 Focus On Vitality Not Disease
15:10 Becoming Your Own Health Advocate
20:21 Why Doctors Skip Nutrition Basics
22:31 Inflammation And The Body’s Healing Power
25:37 The Myth Of Inevitable Medications
30:44 The Human Owner’s Manual Explained

If this episode gave you a new perspective on your health, please leave a review to help others find this information.

New episodes weekly.

NewNormalBigLifePodcast.com

DrStellaMD Marketplace
Immune-boosting protocols Premium all-natural supplements Telehealth + wellness consultations

Ready Hour & My Patriot Supply
Best price on US-based preparedness and long-term storable food. Shop now with my affiliate link.

BeRootedIn
RootedIn: Magnesium Cream. Shop Now With My Affiliate Link

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Rethinking What Counts As Normal

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So many people that come in to see me, especially in their 50s and beyond, they have just been trained to think that their high blood pressure is normal. That the fact that they have aches and pains in the morning is normal. The fact that they're taking half a dozen or a dozen medications is normal. But it doesn't have to be that way. You know, you can have a big life, and that should be the normal without medications.

Proactive Health And Lifestyle Medicine

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Welcome to the New Normal Big Life Podcast. We bring you natural and integrative health information and stories about nature that we hope will inspire you to get outside in adventure, along with a step-by-step plan to help you practice what you've learned to create your own new normal and live the biggest life you can dream. I'm your host, Antoinette Barrafato, the wellness warrior. Let's get into today's topic. Welcome to New Normal Big Life, Dr. Darren Claire. Why don't you tell us who you are, what you do, and the one big idea you want to leave us with today?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

I am a physician and MD, practicing what I call proactive health for the last 24 years now. And so I have programs that are designed to be proactive. In other words, programs designed to have to help people to get healthy and stay healthy, as opposed to waiting until they're sick to to uh try and you know get better, which is the current medical system. The one big idea I'd like to leave with people is that good health is our inheritance. And we can all have good health and better health, no matter where we are right now in our journey.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

I love how you put that. And I've talked to a few experts who've all said that recent research reveals that 90 to 98% of our good health and longevity comes from lifestyle choices. What are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yeah, I would totally agree, Antoinette. And that's why I went ahead and got certified in lifestyle medicine a number of years ago, because it was just such a natural fit with with that very statement. And it is a fact. I mean, honestly, the universe, God, superior intelligence, whatever you want to call it, has had two million years to design this perfectly. Unfortunately, it wasn't like a plug and play. It's like you have to, what I call in my book, you know, Creating a Life of Vibrance, you have to read the instruction book if you want to have good health. But that instruction book is simple things like get regular physical exercise, get enough sleep, eat whole clean foods. You know, simple things like that are what we need to do to get the most out of our genes to maximize our health span.

Why The System Rewards Sickness

SPEAKER_02 2:42

And so you've transitioned from a traditional reactive model of medicine to a proactive lifestyle-based approach. Can you tell us the difference between the two models?

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Well, you basically hit it on the head, Athmanette. The way our medical system has evolved, it's all about insurance reimbursement for your visits, your procedures, your medications. And the insurance companies only pay for when something is broken. So when you go to a doctor and you just, you know, you don't have anything seriously wrong, they kind of look at you with this kind of weird look. It's like, well, well, why are you here? Right? Because that's not what they're designed to do. They're designed to help people who are already sick, which, you know, to me is kind of silly. It's like we don't treat our cars that way, right? Generally, we like to get our tires changed before we get the flat tire at, you know, midnight on a strange, you know, stretch of highway, right? And we get our oil changed, maybe not as often as, you know, is recommended, but we don't wait until our car breaks down generally to do something about it. But we do that with our bodies.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

So you it sounds like preventive maintenance on our bodies is what you're talking about. And I love that concept. What inspired that shift in your practice and philosophy?

