How David Beckham & A Heart Transplant Survivor Plan to Stay Strong at 80 - Transcript

Sir David Beckham
When I retired, I thought that my body needed to just recover, and I stopped working out. My body fell apart. I'm aging exactly the same as everybody else's aging. It's really about how I wanna feel when I'm 80 years old, not right now.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Let's switch over you, Dawn, because your story is quite amazing.

Sir David Beckham
It's more than quite amazing.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
It was just a few weeks into medical school that I was diagnosed with stage four cancer, and they said you have three months to live and you'll never be able to have children. Ultimately, I had a heart transplant.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You were the first one to run a marathon within a year of having a heart transplant.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
When I took my first step, I thought, I think I made a big mistake. I was so decompensated. My calf muscles were literally indented. I had a three person assist and a rolling walker.

Dr. Mark Hyman
David Beckham is a global icon whose name is synonymous with elite performance. Over a twenty year career at the highest level of professional football, he redefined what longevity looks like for

Dr. Mark Hyman
an athlete. Now at 50, he is applying that same world class discipline to a new mission. Joining him is doctor Don Musselum, previously a Mayo Clinic physician who survived stage four breast cancer and a heart transplant only to run a

Dr. Mark Hyman
marathon one year later. Together, they

Dr. Mark Hyman
are stripping away the confusion of the wellness industry to reveal what it actually takes to stay elite at any age. So kinda walk us through a day in the life of David Beckham in terms of your health routine.

Sir David Beckham
I still want to live and feel like an athlete. Every part of my life, I treat as if I'm still playing.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
I think you should have him talk about his time in nature with his farm.

Sir David Beckham
This cockroach is the most handsome cockroach you'll ever see.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So how do you define health now for yourself? David, Dong, welcome to the podcast.

Sir David Beckham
Thank you very much.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, so great to have you both here. You both have health journeys and stories to tell. You as an athlete, you as a survivor of breast cancer and a heart transplant. And also, talk about how the average person can learn from the things that you've learned in ways that are remarkable. Both of your stories are extraordinary.

You know, one, you as an elite athlete who's learned how to take care of his health from the beginning and then continually improving even at this age. I think you look better now than you did in pictures when you were, like, 20.

Sir David Beckham
You now you sound like my wife. She says the same thing to me.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I'm a

Sir David Beckham
type And I and I don't believe her.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So You were kind of a scrotty little kid, though. I saw those pictures.

Sir David Beckham
That's that's very true. That's very true.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And, you know, you you came back from two impossible things, such as stage four breast cancer and a heart transplant, and you look fabulous and glowing. So everybody's gonna wanna know what what have you both done. David, let's start with you. You you obviously, everybody knows who you are. You're an elite athlete.

You're a football player, or as we say here, soccer player. And you you we're chatting earlier saying you've always been sort of paying attention your health, but you kinda also grew up on crap food, like pie and mash and sausages and chips in the, you know, East End Of London. And, like, it wasn't a thing, and, you know, you would go to Cheesecake Factory when you were playing. Get your pregame meals, and they give you a few bucks from the team to play. Tell us about how you've kind of thought about your own health as a as a player.

Because, you know, most athletes, when we're chatting about this, don't pay much attention to what they're eating. Mhmm. You know, some high performance Olympians obviously do, but the average people in Major League sports, you know, football players, basketball players, soccer players, baseball players, or the other football players Yeah. Tell football, you know, don't really pay attention. They're eating crap, and I've seen it.

I we were chatting. I've seen, you know, what players eat and, you know, friends have owned basketball teams or football teams, and I'll go in after the game. And, like, they're just eating, like, fried chicken and pizza and pasta and, you know, crap and burgers and hot dogs. And I'm like, if you have a, you know, million dollar racehorse, you're not gonna feed it McDonald's and Coke and fries and a milkshake for for a pregame Kentucky Derby meal. Right?

Sir David Beckham
It's funny you say that though because, you know, being an owner of a team, you know, I want my players to be healthy, I want them to be doing the right things, eating the right things, drinking the same things or the right things. And each player has to be treated differently. I learned that when I was playing in in AC Milan, you know, each player was treated differently after a game, you'd go and get you know, you go and have a blood test that tell you exactly how you how much you've run, what you need to do in the next few games. So, you know, every every every player gets treated differently these days. It wasn't the same when I was playing.

But I walked into our locker room, you know, last season a couple of times and players are eating pizza. Yeah. And I'm like, is this the right thing? And they're like, well, players just want something something. They don't want something healthy.

They don't want something that's that good for you. They just want something. And and pizza is the the the kind of food of choice on most of the players and that's right after the game. But going back to my upbringing Yeah. You know, I I grew up in the East End Of London.

My mom was an amazing cook. You know, my dad worked from 6AM till 9PM every single day. So my mom was the one that was home looking after me and my two sisters. Now, my mom, like I said, she without knowing prepared me for my career. Yes, we ate fish and chips.

Yes, we ate pie and mash. But that was really a kind of a treat at the weekend or a Friday night. I don't know whether you know that, but on a Friday night, it's tradition that you have fish and chips. Yeah. And I always used to go on a Sunday morning with my grandma and my granddad, not my granddad because he was he was working, but my grandma and we'd always go to our local pie mash.

Dr. Mark Hyman
But what is pie mash for Americans? I don't know Okay.

Sir David Beckham
So pie mash pie mash, I'll explain it. So pie mash is it's like a mincemeat pie. Yeah. It's a very basic mincemeat pie with pastry And then you have a mashed potato, but it's not your whipped creamy, you know, milky mashed potato. It is a mashed potato that is just mashed it's just potatoes and salt.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Sir David Beckham
And then here's here's the part where everyone goes

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's so bad.

Sir David Beckham
It's called liquor and it's a kind of gravy, but it's made out of stewed eels and parsley. And it's mixed together and it's this green sauce that is Eel like the lizard. I mean, that that Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Like snake thing.

Sir David Beckham
And then you and then you pile like pepper and salt and like chili vinegar, which is it's my favorite meal. That was that that would be my last meal.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's amazing.

Sir David Beckham
So so in all honesty, you know, those were treats. So we understood that those those are treats. But during the week, actually, and and the night before I would play on a Sunday morning, my mom would always make me like a piece of steak or a piece of grilled chicken and pasta. So that really prepared me for, you know, probably gave me the longevity in my career, you know, from a from a really early age, I was eating good things. You know, I might have the odd pie mash, fish and chips, but majority of the time I was eating good things.

