The Megyn Kelly Show
Ending Chronic Disease, Forces Fighting RFK and MAHA, and Power of Functional Medicine, with Dr. Mark Hyman | Ep. 1044
Tue, 8 Apr 2025
Megyn Kelly is joined by Dr. Mark Hyman, co-founder of Function Health, to discuss how functional medicine can actually fix Alzheimer’s and dementia, what the root causes of these conditions actually are, how to navigate the disconnect between functional medicine and more traditional doctors, the truth about the toxins in our food and environment, how RFK Jr. has been fighting back for years and is again at HHS, why we're seeing more diabetes and other nutrition-related diseases in America's youth, how changing nutrition and prioritizing health can actually reverse chronic disease in adults and kids, how these habits can improve overall brain function, the benefits of the Keto diet and how it could actually solve mental health diseases and cancer, what types of food to prioritize and what avoid, the massive and well-funded forces fighting RFK Jr. and the Make America Healthy Again movement, why nutrition and MAHA is bigger than politics, the dangers and benefits of Ozempic and similar GLP-1 drugs, the "skinny fat" effect, and more.Get Function Health: https://www.functionhealth.com/a/megynBirch Gold: Text MK to 989898 and get your free info kit on goldXX-XY Athletics: Go to https://TheTruthFits.com and use code MK20 for 20% off!Go to https://hometitlelock.com/megynkelly and use promo code MEGYN to get a FREE title history report so you can find out if you’re already a victim AND 14 days of protection for FREE! And make sure to check out the Million Dollar TripleLock protection details when you get there! Exclusions apply. For details visit https://hometitlelock.com/warrantyTax Network USA: Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit https://TNUSA.com/MEGYN to speak with a strategist for FREE today Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow
Chapter 1: Why is functional medicine different from traditional medicine?
No, traditional medicine is really about sick care. It's diagnosing and treating disease as opposed to the science of creating health. That's what functional medicine is. Instead, it reframes our whole perspective to get to root causes rather than just downstream symptoms. So medicine is sort of divided into specialties and different organs and different parts, but your body is one whole ecosystem.
And now we begin to understand that and how things like environmental factors, toxins, our diet, stress, allergens, and so forth, interrupt our biology, or lack of certain things we need, like the right food, nutrients, amounts of hormones, light, air, water, sleep, connection, movement, all these things are ingredients for health.
So functional medicine's about identifying the root causes, which are the lack of things you need to thrive, and too much of the stuff that doesn't, your body doesn't like, whether it's heavy metals or whatever it is, and taking those away. And then your body has this natural intelligence and healing system that allows your body to repair, heal, and renew.
And when you create health, disease goes away as a side effect. So functional medicine is really about this new paradigm of dealing with the body as an ecosystem, rather than going to a different doctor for every inch of your body. Yeah, it just makes sense. But it's not. It's not. It will be. It will be. It's coming. It's like, it's where the science is. It's where we're headed.
It takes a generation or two to change science.
I was doing some of these things like a year ago. I was getting my life in order physically and in every way. And the woman who was advising me was like, we should get you a test for the heavy metals in your body. And my doctor was like, no. He refused. It was actually something he would have had to order, I guess. And he's like, we're not doing that.
Yeah.
Like, he was not open-minded to it at all. Some of the other stuff, he was like, okay, because I had mold in my apartment or my house at the beach, and he's like, I guess, you know, you can get tested for mold. But then he's like, do you really think it's an issue?
He was like, if mold were killing people, everybody who lived in the jungle would be dead a lot sooner than people who live in the desert, and they're not. So... I've been like pulled between these two, you know, because functional medicine makes so much sense to me. And yet my like very like no nonsense traditional doctor is like, no.
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Chapter 2: How can functional medicine help with chronic diseases like Alzheimer's?
blocking the effects of insulin. You need more and more insulin and then insulin causes storage of belly fat. It causes inflammation. It makes you hungry. It just creates this whole cascade. And so we're seeing all these amazing things that people didn't know they have. Like inflammation is a big driver of disease. 46% of our population has inflammation.
33% have an autoimmune biomarker, which is sort of amazing to uncover because I don't know what it's causing. Is it our load of environmental toxins? Is it our leaky gut? Is it the COVID, post-COVID phenomenon. Well, the vaccine and even just COVID has led to this long COVID phenomenon, which is often driving autoimmune disease. And we're also seeing nutritional deficiencies.
Over 70% of our population has deficiencies in nutrients at the minimum level to prevent a deficiency disease. So how much vitamin C do you not take? You get scurvy, very little.
You know, that happened to my husband's good friend on Wall Street when he first started in investment banking. He was eating so poorly. He went to the doctor. This is a guy working in Manhattan. He went to the doctor. They're like, you have scurvy. Have you been on a ship for six months? He's like, no, I've just been at my desk.
But, you know, I've heard you discuss this on your show where we have what percentage of the population now that's obese?
Yeah, it's scary.
And yet you're saying they're malnourished.
Yeah, people are overfed and undernourished. So we see this double burden of obesity and malnutrition at the same time, especially in kids who are eating junk food. We're seeing zinc deficiencies, folate deficiencies, iron deficiencies, deficiencies in vitamin D. These are omega-3 deficiencies. These are rampant in our population.
And what people don't realize is that these nutrients are the basic lubricants that oil the wheels of your metabolic machinery. So every chemical reaction in your body, and there's 37 billion trillion every second, has to be facilitated by a helper, which is usually a vitamin or mineral. And we're deficient. And it's because we're eating 60% of our diet is ultra-processed food.
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Chapter 3: What is the role of nutrition and environment in modern health issues?
So you put fat and protein together, it can be transported through your body for energy and other sources. So it's really, it's fascinating. The science is constantly evolving. And I think for certain people, ketogenic diets can be life-changing, like life-changing.
I've treated schizophrenia with it, treated Alzheimer's with it, autism with it, depression with it, obviously type two diabetes with it. And you can reverse up to 60 to 70% of type two diabetes. That's very advanced where people are on insulin. When I was in medical school, chronic diseases were chronic. They never went away.
To reverse heart failure, to reverse diabetes, to reverse kidney issues, to reverse hypertension. These things don't happen in traditional medicine.
What about the thought of mixing the keto diet with Mediterranean? Because that's the other one that everybody loves Mediterranean.
Well, you can eat a Mediterranean diet, but that's not necessarily a ketogenic diet. Ketogenic is a very specific thing that happens in your body.
Do you go on keto forever?
Some people do, and they thrive on it. Other people don't do well on it. Try it for a month and get your influence. You need about, you know, usually six weeks to adapt to become fat adapted to your metabolism shifts over. And then you can see where you're at and then check your numbers.
But, you know, there's a company called Virta Health that's reversing type two diabetes with an online program of ketogenic diets. And not only have they seen 60% reversal, not only they've seen 12% weight loss, which is massive. It's as good as any of these drugs that are out there now.
And actually they've done a parallel study comparing just their program to Ozempic and those drugs, and they were equally effective in the outcome. So it's not something magic about Ozempic. It's the weight loss, and it's the change in metabolic health. And so you can do it through various ways, whether it's a drug or whether it's a ketogenic diet.
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