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Well, you know, it actually has always been my philosophy. When I first went into medicine, I wanted to do it more along the lines of what at least used to be the Chinese model, where people, at least in those days, which is now 50 years ago, would pay their doctor when they're healthy, but when they get sick, people would no longer pay their doctor. So that was, to me, a system that made sense. We as human beings have incredible intelligence and imagination and wanna, and we also like to be successful financially and everything else. So if you reward a doctor for keeping people healthy, he's gonna think of a lot of ways to keep people healthy, right? But if you reward him for treating sickness, he's gonna find a lot of sickness, right? Choose your path. I would rather stay healthy.

Focus On Vitality Not Disease

SPEAKER_02 4:54

It's it's kind of like the old adage: if if your doctor only has medication therapy and surgery, then that's what they're going to offer you. If you're your contractor only has a hammer, then everything's a nail, right? So when people think of preventive health, they often think of lab tests and uh, you know, what does my blood work and stool say? But your approach goes beyond that. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yeah, well, for first of all, Antoine, I I specifically like to characterize it as proactive health as opposed to preventive health, because I do think the universe gives us what we focus on. And if you're focusing on I don't want to get cancer or I don't want to get heart disease, chances are good you're gonna end up with one of the two.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

You'll attract it into your life.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

You attract it into your life, exactly. But if you focus on I want to live a long, healthy life where I can still get down on the floor and play with my grandchildren when I'm 80 years old, you have a better chance of getting there, you know, with that flexibility, that capability. So anyway, that's always been my feeling. But like I say, I started out wanting to do the proactive approach back then, and I think it still is this way, is that the idea is you go to a doctor when you're sick, the doctor sees you and arrives at a diagnosis as quickly as possible, because he's got a bunch of other patients to see, and he prescribes a medication or a procedure which takes the minimum amount of time and then is on to the next patient. And that's that wasn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to really educate people on this thing called the human body and how to run it properly for years of good health. And so I decided, and this is not meant as a slight on family practitioners, but I decided that it's not what I wanted to do. And not knowing what else to do, because that was my plan, I actually decided to go into anesthesiology because I love physiology. I love science. And anesthesia, you have a lot of science every moment. So it was very rewarding that way. But also I had small children, so I was able to spend quality time with them when they were young because I could, you know, determine when what days I was going to work and that sort of thing. So I can go to their AYSO soccer games, I can, you know, go to the parent-teacher conferences and all that kind of stuff, which was great. But it wasn't really my passion. And what happened, Antoinette, not just to kind of shorten the story here, as I was doing anesthesia, sometimes on patients, you know, having emergency surgery in the middle of the night, which is I don't care who the anesthesiologist and who the surgeon is, is high risk. You know, you're putting your life at rest.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Certainly.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

And it occurred to me that nobody was really telling these people if you had made some better choices, you might not be risking your life right now. And it occurred to me that, you know, that's our system is just not doing it and it's probably never going to do it. And so I figured, well, if nobody else is doing it, I guess that's what I should be doing. And so that's why I started Vibrance Medical Group dedicated to educating people about how to maintain good health without the need for medication.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

You know, Dr. Claire, it's kind of rare in my health experience. And just for anyone unfamiliar, I am a traumatic brain injury survivor. I also survived a broken back, and I had a lot of health complications as a result of the type of allopathic treatment I was given. So a lot of the medications cause my kidneys to fail, cause lymphedema, cause a whole host of things that doctors then said you're going to be on these 20 medications for the rest of your life because you can't reverse the things that have happened to you. And I said, that's not going to be my story. So just like you said, I became my own health advocate. I took my health in my own hands. I went back to more traditional methods of including natural medicine, nutraceuticals, as well as allopathic or conventional medicine working together. But I took the driver's seat, not my doctor. And when I did that, I noticed a few things. I went from using a walker, a service dog, and a full-time caregiver to now I'm a sponsored whitewater kayaker at 58 and people think I'm 35 all the time.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Good for you. That's fantastic. That's fantastic. I love those.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