So that really has completely changed now, you know, in the world of football or soccer, completely changed, know, the scientific part of, you know, eating and looking after yourself and wellness now has completely gone, you know, full circle in all honesty because like I said, when I was when I first joined Manchester United, we at lunch times, we used to have steak and chips or pie and chips, baked beans, and for dessert, we'd have a chocolate pudding and chocolate custard every every single day. Yeah. Every single day.

Dr. Mark Hyman
There are no vegetables in there?

Sir David Beckham
No vegetables. No vegetables. I mean, when you've got beans on your plate and chips, you know, we were, like, not worried about the vegetables. And the fact that I then continued I I went on and played till I was 38 years old. So I my I had a long career.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And what's the average football players?

Sir David Beckham
At that time, it was probably thirty two, thirty four if you were lucky.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Sir David Beckham
But nowadays, obviously, with all the science that's in with the teams now and the players, players, their longevity of their careers now is going some players are playing till '38, 4040 '1, 40. So players are longing their careers because of what they're doing to their bodies now.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And did you did you change over time in terms of what you were doing to maintain your health as you're playing?

Sir David Beckham
No. I was pretty I was honestly pretty consistent. You know, a lot of players obviously had to change because, you know, I've not talked talked about, you know, going for a pint, you know, on a Wednesday or a Thursday afternoon. You know, play I didn't used to do that, but players used to do that. You know, before a game on a Saturday, they would go and have 10 pints in in the pub on a Wednesday or a Thursday before a game.

Wow. You know, so Okay. I'm pints. But that I'm I'm I'm talking about thirty, forty years ago. I'm not talking about ten years ago.

I'm talking about that time. So it was a different and and players were still performing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
If I have quartz of beer, I'd be like on the floor. I know. I know.

Sir David Beckham
But that's really how I was able to you know, I I did adjust. Of course, I adjusted because I had to, but I was pretty consistent for my whole career. You know, players used to go away after the end of the season, come back and they would be heavy, you know, and and I was never like that. You know, throughout the summer, I always looked after myself. I never over ate, I never drank, I was never a big drinker in all honesty anyway.

So I was able to go away for four or five weeks in the summer, eat what I wanted, but I always looked after myself.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You trained.

Sir David Beckham
You know, the the the coach would always turn around to us and say, take four weeks or or just take two weeks and do nothing. I never did any nothing. I always did my training throughout those four weeks.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And that's that's how you stayed so long in the game?

Sir David Beckham
I think so. I think so. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And how do how do you sort of navigate this now, you know, being 50 in? Like, you're

Sir David Beckham
Yeah. 50. 50 last year.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's a big year. Right?

Sir David Beckham
It was a big year. A lot happened last year for me. So it was a special year last year. Yeah. Turning 50 was a a big milestone.

But to be honest, everyone made, you know, I think my mate my wife made a little bit more fuss about it than than than me turning 50. She turned 50 the year before me, which I always remind her about, obviously.

Dr. Mark Hyman
But she

Sir David Beckham
turned 50 the year before me. But I was excited about you know, I just treated it like any other birthday. It I don't feel any different. I don't I don't think I look any different, but few more gray hairs. But apart from that, no, it's

Dr. Mark Hyman
It hasn't made you think differently about your health because, you know, we're gonna talk about it in minute, but you created a new company, I am eight, which is about helping people create health on a simple daily regimen. And you recently launched the longevity product, which we're talk about, which I love. What made you sort of wanna think differently about your own health that led to kind of this?

Sir David Beckham
Like I said earlier, the you know, early on in my career, no one talked about the scientific part of looking after yourself or the wellness part or the supplement part or the vitamins part. No one talked about it. It wasn't really a thing that really got talked about. We didn't we weren't sat down and said and told to take certain things. But I always looked at the market as something really interesting, you know, and I always looked to what was out there, you know, and even before the end of my career, I started looking at things and what I could do to make my performance better, you know, on more on the holistic side than than any other.

So I was always looking for things, I was always looking for supplements, I was always looking for different vitamins and things and different smoothies and what I could do to kind of keep myself as healthy and keep, you know, on that that level of of play and also level of professionalism. So when I started coming towards the end and after my career, I then started to focus, okay, I've been an elite athlete for twenty two years. Now I'm not an elite athlete, I still want to live and feel like an athlete. I still, you know, every part of my life I treat as if I'm still playing. Yeah.

You know, I wake up, I have a schedule, I'm very regimented on what I do every single day, what I take every single day, how I look after myself. If I've got if I've got an important day, you know, one day, I will still go to bed at the right at the same time as I as I did when I played football. So I continued to treat myself and treat my body like when I was playing. But I looked at what was out there and, you know, I had so many people come up to me and say, it's just so confusing. What do you take?

What do you do? What do you put in your body? And I'm like, well, I want to be able to turn around to someone and say, okay, this is what I take and I want it simple. And it's one of the things that I spoke to Danny Jung about when, you know, when we first started the conversations, I said, all I want is simplicity. I don't want to be taking seventeen to twenty tablets every single morning.

I want to put it in one drink and I want to put it in water and I'll mix it up and I want to take it and I want it easy and I want And you want

Dr. Mark Hyman
it taste good. Want it

Sir David Beckham
to taste good and I want funnily enough, that was one of my things.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, it does actually. I'm having some right now.

Sir David Beckham
It's gotta taste good and I wanna feel with it. I wanna feel an instant, like, impact. And and I must admit, it's the one thing that people say to us every single day. Like, the day after that week, they feel an instant impact.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So when you turn 50, do you think about your health differently or you're just like, I'm on the same regimen. I'm gonna act like I'm 20 and keep

Sir David Beckham
I I don't think don't What's

Dr. Mark Hyman
your like daily regimen that you you

Sir David Beckham
I don't think of my time at 50, I want to think of my time at 80.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. That's what I mean.

Sir David Beckham
Yeah. And and that's really why I'm doing the things that I'm doing now. It's why I'm I'm looking to the future rather than looking at 50 because I've done what I've done. I'm aging exactly the same as everybody else's aging. You know, I might have been an athlete for, you know, a long time, but I'm still aging the same as what you're aging, what everyone else's aging.

So, you know, it's really about how I want to feel when I'm 80 years old, not not right now because I've done what I've done to get myself to this point. I feel good, and and that's what I want to continue.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Amazing. Let's switch over you, Don, because your story is quite amazing and

Sir David Beckham
It's more than quite amazing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It's it's kind of like I I don't think I've ever met anybody who's had your story. And I also don't think I've ever really met anybody who looks as good as you who's had a heart transplant. You're a physician. You're you're trained in sort of integrative medicine.

