 Number one, here's one you probably never heard of fermented long pepper. What the heck is that? Well studies have shown that long pepper, look it up, a traditional Chinese spice herb has remarkably good effects on blood pressure. In fact, if you ferment long pepper, it is one of the more effective ways of lowering blood pressure. Traditional Chinese medicine has found most peppers contain a compound called piperine and you'll see also lots of supplements for instance turmeric will have bioparin or piperine added to improve the absorption of bioactive compounds like turmeric and so just the piperine or bioparin in long peppers has a benefit. Also there's some interesting studies on fermented long pepper. Anytime you ferment polyphenols, as you've heard me say before, you make them more bioavailable than if you took them in their regular form. Now the good news is your gut bacteria will ferment these compounds but if you ferment them before they get to your gut bacteria, you're one step ahead and will probably even improve the absorption even better. Okay number two, rosemary. I can't say enough about the benefits of rosemary. This was really brought to the forefront a few years ago by the study of the people of Aciaroli, Italy, a small town south of Naples on the coast of Italy that I visited. There are more people over a hundred years of age in this town than anywhere in the world as a percentage of population. One of the unique things about the Aciarolians is that they eat large amounts of rosemary. They chew rosemary. They use it in their cooking. Scientists, cardiologists particularly from the University of California, San Diego have found fascinating compounds in rosemary that may account for some of the benefit. One of course is rosmarinic acid. Rosmarinic acid is one of the most potent antihistamines ever discovered. Rosmarinic acid and curcitin, I give my patients with allergies and we've had remarkable success with both of those compounds. There's also a compound in rosemary called carnicinic acid and this actually dilates blood vessels. Studies and animals show it protects from myocardial ischemia, basically a heart attack. Rosmarinic acid has lowered cholesterol levels and rosemary extract in one study has had a mild diuretic effect. As most people know one of our first treatments of high blood pressure is giving you a diuretic to lower your blood pressure. So those smart Aciarolians are doing a lot of great things for their heart just by adding rosemary to their diet. Now you can go and chew rosemary. It certainly has a pungent flavor. I like it. I cook with rosemary a lot. You can even add dried rosemary when you're cooking just about anything or even think about getting it fresh and sprinkling it on your food. Worst comes to worst, get yourself some rosemary extract capsules and you'll be fine. Basil. Basil is part of the mint family and basil in ancient Rome was called salvia and salvia was so named because it saves your life. Basil also has some very unique properties in lowering cholesterol, in lowering blood pressure. Basil is a great source of vitamin K, both vitamin K1 and vitamin K2. It's also a really good source for potassium. Potassium is one of the two main compounds along with magnesium that helps regulate blood pressure, that helps regulate heart rhythm. Whenever I have people with skipped heartbeats, extrabeats, the first thing I do is put them on a potassium magnesium supplement. Basil is a great way to get potassium into your diet. Now it's also great for your gut health. Basil is loaded with fiber and your gut bacteria as you've heard me say over and over again need to eat prebiotic fiber to produce compounds that affect your heart health. Things like nitric acid, things like hydrogen gas, things like believe it or not hydrogen sulfide, the rotten egg smell is actually really important for blood vessel protection. So get some more basil in your diet. Another easy way of getting basil in your diet is using basil seeds instead of chia seeds. And you may have seen my episode on zen basil, where basil seeds are just a great way of getting prebiotic fiber and the benefits of basil into your diet every day. Number four, garlic. I can't tell you how important garlic is for your health. High blood pressure is one of the key factors in heart health. And as many of you know, high blood pressure is out of control in this country. I can't tell you how many people I see on a daily basis who are our one, two or three high blood pressure medications when I first see them in my office. This is a very real factor. Now, interestingly enough, in 2019, a study published in Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine showed that garlic supplements helped lower blood pressure. Researchers in this study showed that the blood pressure lowering ability of garlic supplements would actually reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by 16 to 40 percent. Not bad. Now, also really exciting is studies of aged garlic extract have shown that the soft plaque inside arteries. And quite frankly, it's the soft plaque that causes heart attacks. But one study in patients, 55 patients aged 40 to 75 were tracked taking an aged garlic supplement for a year. The researchers found that those who took the supplement had an 80 percent reduction in soft plaque. And quite frankly, I take an aged garlic extract every day for exactly this purpose. I recently had a patient who does not exactly have a healthy lifestyle. Let me put it that way. Very overweight, very insulin resistant in his early 70s. Despite my best efforts, continued his unhealthy lifestyle. One day, he developed very severe chest pain, was taken to the hospital, taken directly to the cath lab. And lo and behold, he had absolutely no plaque in his coronary arteries. And the cardiologist was shocked. He came back and brought his film with him to show me. I was shocked until he opened his mouth and said, you know, one thing I never told you, I chew