So what you're seeing makes a hundred percent sense to me. And I've seen it not only in my own life, but in my resilience life coaching business with other people who were just like me, very, very sick. And what I noticed now is that and to be honest, I'm trained in anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, battlefield medicine. I also do repel out of helicopters and off buildings and down mountains. And I'm an infection control and disease prevention officer. So to be fair, I do know quite a bit. But when I go into my doctor's office and I try to talk about what I'm eating, drinking, the supplements that I'm taking, and my other lifestyle choices, they don't want to hear it. They don't even understand the words that are coming out of my mouth. They don't know what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Right. Yeah. And, you know, it's unfortunately the way they are trained. You know, medical school, you get a couple of hours in the four years on nutrition, even though pharmacology along with pathology are the two biggest courses that last all year long and are multiple hours every day. You don't get anything on herbs, you don't get anything on vitamins and minerals, or even just healthy eating habits, anything like that. Nothing on exercise. So it's not surprising to me that they have no idea what you're talking about and they're not interested because they just want to do what they know how to do, which is prescribe medications. It should be, it should come after more natural things are tried.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Absolutely. And you know, for just a quick example, when I was dealing with widespread chronic inflammation, which could be very serious because it can injure vital organs, the first recommendation was you need to go on prednisone. Well, I did not want that 100-pound weight gain, right? And and deforming my face, you know, to give me that moon face. I said, give me 30 days to naturally boost my glutathione levels and my C reactive protein or my inflammation markers will come down. And in 30 days, I went back to my doctor and it was down by 20 points, and he wanted to know what magic I used because he's never seen this without using prednisone.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Well, yeah, and I see that all the time. It's, you know, the body is just so sophisticated and so complex and so amazing. You know, I love these biohackers. It's great what they're doing. And but honestly, they are like cavemen compared to the sophistication of our bodies. You know, I mean, even things like exercise. Well, you know, you can NAD, I know it's real popular right now. People are getting NAD infusions and shots and whatnot. And NAD is great. But you know how you can boost your own NAD? Well, I'm sure you know. How about exercise? You know, actually you can do it on your own. You don't need to go to a doctor. You can just put on your tennis shoes and go out and boost your NAD levels. Variety of other benefits at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

In your practice, do you have some examples of the biggest kinds of misconceptions that people have about long-term vitality?

Becoming Your Own Health Advocate

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Well, I do, and I'll share a couple, but this brings me up to something which I wanted to mention earlier. But I love the title of your podcast, The New Normal Big Life, because so many people that come in to see me, especially in their fees and beyond, they have just been trained to think that their high blood pressure is normal. The fact that they had aches and pains in the morning is normal. The fact that they're taking half a dozen or a dozen medications is normal. But it doesn't have to be that way. You know, you can have a big life, and that should be the normal without medications. This idea that the only way you're going to get there is by taking medications. It's so unfortunate because it's just not the case. But we can't have a big, normal life. Even no matter where you are now, it can still, you can still have a new normal, big life. If you just start what I call reading the instruction book, doing what we are designed to do to maximize our genetic expression. So, so yeah, so I mean, honestly, you know, things like that. Many patients come in with high blood pressure, and you know, within a month or two, they're off it. In fact, one interesting story I always love to tell, my a a good friend of mine is a professor of uh in anesthesiology at Johns Hopkins Medical School, one of the best medical schools in the world. And he was a little bit overweight, he had diabetes, he had high blood pressure, he was on insulin and a couple of different blood pressure medicines. And his doctors, you know, one was a professor of endocrinology at Johns Hopkins, and his blood pressure was managed by a professor of cardiology at Johns Hopkins. So, you know, some of the best in brands, if you will, doctors, you know, that he could possibly have. And they just told him, look, you're gonna be on these medications, kind of like the story you had. You're gonna be on these medications for the rest of your life. So just get used to it. Anyway, he and I had a conversation. I he started coming to me and literally answering it in six weeks. I had him off all his medications, the insulin and his blood pressure medicines, everything in six weeks. Just like, okay. Now these are, you know, the people that published all the papers who are have all the credentials, and just a little old me here in Southern California, and I'm proving them wrong. It was always like that.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