You work at Mayo Clinic in, you know, teaching women who are going through breast cancer how to do that in a holistic way. You have been a patient, and that's led you on a health journey for yourself and made you so passionate about bringing this to so many people. And I think a lot of us who are in this field are like that. We've had some horrible thing happen to us. Regular medicine didn't figure it out, and then we had to figure it out for ourselves.

So maybe you could share a little bit about, as a patient survivor, like, what was what was it about your health journey that helped lead you to where you are now and this mission that you're on to to bring health to so many? And tell us a little bit about, like, what you went through.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
So thanks, Mark. And thank you, David. I know you're having to listen to this again. But it's powerful. And, you know, so often, I I almost, in the beginning, was embarrassed and a little quiet about sharing my story, but then I was getting so much feedback about how inspiring it was and giving individuals hope.

And I really wanna help move individuals beyond hope to knowing that they too can attain their vitality without pause and flourish beyond massive health care adversity, which is what I did. And and much like you, David, you know, I I lived a very healthy lifestyle growing up because my mom was at home. She cooked these healthy meals. You know? And that's a big part of it.

When you have, I think, a solid foundation of health and wellness, you have much better outcomes. And so this is a big shout out because when I work with women, a lot of times they're very inspired to wanna make change within themself. But then quickly, the next thing they say is, yes, but my husband's not gonna wanna do this. What about my kids? And this is really a big shout out that the earlier we start, the more likely you're gonna have a flourishing life regardless of whatever may come to you because we don't have total control over health adversity.

Even if you're living a healthy lifestyle, it's not to blame yourself. These things sometimes just happen.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. You didn't get breast cancer because you're eating crap or something. We live in a toxic environment, and who knows? You know?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
I have so many women that come in and they ask that question, why me? And that was one thing I never did. I never felt like I was in a battle or I was fighting this. I just trusted. You know, I looked for lessons, and I really felt it's like a morphete.

Like, this was really happening, you know, for me, not to me. But it was just a few weeks into medical school that I was diagnosed with stage four cancer, and it just And you

Dr. Mark Hyman
were how old?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
I was 26.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's crazy.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
So it was just really quite surprising that this was the diagnosis that had happened. And, you know, they came into the room. This was the year 2000, Thanksgiving weekend, and they came in. I had actually collapsed. They had to take me to urgent surgery.

I was in cardiogenic shock, 16 centimeter mass wrapped around my chest because I was misdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, misdiagnosed. Doctors really didn't think anything was wrong with me, but with the fast paced medicine that people don't just pause. And this was, you know, starting back in the February when health care was really starting to shift even back then. No one ever listened to my lungs. So I ended up getting diagnosed at a very late stage.

And so I had this massive tumor wrapped around my heart that was compressing the great vessels and that resulted in cardiogenic shock. They did a thoracotomy. The next

Dr. Mark Hyman
day That's when they crack open your chest.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Yeah. Just big massive surgery. And, you know, the next day they came in my room and they said, You have three months to live without chemotherapy, twenty months to live with chemotherapy. You have stage four cancer and you're gonna need to drop out of medical school and you'll never be able to have children. It's like all these absolutes.

And I thought, wow, you know.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's a lot to hold.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
It was interesting. You know, and I I remember just feeling very sturdy though and steady. I'd always had faith in God and believed in something bigger than myself, and I just trusted. You know? I was in medical school, so there was this element of curiosity, which was kind of an interesting psychology, but I I never fought it.

You know, I knew I needed to do the conventional therapy, so I went on to chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant, radiation therapy. Stayed in school the whole time. But when I had my knowing, the the great question you asked is how did you know you wanna do what you did? Is I remember during my bone marrow transplant, my oncologist was very special. Had a bicycle in my room.

Said You

Dr. Mark Hyman
had surgery. You had chemo. You had radiation. Yeah. And then you had a bone marrow transplant.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
And a bone marrow transplant. This is in 2000, so this was back when they just really gave you high doses of treatment to just totally deplete the immune system, and then they gave it back to you. So it's pretty powerful

Dr. Mark Hyman
By the way, just for people listening who don't understand what a bone marrow transplant is, essentially, they they destroy your own immune system, they they kill your bone marrow Yeah. And then they give you somebody else's bone marrow, which rebuilds your immune system and then hopefully will help you survive. But it's it's

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
That's a exactly right. You know, and this is with the City of Hope. This isn't a research study because they knew that, you know, otherwise, there's no way really to cure this cancer. And so that's what they did.

Dr. Mark Hyman
With a Hail Mary.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
It's exactly. It's a Hail Mary. So it was so fascinating, though. I kept my life the way it always is. I always wake up at 4AM.

I would ride the bike that was in my room. There was also a bicycle that my oncologist had at the nurses' station so I could sneak out, and it was in that sneaking out to watch the sunrise to go ride my bike at the nurses' station. Everyone in the other room Wait.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Wait. You brought a bike into the nurses' station?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
The the oncologist did. It was so cool.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Like a stationary bike.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Two stationary bikes. I had two bikes. One in my room for on the days that he really didn't want me to leave, he said, most mornings, everyone's tucked in the rooms. You're you're fine to come out. And I'd ride my bike and watch the sunrise every day for about an hour.

I mean, this is when my hemoglobin's were like six. You know, it was crazy. It was really fast.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Wait a minute. You you have to understand what she's talking about because I recently had surgery and my hemoglobin went to seven and I could barely sit up in a chair. And here you're saying you're riding your bike with that's when you have no blood in your body. It's like a third of the blood that you're supposed to have in your body.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
It is true. But, you know, I'm a smaller stature individual. I was very much into cardiovascular exercise, but you are too. Yeah. We each have our different reserves.

But I was very fit prior to my cancer diagnosis. I would do Camelback Mountain in Arizona twice. I'd go up, come down, go up, come down, and then I'd even run after that. So I was very fit. Had a high v o two.

So I had a lot of reserves. So when my hemoglobin was low, I would even climb CamelBak with like hemoglobin of seven. It was crazy. I just was very blessed to to have this high vitality. But you know why?

It's because I showed up for myself. Ate

Dr. Mark Hyman
my Right.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
I exercise regularly and we know exercise during chemotherapy is incredibly powerful. We know it improves outcomes. In recent colorectal cancer studies, know, like on par with the benefits of chemo. It's really important exercise. Know,

Dr. Mark Hyman
this is Exercise is whole medicine, yeah.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Exercise is just so, so important that we move our body. But I just remember looking out and seeing everyone else in the rooms and they were dying enough to stay alive, you know. But I describe it as I attained my vitality without pause and it was a lifestyle that made the difference. And I really do attribute that to why I'm here today. And unfortunately, those treatments were, ones that we really didn't know what they would do to someone.

