Hi everyone and welcome to a brand new episode of the FAKTR Podcast. I'm your host Jessica Riddle and as always thank you for tuning in. Today we're diving into a fascinating and timely topic as we kick off a new 2 part series with the incredible doctor Robert Silverman. Together, we'll explore HealthSpan, the real measure of how long we can live a vibrant disease free life. Sure, we've all heard of HealthSpan, but lifespan? That's where it really gets interesting. So here's a hard truth for you. 70% of Americans are living with at least one chronic disease by age 65, and nearly half of those are managing 2 or more. For health care professionals like you, this isn't surprising.

It's what you see in your practice every day. But the question is, what can you do about it? In this series, doctor Silverman will break down actionable protocols to help you deliver more personalized care for patients battling chronic disease, managing long COVID effects, or struggling with the pervasive impact of inflammation. Plus, you'll discover new intervention strategies to boost immune function and support healthy aging. With the new year just around the corner, this is the perfect time to equip yourself with fresh insights and tools to help your patients set the stage for their healthiest year yet. So let's not waste another minute. Cue the intro music. It's time to get started.

Let's move right in. Let's talk about the protocols for longevity, optimizing health span and human performance. Longevity is without question the conversation piece of 2023 and now in 2024. And I do believe that we're really gonna still be talking about in 2025 because it really incorporates all that we do or at least a lot of what we do in the idea of nutrition, functional nutrition, also functional medicine. I believe that the key to longevity is turning on the health switches, and I'm going to little more detail with that. But without question, the master switch is having a robust and resilient immune system. People always ask the question, what is longevity? Can we have a definition? Well, we talk about lifespan versus health span. And what is truly the difference? Well, the difference between lifespan and health span, interestingly enough, is that lifespan is how long you live, and health span is how long you live without a chronic disease.

Even longevity is based on chronic disease. I'm not real happy about that. Now most people have a chronic disease in America by the time that they're 65. Actually, almost 70% of Americans have a chronic disease by that point. 4 out of 10 Americans have 2 chronic diseases. So the World Health Organization put together some stats in 2023, and the reason they did was COVID was driving a lot of conversation about age of death. And what they found out was that our generation, this generation right now is the 1st generation where people's ages rescinded. So the American mantra or one of the American mantras when it comes to health is always to leave the place in better shape for the generation after us because of what everybody did before us.

Unfortunately, that isn't the case. So in the US, we are now expected to live 77.5 years. My goal is a 120, but that's for another day and another dollar if you will. People are expected to live in full health in America to 66 years. So there's a 11a half, almost a 12 year difference between lifespan and health span. That correlates to what 18% of our life, we are gonna live in chronic unhealthy disease. We're not doing a good job. And the first thing I'm gonna say is not enough people are seeing alternative practitioners.