And what's interesting is I went from 20 medications that doctors said I could never get off of, but I did tell them that I'm going to step myself down off them using my own knowledge. I would appreciate if you would help me or at least monitor me. But if not, I'm going to do it on my own. And one doctor said, I'm going to send you for a mental health consult. Because reading between the lines, I must be crazy if I don't want to listen to her advice. But I did find doctors who would help me step down safely off those medications because it is risky to just quit. And now I'm on zero medications. I do have to manage my chronic health challenges and disability very carefully. But I don't have to do it with medication.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

There you go. Fantastic. Great story. Great story, Answari.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Yeah, again, it's you're reading the book, as I call it.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Well, I get to talk to experts like you every day, so it helps.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Wonderful. I mean, again, uh, no, it's it's it's unfortunate because you know, doctors have been trained to do what their teachers did. You know, and so they they follow the rules again. Very good at following rules when you become a doctor.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Can you tell us more about your book? What can we find in it? Uh it sounds like it's an owner's manual for the human body.

Why Doctors Skip Nutrition Basics

SPEAKER_00 16:44

That's kind of what I intended it to be, Antoinette. Thank you for asking about it. You know, there are many excellent books on the subject of how to maintain good health. But what I have found, having read a number of them, is that often the doctors just get so caught up in the details of it, which to me is fascinating as well. But it can be overwhelming to the average person. The average person hasn't gone to medical school. So they can be so dense and so heavy with information that you get lost in the book. So I wanted something that was simple and that could be the average person could understand and could embrace and start incorporating some of it in their life. Uh so I made it again that way. I, you know, I provide some details, but not overwhelming amounts of details. And I just go into the different aspects of what is in your instruction book, which is eating clean foods when you're hungry and not more than you want, getting regular physical exercise. We are designed to be active. Hunter-gatherers, which we evolve from, they walk six to nine miles on average every day, which is a lot more than we get these days because we sit so much. You know, getting enough sleep. Our lives are so busy that the only time we tend to have downtime is when we're sleeping, which again is very different than our hunter-gatherer ancestors who had a lot more downtime than than we do. And their lives were much less stressful than ours. Our lives are so stressful these days. I don't care what you're doing compared to our ancestors. So we have less, we have much more stress and lower downtime. So as a result, we need to get enough quality sleep, not just seeing unconscious, but you know, slow wave sleep and the REM sleep are essential. You know, those are kind of the basics, managing stress. I do personally believe that, you know, hormones are a very important aspect of maintaining healthy hormone levels, is an important aspect of maintaining our health span. Hormones are, you know, are the big difference typically between when we're 25 and when we're 55. Typically, when we're 25, we do whatever we want. We stay up too late, we don't eat the best food, and yet we stay healthy. And yet, when we're 55 and we are going to bed on time, often early, we're eating better, we're trying to keep our exercise, and yet our health is declining. Well, a big part of it is the fact that our hormones have declined. And so maintaining not excessive, but healthy hormone levels is very important, especially for both men and women, but for women. Finally, even the American Medical Association has come out and said women don't have to be afraid of hormones. And it's thank God because estrogen is so important for a woman's brain, important for her skin, important for her heart, her blood pressure, for keeping her mucous membranes moist, so sexual intercourse is enjoyable, which is an important part of life, is having a good relationship, a satisfying relationship. The benefits just go on and on and on. So the fact that it was taken away from women for the last 20 years or so is to me was a terrible injustice. But I'm glad that there's some sanity in the world again, and women can feel comfortable having the hormones and really you know, enjoying the years after childbearing years, which are wonderful years, but I personally think that women bring a lot to the table. And so helping them stay healthy and active and sharing their wisdom is good for everybody, it's good for the world.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Amen. I agree with that a hundred percent. You know, taking care of your hormonal health, and I did it naturally, is so important. And I'm almost 60 and I've never had a hot flesh. So when people talk about having hot flashes and brain fog and memory loss and irritability, I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry that happened to you. Let me tell you what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yeah. And again, you go to the doctor and prescribe an antidepressed. It's like, that's not what's needed. That's not gonna help.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Because they're not addressing the root cause of your problem.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