They cured the cancer. What a blessing. Right? Because otherwise, they wouldn't be here. But they caused advanced heart failure.

So You

Dr. Mark Hyman
could cure the disease, but the patient died.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Yeah. Exactly. But it's it's another testament to the importance of exercise because when I was found to have advanced heart failure, my ejection fraction, I I don't think I've ever heard of one. Lower was 8%.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And you were walking around?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
No. I was actually ready to collapse. Was in cardiogenic shock again, and this was in the year 2003, so it was about three years after my omerch

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's like that's like for people in plain English, it's like basically about a seventh of what your heart should be pumping. If it can only beat and pump a seventh of the blood, that's what she had.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
It was really hard. And I had lived with heart failure for eighteen years.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's insane.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
You know, and I I remained in I finished residency, did a hospital fellowship, and heart failure, you get better, you know, you get worse because you overdo it. You get better. You get worse. There was a lot of procedures along the way and different interventions that they kinda would patch me up. You know, I'd work a little better for a while, and I'd kinda decompensate.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And the chemo is what destroyed your heart. Yeah.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
You know, it's really fascinating. Well, this is super cool science. So, you know, ultimately, I had a heart transplant, and they are investigating the heart and the genes in the heart and how this could have happened. And they identify something called the titan gene. And this titan gene is a gene that makes the myocytes, the the myo the heart cells very sensitive to chemo and radiation and childbirth.

And I was actually able to have a baby. And so I went into this end stage heart failure right after I delivered my child, so it was kind of like a triple hit. So most individuals, you know, if they have chemo, they're okay.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Wow. You had a baby and a heart failure. That's that's

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Been all three.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Now you're still smiling. It's so impressive.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Well, it's just such a blessing. And, you know, that's the the beauty of post traumatic growth. Right? When if you have adversity and you rise above, you know how hard life can be. And now it's like I live this seamless, just truly blissful, glorious life.

Just a life without resistance is so easy. Life is so easy now.

Dr. Mark Hyman
But you but you had a heart transplant in '20, '21. Right?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
It's the ultimate longevity hack, I must say, because I have a very young heart in my body. So I'm not recommending anyone else to do it, but I'm

Dr. Mark Hyman
And you were the first one to run a marathon, within a year of having a heart transplant, or were you the only one who's had a heart transplant who's run a marathon?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
No. There's been there's been other men. Actually, I don't believe that there's been a woman that's actually run it. I think there was one woman walked one, but it was many years after her heart transplant. So this is exactly one year after my heart transplant.

And after I said I was gonna do that, I thought, uh-oh. When I took my first step, thought, I think I made a big mistake. I was so decompensated. My my calf muscles were literally indented. I had a three person assist and a rolling walker, and I was just thinking, oh, I'm I may not be able to do this.

I was like, I've gotta try. So I applied all those pillars in lifestyle medicine.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You mean after the surgery, you're on a walker?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Yeah. After the surgery, you know, on a walker. I was on life support leave

Dr. Mark Hyman
But not during the marathon, you were on an on walker.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
No. I ran that hard, man. I shined. That was pretty cool. Yeah.

But, yeah, we have a cardio sports medicine specialist who's a cardiologist at Mayo, and they ran races with me leading up to the marathon. I trained very smart. The truth is I actually ran a marathon at the eleventh month because they we wanted to run one marathon just to make sure I would be safe in terms of public because we didn't want, like, cameras on me and she, like, dies. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, this sort of speaks to the really next question I have for you, which is you went through all this, which almost killed you. And these are serious diseases, you know, stage four breast cancer, heart failure. They're not really lifestyle diseases. I mean, heart failure was from chemo. How did it change how you think about your own health and investing in your health and your own sort of regimen for creating health?

And then how did it affect, you know, your thinking about what you're doing in the world?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
It's been so inspiring to be able to figure out how important lifestyle is. And I always was really fascinated with food. So I've always really invested in eating healthy, but sometimes it was a little too restrictive and it wasn't balanced and it wasn't with harmony. There was a little bit of turbulence. Maybe I was doing it out of fear where now I really, you know, eat to live.

And I embrace that in a way that it's it's enjoyable, and it's something that individuals should really try to do the same. I don't think that we should use fear tactics to inspire others to eat healthy. This is just what fuels our body. You know, you don't put we we've heard these analogies. You you don't put junk in a car, you shouldn't put junk in your body.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
I I mean, getting rid of the ultra processed food, and David, that's what you said was so important is your mom was there cooking dinner. You didn't eat fake food.

Sir David Beckham
I was lucky.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
That's most important thing

Dr. Mark Hyman
Many fish and chips and pine mash actually sounds pretty healthy to me compared to what most people eat today.

Sir David Beckham
But I'm talking about fish and chips and pine mash, and then we've got Dawn telling her inspiring story. It's

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It was okay.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Well, just really blessed. And exercise and movement, I always move my whole, you know, life and I continue to do that. So I think I was really blessed that I had this very healthy childhood that my parents really believed in. And it just set the stage for this to be just very natural for me in this entire transition. The one thing that I would say I really have to work on is sleep.

I'm not very good with sleep.

Sir David Beckham
Don't think

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
I'd rather be alive. Sleep is really hard. I sleep good, but I don't wanna sleep. I wanna, like, live. So that's my goal is find feel like I could replace sleep.

There's a there's a gene, and maybe we all have this, that you just don't require as much sleep. We think that these individuals can get restorative

Sir David Beckham
I definitely have that gene.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Do you? I think I

Sir David Beckham
need to. I must have that gene.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Yeah. I'm happy with four. I'm already

Sir David Beckham
I feel like I'm missing out when I'm sleeping. Feel like I'm missing something.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I know.

Sir David Beckham
Something's going on that I wanna be part of.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So the idea of you sleep when you're dead, life's too fun? Yeah. You're right. But you do but you do need to sleep.

Sir David Beckham
You do need to sleep. It's important.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
You do need to sleep for metabolic health. You know, so I think that this is actually a very important thing that we have to focus on. And when I was running that marathon, that was one thing I really was mindful of. And you said another really important thing, David, is that you're very regular with your sleep and you have sleep consistency because there's research now that says, yeah, that's important. 10PM to 2AM, you need that sleep.

That's like the critical hours if you can be really regular, especially over a lifetime. So but, you know, there's no magic bullet, but, you know, we all know in my background was in exercise physiology. And so I did a lot of research early on and we called it ergogenic aids at the time and that was nutraceuticals to support sports performance or peak performance, human existence. And so I really do believe in supplements as an adjunct to a healthy lifestyle. It's never gonna replace a healthy lifestyle, but even the healthiest of lifestyles just isn't enough anymore.