two raw garlic cloves a day, and I have for the last 40 years. And what do you think? Maybe I did something. Well, an anecdote is an anecdote. But again, giving people aged garlic extract pills dramatically resulted in reduction of soft plaque. And my one patient, I can assure you, is going to continue to chew his garlic cloves every day. Before you put that big slice of turmeric into your smoothie, listen up. You know, we all know I'm a great fan of spices. They offer many unique health benefits. And they're absolutely delicious. Now, you probably heard of the one I'm going to focus on today, but I guarantee you, you'll be surprised by how much this spice has to offer, but the ways you've got to use this spice to get the benefits from it. Now, after you listen to this, you might want to go grab a big bowl of curry rather than throwing the root into your smoothie. What am I talking about? I'm talking about turmeric. Now, number one, turmeric is full of polyphenols. And if you've read my books, if you've listened to me long enough, you know that polyphenols are those compounds from plants that were designed by plants to protect their mitochondria from damage, from particularly sunlight and the elements. We, in turn, when we eat the polyphenols in plants, we actually don't absorb them very well. And that's the point of all this talk. You could eat the polyphenols in turmeric, particularly curcumin, and you will very likely not get any benefit from it because it is very poorly absorbed. And it's very poorly broken down by our gut bacteria into absorbable compounds. Now, what's interesting about that is it needs a helper to get absorbed. And remember I told you let's have a bowl of curry. Well, curry contains both turmeric, but also black pepper. And as I've written about in my books, there's a fascinating study in Singapore looking at people with improved memory as they get older versus mild cognitive impairment. And people who ate one bowl of curry per week had dramatic, better memories than people who did not eat that bowl of curry per week. And the reason for is the two essential ingredients to make turmeric work is black pepper and curcumin. So when you're putting your turmeric in your smoothie, please, believe it or not, shake in some black pepper. When you're adding turmeric for a seasoning, shake in some black pepper. You'll activate it. And when you're buying curcumin or turmeric as a supplement, either look for the presence of black pepper. The active ingredient is bioparen and look for that word or look for turmeric that has been activated and has been shown in a clinical study, a human clinical study, to be absorbed. And there are several active ways to make curcumin absorbable besides black pepper. But most of the time you're going to see the word bioparen. And if you see that, that's your key that you've got the agent to absorb it. Why get curcumin in your body? Number one, it's one of the few polyphenols that has been shown to cross the blood-brain barrier. Most drugs, most compounds cannot get through this barrier called the blood-brain barrier and turmeric is one of those rare ones. And that may explain why it has been associated with improved memory. Now, turmeric curcumin also is a strong mitochondrial uncoupler. That means it actually tells mitochondria to repair themselves and to make more mitochondria called mitogenesis. And it has the additional benefit in having mitochondrial waste fuel. And there are a number of studies suggesting that curcumin actually helps maintain a healthy weight or helps with weight loss through thermogenesis. Speaking of thermogenesis, there are numerous studies that show turmeric changes white fat into beige fat. Now, there are three types of fat. There's brown fat, beige fat, and white fat. The fat that we store fat in is basically white. It's fat. Brown fat is named brown fat because it's so loaded with mitochondria that it literally looks brown under the microscope. Brown fat is used to generate heat. In fact, when we're babies, we have a lot of brown fat in our body. And we use that brown fat to generate heat through mitochondrial uncoupling. Beige fat is white fat that's becoming more and more and more filled with mitochondria. So guess what? Turmeric or cumin actually makes that transition happen. And the more beige fat you have, the more brown fat you have, the healthier you are. And you've seen in my last books like Longevity Paradox, Energy Paradox, Unlocking the Keto Code, how important activating brown fat in beige fat is in your long-term health and longevity. Moreover, there's some good evidence that turmeric improves your mood. And who doesn't need a mood boost in this day and age? There are physical benefits with turmeric. It provides joint support. And there are several studies, human studies, that show that turmeric can actually improve mobility. So it's a win-win-win. Again, don't just throw a piece of turmeric into your smoothing. It's really not going to do much for you. On the other hand, throw in the black pepper, sprinkle it on your salad when you put it in. Use turmeric on just about everything you cook. Personally, I love it on chicken. Many Indian recipes use turmeric as that flavor ingredient for their chicken dishes. Make some curry. We've got lots of recipes for curry in all of our books. The benefit is you get the black pepper and the turmeric simultaneously. Here's a fun thing to do, sprinkle it on your goat or sheep yogurt or Oitu yogurt. Try it on coconut ice cream. It'll give you a fascinating kick. If you're worried about getting enough in your diet, take a turmeric supplement like I do every day and just make sure it's an absorbable form or that you've got bioparen on the label. Thanks so much for watching, but don't go anywhere. This next one is sure to surprise you. The turmeric group had reduced amount of cancer at the time of resection. Turmeric actually inhibits cancer growth in multiple studies. So have your turmeric. Have your curry.