They're just masking the symptoms so you don't feel it, but you still have that problem.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Absolutely right.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Talk about water. I I am a big um advocate of water. I like to swim in the water even when it's cold, you know, 40 degrees with a wetsuit. If it's colder than 40 degrees, I put on something called a dry suit and get in the water. It helps with the inflammation and also the arthritis that I have from my neck to my tailbone. Wow. And you get magnesium from the water if it gets on your skin. But you know, with forever chemicals, PFAS, P FAS in the water, a lot of people are becoming a little bit afraid of drinking water. And I've had conversations on the internet with people who say, I can't drink half my body weight in ounces of water. It'll destroy my digestive enzymes. Wash away my electrolytes. Talk to us about water.

Inflammation And The Body’s Healing Power

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Well, you know, I think uh in terms of the importance, I totally agree with you. In terms of this idea that you're going to wash away your enzymes, that's just lack of common sense and knowledge. In terms of things like the electrolytes, well, if you're drinking purified water that uh Coca-Cola Company has given you, yeah, that's that is empty water, right? But if you're drinking the water that our ancestors drank, which is spring water or that type of thing, or at least water where they put the minerals back in, then you're getting some magnesium. You're getting a variety of electrolytes that your body does need. That's one of the I see it all the time. People are just chronically dehydrated.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

Right. And chronic dehydration can lead to so many preventable illnesses. So really watch your water intake. It's very important.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. High blood pressure, heart disease, uh arthritis. The list goes on and on in terms of uh what dehydration can can cause.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Before we cover the next topic in this episode, I want to introduce you to the adventure sports lifestyle with a micro story about an adventure that I've had. The adventure sports lifestyle and my deep connection to nature is essential to my good health. So here's the story. Have you ever gotten in a boat with everything you need food, water, shelter, and kayaked from one state to another? I went from Colorado to Utah, but today I've taken so many trips from one state to another by kayak on a self-supported trip. This year will be my first solo kayaking trip, but I did that. I hope this inspires you to get outside and adventure alone with friends or the people you love most.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

I love that story. That's what I especially the fact that you started out with a group and now you're doing it on your own. Again, it just speaks to the fact to me that, well, number one, exercise is so important. It is important to do a variety of things, not just walk like a lot of people think. As long as I'm getting my 10,000 steps, I'm good. It's like, well, that's a good start, but that's really not what you need, you need more than that. But aside from that, I love the idea that so many people will come to me and because they've reached a certain age, they think, well, I, you know, I can't, I'm not as strong as I used to be, or uh, you know, whatever it is. And honestly, it's it's all in their head. You know, you can be very strong, very fit, like you are, regardless of your age. And I I just recently read about a woman who was, I think she was 85. I think she was a sister, you know, none, who climbed Mount Everest. Oh my goodness. Wow. And you hear about people who are in their 80s who are doing you know, triathlons and whatnot. It's like we sell ourselves short in terms of what we're capable of. So having you know examples of people like you is so important for people to to get you know to realize, hey, well, maybe maybe uh maybe I can do more than I'm you know just a 9,000, 10,000 steps a day.

The Myth Of Inevitable Medications

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Yeah. You know, when I first started with adventure sports, it was at the recommendation of my occupational therapist. So I was having trouble with word recall, anything that required focus, like this conversation or reading a book. And they recommended archery. And archery is a neuroplastic activity that helped retrain my brain for activities that require focus. And then next, they put me in a little plastic boat in a heated swimming pool and taught me how to kayak. And then in the springtime, we went out on the river and I started kayaking rivers all over in Wyoming and Colorado and Utah and throughout the Midwest. And it's become one of my favorite sports. And I've become a very accomplished kayak fisherwoman or accomplished kayaking angler. And I love introducing it to people who thought they could not get outside an adventure. But no matter your disability or your age or your mobility, stability, flexibility level, you can rebuild all of that at home doing exercises every day. And then there are lots of nonprofit organizations that will take you out on adaptive sports events. So I've climbed mountains with a teenager who was born without arms. I taught a woman who's never been out of her wheelchair how to kayak in an adaptive paddle board, mind you. And I work with veterans who've had an upper amputation or a lower body amputation, and they kayak with professional kayaking teams.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Wow. What?