You know? You there's a lot of nutrient gaps. You know, the NHANES data, I you know, you talk about this often. It's hard to get what you need even if you're eating what you think may be an ideal diet.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You know, the what she's talking about talking about in English is this study that the government puts on called the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Essentially, it's a big study that's been going on for decades that tracks everybody in America on what they're eating and their health and their blood tests and their nutrition levels. And these studies find that over ninety percent are deficient or insufficient in one or more nutrients at the level, not that's optimal for health, but at the level that you wouldn't get a deficiency disease. So how much vitamin C do you need to not get scurvy? I think ten percent of Americans are deficient in vitamin C at the level that would give them scurvy or eighty percent are deficient in sufficient vitamin D or ninety three percent are low in omega threes and, you know, fifty percent are low in magnesium and zinc.

And, you know, it's like, it's a lot. And we're seeing this, you know, at Function Health, which is a company that, I cofounded to help people track their own personal health data. It's shocking. Seventy percent are low in the Quest reference range, which is the standard reference lab we use. And seventy percent are low in one or more nutrients at the level that's not the level I think is good or you would think is good.

Like vitamin D of thirty is not good. It should be 50. Or a ferritin or iron stores of at 16 is not good, it should be 45. Just between, you know, lower than 45, you'll get hair loss and fatigue and all kinds of sleep issues and other things. And, you know, omega three fats and vitamin D, and it just it's amazing to see the the problems in a in a population that actually is pretty health forward because they're actually going to do proactive things about their health.

So what about the rest of the population? You know? So I think I think providing basic nutrients is so important. But I I kind of I wanted to kind of loop back to because what you said kind of struck me was, you know, you're not doing what you're doing now to stay healthy at 50. You're doing what you're doing now to stay healthy at 80.

So kinda walk us through a day in the life of David Beckham in terms of your health routine, and and what are the foundational things

Sir David Beckham
you need do? That interesting. But I will tell you. But I will tell you. Obviously, I have four children.

So I have one my daughter who's 14 years old. She's still obviously at school every single day. So my mornings really revolve around getting her out of bed, downstairs, breakfast inside her. I wake up at probably 06:15, 06:30 every morning because I like to go downstairs, make sure everything's set up, breakfast, the fire's on, lights are on, music's on, you know, radio's on, the radio station that she loves. So and then she comes down around 07:30.

Victoria is up by then as well. So she's a kind of a an early riser as well. So she comes down around the same time as me. And then we wait for Harper to come down. She comes down.

She has breakfast. Most of the time, it's she has scrambled eggs or some cereal or some fruit. And then I drive her to school. You're the chauffeur.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Do wear a hat?

Sir David Beckham
I'm I'm I should get a hat because I am I she likes to sit in the back sometimes when she's got her friend, but no, most of the time My

Dr. Mark Hyman
daughter was like, don't talk to me. You don't know me. Like, just drop me off, like, a 100 yards from the tour of school.

Sir David Beckham
I'm I'm actually not there yet. She's not, like, embarrassed to me at the moment. So yeah. And even if she shows any of those kind of sides, I I I'm all over her. Like, I'll walk in, I'm kissing her, I'm telling her that I love her in front of her friends, her teachers.

No. But

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
so I but I love that

Sir David Beckham
time in the morning. I love you know, Victoria goes into the gym. She starts her session quite early. So she does, like, forty five minutes before me, and then we go in and we work out together. You did get it.

But I'll get to that. So I take her to school, I drop her off, and then obviously, I drive back to the house. I go into the gym and that's like my time with Victoria to to work out and laugh. I love to work out and laugh. And that's why I actually work out with my wife because she makes me laugh.

And I make her laugh apparently, but she's laughing at me rather than anything else. So we do about she does about thirty to forty minutes on the stair climber first before I get there. And then we work out with one of my close friends who's actually an ambassador for iMate, Bobby Rich. So he works us out and I mean, he loses his mind working out with me and Victoria because I'm very I Victoria always says that I Procrastinator. Yeah.

She she says I'm always trying to like talk to him about something to slow the session down, but I'm always taking the right like time in between each each each set. But she's like, okay, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. So she's always jumping on to so we work out together for an hour, we laugh a lot at each other.

And that's part of the routine in all honesty. Family, connection, love Exactly.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Laughter, exercise. You already like you already got like five really big health points. Yeah. You know?

Sir David Beckham
And then obviously Before

Dr. Mark Hyman
you even have breakfast.

Sir David Beckham
Before before we've had breakfast. So then we're working out and actually, there's one exercise which she actually cried once through this exercise because she found it so difficult. And every time I try and get Bobby to do it at least once a week because it makes me laugh. It makes me laugh to watch her go through this painful, like, exercise. But she does say there's exercises that I'm not very good at as well.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So anyway What is that exercise that makes you cry?

Sir David Beckham
It's just it's a it's a pull up, but, you have to slowly let yourself down. And I don't know what she was having a moment during during that session. And all of a sudden, I was like, you're not crying. You crying? And I made a big thing of it.

So but we laugh about it. So we work out together, we have a lot of fun. And then I go up to she goes up to shower and then I go up to make us a smoothie. We both have like a smoothie each with IMA in it and and she's obsessed with it. And and she's not easy to like change supplement.

Whatever she's taken, she's like very loyal to that. Yeah. Then when we started the IMA, you know, I think it was 2024 that I started taking it. She was she was very curious, but she was like, well, I've got my thing. It can't be as good as my thing.

Yeah. And I was like, well, you're gonna have to change at some point to show some loyalty to me. So, yeah, so she changed finally. But but then so we have a smoothie, I go up and shower, and then I head into the office. I I always eat at 01:30 every day.

I have grilled salmon, brown rice, vegetables. Then I have full day in the office. I go and pick my daughter up every day at 04:00 in which I'm I feel very blessed to be able to do that because not every parent gets that opportunity. I drive her home and then we prepare dinner and then, you know, put her in bed and then do exactly the same the next day.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Amazing.

Sir David Beckham
So that's it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's That's good. You're eating healthy, you're with family, you're laughing, you're connected. I mean, that that's it really. I mean, I think, you know, people don't understand that that it's not that hard, that it's just it's just a consistency, it's their daily habits, it's building a routine, and and and your sleep stuff is also important. Tell us a bit.

Sir David Beckham
Sleep stuff is really important because I think like me and Dawn just said, you know, I I've not really been I'm not great at sleeping, you know, like I always I I I just wanna be awake to be honest. But throughout my career, I was pretty good. You know, I always went to bed like 10:00 was the latest I went to bed the night before a game. And the games would always be at like either 03:00 in the afternoon or 04:00 or sometimes in the evening, but I would always go to sleep at the same time every single night and I always slept pretty well unless it was a big game where I was a little bit kind of not nervous or anxious, just excited. You know, I was I was not one of those nervous players, I was kind of excited about the game.

So, know, my my sleep these days is a lot better than what it was when I was playing and and that's down to Victoria. Victoria is always like you were in bed early, we're sleeping early because we're up tomorrow early. So I always try and get, you know, at least seven seven hours at least every night. And I know you need a little bit more than that, but that's that's pretty good for me. That's great.

So that has really been, you know, part of my kind of thing that I've really worked hard on. Because I when when we talk about balance, you know, in people's diets, in people's lifestyle, it's not just about, you know, what you take, it's about everything else that you do. Like we've just said, you know, I laugh throughout my workout. You know, I walk my dogs, I take my daughter to school. I do have pie mash every now and again, you know, it's it is about balance and we have to get that right.

It's about a number of things that we do and sleep is a big part of that, you know, and I have worked harder at that like I've had worked harder at drinking more water. You know, I was never great at drinking a lot of water but now I'm great at it apparently. But, know, you get up a few nights, few times during the night, obviously, but if you drink too much water, but I'd

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
I I think you should have him talk about his time in nature with his farm.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, yeah. Oh, that's right. You're a beekeeper. You're you're you're you're a gardener.

Sir David Beckham
My life life. Yeah. It's a big part of my life. Also medicine. Yeah.

Yeah. It's also

Dr. Mark Hyman
is this in The UK? You've got a

Sir David Beckham
This is in The UK. It's in in the Cotswolds down in the countryside. And I started I I you know, throughout lockdown after lockdown, I was like, okay, I wanna create our own, like, I want our own food. I want our own vegetables, I wanna be able to grow things that we eat every every weekend. So that's what I do.

So I created this farm that's grown and grown and grown and then we started obviously with the bees. The bees was the first thing actually. The bees was the first thing which me and one of my children came to me throughout lockdown and he was like, dad, have you seen these beehives on online? He said, let's get one. So we we we bought a we it was a flat pack beehive.

We we stayed up till four in the morning building it. And then I was like, do the bees I had no idea. This was my first time even thinking about bees and honey. And I was like, do the bees come naturally? And obviously, they don't.

You have to buy the bees. So you buy the bees and a man a man comes up in a white van and he gets out with a cardboard box and he says, there you go. There's your bees. And you're stood there holding this box of bees.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And you don't have a one of those suits on yet?

Sir David Beckham
No. Because they're all in the box still. So you've got this box of bees and there's 5,000 bees in each

Dr. Mark Hyman
box. 5,005.

Sir David Beckham
There's one queen bee and there's 5,000 bees. So I'm stood there. So then I contacted a local beekeeper and she's amazing. So she came around and her name's Helen, she's unbelievable. She came around as she said, okay, this is how it works.

We put the bee we put the bee suit on, we put the bees, transferred the bees from the box into the hive and and that's really how it it all began. But I must admit, I post a lot with my with my my my my stuff that I do in my garden because I have this amazing cockerel and I have this these amazing hens. This cockerel is the most handsome cockerel you'll ever see. I'm gonna show you a picture.

Dr. Mark Hyman
He struts around.

Sir David Beckham
He's so handsome and he struts around and he's gorgeous. He's so handsome. But one of the things that is that I that I I get a lot of comments from, I like to walk around my garden in bare feet, you know, not when I'm planting, but I I once was planting a rose and I was digging with yeah. Obviously, I was digging with no shoes on and no socks on and it didn't go down very well. So everyone was had a lot of comments about roses.

Because of the roses. But I love it. You know. It's one of those that I I always go down to the countryside for a day and just walk around in bare feet, walk around my garden, walk around the the vegetable garden and it's it's one of my big passions.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Being in nature is something we're all

Sir David Beckham
All organic.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Deficient in, you know, and eat it and eat the food. And I eat the food. Chickens eat the eggs?

Sir David Beckham
Eat the eggs. We have we have seven six hens, one cockroar. I have seven ducks. So we have duck eggs

Dr. Mark Hyman
Duck eggs.

Sir David Beckham
Duck eggs. We have we have some amazing apple juice actually at the house now as well. So we have apple juice, we have jam, plum jam.

Dr. Mark Hyman
From that from the trees?

Sir David Beckham
Yeah. Yeah. We have so many plum trees that I was just like, what am I gonna do with all these plums? So one weekend, Victoria came down and the table was like covered in these plums. She was like, what are you doing?

I was like, well, I'm gonna make some jam.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I love it. I love it. Wow. And Don, how about you? I mean, in terms of your your routine, I mean, you're you've been you're in your early fifties.

You've had two major illnesses, you know, that mostly would have killed people. And and you look like you're just starting your life. So what what is what is your sort of routine and nonnegotiables that you've kind of come to understand that are are part of, you know, essentials for your life?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Yeah. You know, I wake up at 4AM every morning. I love I I start my work early. That's when my mind is nice and clear. And I exercise in the morning, so I try to get a sixty minute run-in the morning.

I eat a whole food plant predominant diet, but for the most part, I've done that most of my life. When I'm traveling, I'll add in some fish here and there just because it gets hard to do whole food plant based, but I really stick to a healthy nutritional pattern, getting lots of vegetables and fruits. I really focus on that food diversity for the gut microbiome. I don't have a garden. I wish I did.

I'm just so inspired by that story. It's just very hopeful. It's something I I think I wanna do in twenty

Sir David Beckham
twenty first. Should.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Yeah. You've inspired. I don't if I can get roosters, but, yeah, this is pretty our heads is pretty exciting. So I I really live by what I speak to my patients about in my own lifestyle, but I have such meaning and purpose in my career. My work is not work.

It is my love and my passion truly. So I start my day typically about eight or 09:00 with patients, and I have pretty long days. I go pretty late. Research projects, you know, keep me busy. And I started the lifestyle medicine residency curriculum at Mayo Clinic.

And I'm medical director for employee well-being where, you know, it's so meaningful because they're people that saved my life. So to help them be their healthiest version of themselves, they're caring for our patients. So really to help them learn how to cook healthy, started a fitness center at Mayo Clinic. So our staff at Mayo actually have access to a gym that's open three hundred and sixty five days a year, seven days a week, twenty four hours a day, no charge. So it's pretty cool.