SPEAKER_02 26:55

No matter your limitation, you can do an adaptive sport.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Fantastic, fantastic. And that's that's probably the most important thing people hear today.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Thank you. That's so kind. So for wellness warriors who feel, I don't know, overwhelmed or unsure where to start, what's one simple lifestyle habit they can start today?

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Well, you know, again, what I have found is you need to pay attention to all the different aspects of health at some point. And so it kind of depends on the individual. I would say if you're used to eating, you know, fast foods or processed foods, then I would say start with just one meal a week that you just eat just whole foods. Just start there. If you don't, if you haven't been active, I'd say put on your tennis shoes and walk out the door for five, 10 minutes, whatever it is. Just start is the main thing. Just start, right? And but the main thing is, as you know, Antonia, as you no matter where you are, you want to start at that level and you want to be consistent. And when you stay consistent, you will start improving in every regard. And before you know it, you'll be leading other people on kayaking trips and doing trips on your own and that sort of thing. But the main thing is, you know, just just pick one thing that you, you know, that you know you could work on. Don't have to start on everything. Just start with one. Start small, but commit to doing it on a regular basis. Dr.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Claire, how important is the mindset and you know, the way that we see the world and what we think about ourselves in the world? How important is that to our overall health?

SPEAKER_00 28:36

It's huge. It's huge. It's it's probably the most important thing because, well, I mean, as you know, your physical body affects your mind and your mind affects your physical body. But again, for so many people, like we've been talking about, they've just accepted that, well, I'm a certain age, so I can't do the these things anymore. And so again, the beauty of hearing stories like yours is that if people are truly listening, they'll go, well, what's so special about Antoinette? If she can do it, why can't I at least go for a walk or you know, whatever it is, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

And you know, I love the way you phrase that. What's so special about Antoinette? Because in my talk, when I'm on space on stage, I will say to people, there is nothing special about me. Everything that lives inside me also lives inside you. You just need to believe that you can do it. And in your mind, first create your new normal. And then every day, like Dr. Claire said, take one small step towards that new normal. And the next thing you know, you turn around and look at your life, and it's bigger than you ever imagined.

The Human Owner’s Manual Explained\n

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I but I I would actually flip it around, Antoinette, and I would say there is something very special about Antoinette, but there's something special about all of us. But we've been lead led to believe that we're these little, you know, beings that have no strength, you know, ability to grow and whatnot. An interesting thing I learned, which really impacted the way I think about health, was I I read a paper that was coming out of the University of San Diego Medical School. And they were looking at people in hospice, people who are about to die. And what they found was even at that very last moment, people are still making new brain cells and still making connections between those brain cells. So the body is up until the very last breath is trying to repair and heal. And that to me, that's like, wow. It's like we really, no matter what your current state of health, you can still get better.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Wow, that is so insightful, Dr. Claire. I've loved this conversation. Thank you so much for joining me. What more do you want listeners to know?

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Just know that better health is possible at every age, no matter where you are in the journey of health. It is a journey, it's not a destination. And if they're interested, I would love for them to take a look at my book, which kind of lays it out in simple terms on good places to start on that journey. My book's called Creating a Life of Vibrance. We can all do that. So thank you so much for inviting me to be on the show. I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

It's been my pleasure and wellness worries. You can find Dr. Claire's book in the show description with a link to where you can buy it directly and how to connect with him on his website and social media.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

The information in this podcast is not medical advice and should not be treated as such. Always consult your physician or healthcare professional before pursuing any health related procedure or activity.