So they can go and exercise right on-site. And, you know, this is really cool. So part of that employee well-being, we're actually doing a 100 person randomized controlled study with the IMA. This is a high stress group of individuals. So it's gonna be fun to look at those nutrient deficiencies and, you know, those nutrient factors.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Them before?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Yep. We're large panel of testing. And and Danny Jung has really invested appropriate I mean, I don't know of any other nutraceutical company that dedicates resources to having a scientific advisory board as well as the research. So we're really excited about doing this study at Mayo Clinic, and we actually brought IMA on to Mayo Clinic's Mayo Clinic Ventures because we're not allowed to collaborate with outside industry. But in this realm where we're building product and helping to advance the science, we're able to do this.

So it's really exciting and it's fun to do it in the staff and the staff are really excited about it. You know, so we actually sell IMA in the Mayo Clinic pharmacy. A lot of my patients do really nicely with it. They love the flavor. They love the convenience like we talked about.

But it's really fun for me to be able to not just care for patients but help to optimize staff as well. So it's

Dr. Mark Hyman
been Yeah. Because health care workers are among the sickest in country.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
They really are. You know? And they're role modeling this behavior, which is so so critical. And, you know, I guess, you know, for me, winding down the end of the day, my daughter is in college now. She's 22, so, you know, it's easy to kinda work a little bit later.

And I try to go to bed by 10:00. You know, I don't get my seven hours late, but I just don't feel I wake up. I, like, spring out of bed. I don't

Dr. Mark Hyman
So you gotta wake up at ten. Wake up at four. That's a

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
I love my 4AM. Sometimes it's, like, 03:22. Like, this morning, it was 03:22, but I'm on California time, so we're allowed. It's really 06:22 my time.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Let's let's dive into some some some rap power questions. What's one habit that is sort of nonnegotiable that you you would never give up or that you maybe a bad habit that you like that maybe

Sir David Beckham
My one nonnegotiable habit that I to be honest, it's working out. It's working out because when I retired, I thought that my body needed to just recover and I stopped working out. I just sat and did nothing for I I planned to do nothing for six months because I thought my body has been through everything. It's been through surgery, it's been, you know, I've beaten it up over the the that that time. But it was the worst thing I could have done.

So from that day, was like, I'm always doing something. Whether it's Did you

Dr. Mark Hyman
do nothing for six months?

Sir David Beckham
I did nothing for

Dr. Mark Hyman
six months. And what happened to you?

Sir David Beckham
My body fell apart. My body fell apart. I I I thought that, you know, my back would feel better, my knees would feel better, my ankle, I ruptured my Achilles through my career. I I thought that the body needs to just recover and it was the worst thing I could have done. So so gradually I started getting back into, you know, cycling, I started, you know, boxing, I tried everything.

I tried everything. And then I found a workout that worked for me and and that's my non negotiable. I will work out every single morning. And if I if I'm traveling, I'll be doing press ups in my room, I'll do something. I'll always do something to just get my because it's not what I don't it's not that I don't care about what I look like, it's not all about that.

It's it's actually what mentally and how I feel. So that's my non negotiable.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I agree for me too. You know? Especially, you know, the the older you get, the more nonnegotiable it is.

Sir David Beckham
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Like, when you're young, you can get away with it. That's very true. You know, I've had many back surgeries. Mhmm. And to me, it's it's just it's just a foundation for It is.

Feeling good. If I don't, my back hurts. Yeah. And so I know I have to do it just for keeping myself going. And and and it makes me feel good, and it's just good for

Sir David Beckham
everything. Exactly.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. If you don't move, you won't. Oh, sure. How are you, Dawn?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
My nonnegotiable is waking up at 4AM because I just have so much I wanna do, including move. I have a lot. So it's it is my quiet time. So it's just so peaceful, but my nonnegotiable is 4AM earlier, actually.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So I mean, I love that if you go to bed early enough.

Sir David Beckham
Yeah.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Yeah. I do. I try.

Sir David Beckham
Like, ten. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I mean, I I love getting up early, and I love it quiet, and I love that, like, nobody's bothering me. It's like, you know, you wake up at five and at four or six, you know, it's like the world's still asleep, and you can have this moment. It's great. So what's what's a food you could eat every day?

Sir David Beckham
Oh my goodness. A food I can eat every day.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It could be pie and mash if you want.

Sir David Beckham
It it could be pie and mash, but it shouldn't be pie and mash.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
But it can, that's okay.

Sir David Beckham
Oh my goodness.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
I mean, when you when you do everything else right, it doesn't have to be about perfection, so

Sir David Beckham
The food I could eat every day. You know what? And it's quite controversial. A radish. A radish.

I love radishes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
The spicy radishes?

Sir David Beckham
Spicy radishes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
From the garden.

Sir David Beckham
From the garden. Yeah. From the garden. I I pull them, I clean them a little bit, and then I I love radishes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You need some of the dirt on because then you get some more probiotics.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
There you go. There you go.

Dr. Mark Hyman
There you go.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
You'll good adjunct to your IMA.

Sir David Beckham
Yeah. So radish.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
I like that. That's good.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You, Don.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Oh, mine is easy. The purple sweet potato. I just love those. They're glorious. You had a pack.

I'm like, they're so gorgeous.

Sir David Beckham
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Those are the Okinawan sweet potatoes. And and Okinawan is one of the blue zones where people live a very long time.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
So They have a 150% more anthocyanins than blueberries, that powerful I

Dr. Mark Hyman
eat them almost three times a week. Like, I they're in my house all the time. And if I can't find them in the grocery store, it's very upsetting.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
I and they yeah. You're right. Or they'll sell out or they're a little bit out of season. So there's a way you can grow them. You should

Sir David Beckham
I should grow them.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Yeah. Oh, you should grow them. Want some. I get messages from people in The UK. Where can I get purple sweet potatoes?

David Kackel has them.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Those are great. Those are great.

Sir David Beckham
I'm gonna have a long queue outside my house. How

Dr. Mark Hyman
about recovery? What's your most important recovery tool you use?

Sir David Beckham
IMA IMA actually is, you know, I've had a couple of things in the last couple of years where I've had to have, you know, whether it be nasal surgery or, you know, dental surgery and the one thing that I took every single morning and it helps me recover quickly was IMA. Other than that, an ice bath. I love ice baths. It helps me recover from actually, it it clears my head. It clears my head.

You know, even if I've not worked out, I'll I'll go and sit in an ice bath for ten minutes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Ten minutes? Yeah. What temperature?

Sir David Beckham
Well, I go in and out.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
It's That's really

Sir David Beckham
what? It's like two two degrees. Damn. Yeah. So it's cold.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You're like Wim Hofing. It's cold. Holy cow. I know, like, I don't know, like, somebody said I had, like, 6% body fat. And if I if I did that, I'd be, like, shaking for an hour.

Sir David Beckham
Well, yeah. You have to you have to have a shower close to to to warm your bones up. But but but ice bath ice bath seems to recover muscles, you know, my muscles and, you know, my aches and pains, and I love it. I love ice bath.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I have what I call a triathlon. It's a sauna, a hot tub, and a cold plunge on my deck. I love

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
my house.

Sir David Beckham
That's good.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I like that. It's yeah. You can come over and do my triathlon again.

Sir David Beckham
It's fun.

Dr. Mark Hyman
How about you, Dawn? What do you do?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Oh gosh. You know, I feel like my life is a little bit complex. I I feel like sometimes I get just so busy that and I recover really quick because of my nutrition. And so I find that my whole food plant based nutrition just has such powerful anti inflammatory properties that I can really just keep going. But I would say for me, it's not necessarily something I do every single day, but every three months I do a five day fasting mimicking diet with Prolon.

I I really and I'm not sponsored by them, but I really love that. And I use that fasting mimicking diet for my patients during chemotherapy actually, for their seventy two hour fast. So, I'm a big advocate for that. I'm not a good faster like daily. I like to eat as soon as I wake yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, you're a little thin, so if you're not fast like me, you'd kind of waste away.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
And I need energy. As soon as I wake up, I I am intuitive. I listen to my body like I would never get in that cold. Uh-uh. I get in the hot.

Sir David Beckham
You know? You're sounding like Victoria. Victoria's never got actually, she got in the ice bath once.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Oh, good for her

Sir David Beckham
because I really like to do it.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
That was love, by

Sir David Beckham
the It was love.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Good for Victoria.

Sir David Beckham
It was well, I I actually told her it tightens skin. I was like, it tightens your skin. She was like, okay. She was like, I'm in. I'm in.

So, yeah, she only did it once. She she didn't need it.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Bring on the wrinkles. Yeah. So so the fasting is what I would recommend. You know, I think that trying to get that twelve hours each night is great, but I just I'm not good at that.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It's hard. You know, it's it's what you said, think I wanna just double down on the anti inflammatory diet. It should be a sort of a nonocoshal recovery tool because whether you're a professional sports or whether you're just a human being wanting to live up and feel good, it's so important. And I think with my patients, see how much inflammation plays a role in their health, or disease actually, and how much an anti inflammatory diet can actually help them feel better.

And I created something called the ten day detox diet, which was just, you know, just the name of what I did for my patients. An elimination diet adds, It adds in all the healthy foods and the anti inflammatory foods and takes out all the inflammatory foods. And you do it for ten days. And people's lives are changed. I mean, not just they lose weight, but the inflammation goes out of their body, their skin clears up, their rashes go away, their joints feel better, Their headaches go away.

Their digestion gets better. And it's so simple. It's not it's just basically taking out the bad stuff, putting in the good stuff. And it's it's in ten days, we've done thousands of people. There's a seventy percent reduction in all symptoms from all diseases in ten days.

And it sounds like, like like, I'm hyperbolic, but, actually, that's what people find. And it's it's so quick. And I I just I would say people don't believe how how they can feel better. They don't realize how close it is if they just change a few habits. So hopefully, this inspires them to do some habit change.

So anti inflammatory diet, I don't about the ten minute cold plunge, but but the workout for sure. What what are you more strict about now at at fifth in your fifties than you were when you're 18 that you're you're sort of like doubling down on?

Sir David Beckham
Sleep and drinking water. You know, I I'm definitely stricter with that now. You know, I think that that's almost a non negotiable. It's almost sleep and water.

Dr. Mark Hyman
When you started to say drinking, was like, drinking? Wait.

Sir David Beckham
I had to correct that really quickly.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Sleep and drinking, Water. Okay.

Sir David Beckham
There was a little bit too much of a pause between drinking and water. Definitely not 10 points. And how about you, Dawn?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
You know, for me, it's sleep too, and I really work on that. I'm very intentional because I found out when I wasn't sleeping, my metabolic health was more deranged. It wasn't because I had a body composition. I wasn't sleeping. So we really do need to honor our sleep.

And, you know, a unique thing I find in my patients is so much sleep apnea that would have otherwise been not detected. That's not necessarily my situation, but this is just a shout out sleep hygiene is is something really to focus in on. So for me, it would be sleep too.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Sleep, agree. Sleep is important. Alright. So how how do you define health now for yourself, both of you? David, you start.

Sir David Beckham
How do I define health? To be honest, I want to obviously look after myself, but I want my family

Dr. Mark Hyman
understand mean to you? Like what is like when you think of health, what does it what does it represent?

Sir David Beckham
I think it represents everything that is in my life at the moment. And that really wasn't I'm not saying it wasn't as important when I was playing because when you're an athlete, you're surrounded by doctors, by nutritionists, by people that want to look after you and have to look after you. But now, obviously for a long time, I've been looking after myself in a different way purely because I've had to, you know. Of course, I have an amazing wife that does everything for me. You know, she makes my smoothies when I'm not making them for her.

So I have an amazing wife that does that. But my health, I've I've noticed how important it is for me because there's nobody else doing it for me other than myself and I have to do that. I have to do that. How about you, Don?

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Yeah. I think that's just so important. For me, it would be, you know, especially going through health care adversity, is just to wake up each morning and feel good, you know, and not have any resistance and impediments and things that are pulling you down, whether it's aches or pains or reduction in energy, shortness of breath, chest pain, whatever it may be, but just to live that life without those ailments. And I just find even in my patients during chemotherapy when they're taking good care of their bodies that they're able to attain that vitality. And then to use that vitality to really, you know, go after your meaning in life and then share that with others, and it just fulfills this beautiful purpose driven life.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I think that's really important, Don. I mean, know, a lot of people walk around with what I call FLC syndrome. You know, that is that's when you feel like crap.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
That's a

Dr. Mark Hyman
good one. And that and that, you know, that's something people think they have to live with. And, you know, the work both of you are doing, you know, that support things like IMA, healthy diet, exercise, sleep, it's not that hard. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks for doing the work you do in the world and making it a little bit better place.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem
Thanks, Mark. This is a lot of

Sir David Beckham
fun. Yeah. Thank you so much, Mark. Been a pleasure. Thank you.

Dr. Mark Hyman
If you love this podcast, please share it

Dr. Mark Hyman
with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at doctor Mark Hyman. Please reach out, I'd

Dr. Mark Hyman
love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to The Doctor Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Doctor Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Doctor Hyman show.

Dr. Mark Hyman
This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health where I am chief medical officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services.

If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness Center at ultrawellnesscenter.com, and request to become a patient. It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed health care practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the public. So I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible.

Thanks so much again for listening.