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Welcome to The Matt Feret Show

Matt Feret:
Welcome to The Matt Feret Show, practical conversations to help you thrive in midlife, retirement, and beyond.

I’m Matt Feret, author of books and courses on Medicare and Social Security, and a former healthcare executive with decades of insider experience. I use that experience to help people make clearer, smarter decisions about health, wealth, lifestyle, and caregiving.

Each week, I sit down with experts, insiders, and fascinating people to explore what it really takes to thrive—finding purpose, building stronger relationships, and creating a sense of meaning and community in the second half of life.

Together, we’ll light the path toward your wealth, wisdom, and wellness. Welcome to the conversation.

Today’s Topic: Hiring, Careers, and the Hidden Job Market

Matt Feret (00:02.522)

Hey everybody. Well, today we're going global and we're going deep into longevity and heart health. My guest today is Dr. Hozen Kiyot, a cardiologist, author, and one of the top 1 % most cited medical researchers in the world. He spent more than four decades bridging East and West, blending modern science with timeless wisdom to help people live longer, stronger, and with purpose. He was born in Jakarta,

 

He's trained in Australia and the US, and he's led in clinical practice, in teaching, and in research. His insights and his research have been featured everywhere from Forbes to international conferences. So today we're gonna talk about the difference between lifespan and health span and what that is, what really drives longevity, some silent risks that sneak up specifically on your heart.

 

and how purpose itself can be a form of medicine. With that Dr. Kiat, welcome to the show.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:07.384)

Thanks man, thanks for inviting me.

 

Matt Feret (01:11.76)

Yep, I'm glad you're here. So I kind of give a little bit of a background. But in your words, you've done this for I think 40 plus years. So we already know how long you've been doing it. But tell everybody what you do and and how you help people.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:28.162)

Yeah, as you said, I was born in Jakarta, came to Australia and Melbourne, in fact, to do my high school and university and medical school and eventually landed in cardiology training. And as you indicated, I spent over 10 years in UCLA, City Sinai Medical Center. And at that time, I was directing their cardiac imaging research for quite a long time.

 

before I came back to Australia. And so now I'm still in academic medicine, but I continue my clinical practice and yeah, I'm doing all these things. And four months ago, we started this Dr. Kiatt YouTube, which has been phenomenal, over three million views in four months. I'm very, very encouraged by the response. And on top of that,

 

Matt Feret (02:19.301)

Wow.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (02:26.062)

My new book, I've written two other so-called lay books instead of academic papers or books. My third one is coming out and in fact it is published in the States. But it is coming out in hopefully before Christmas and that again hopefully will be able to show the world that this East-West connection is

 

truly the best way. It doesn't have to be East-West. It could be so-called traditional Western medicine versus traditional other medicine. Would really probably best serve individuals instead of hanging on to Western medicine is the best or in China a Chinese or say my traditional Chinese medicine is the best. To me

 

Anything that works and evidence-backed and ethical is the best. It doesn't matter where it comes from.

 

Matt Feret (03:36.801)

agree on and understand. let's let's talk about that a little bit. 40 years born in one place, born in one place, spent time in the other spent time in the US. And now and now back in Australia, so two continents born in a separate country, you've had a lot of view into this, can you kind of take me through? I don't need you to summarize 40 years in 10 seconds, even though that's going to sound like what I'm asking, but

 

What were your attitudes? Say starting your journey in school and deciding I was going to practice medicine and then your training. And then when you've you've pivoted back and forth between Eastern and Western, how has your view changed over time? And what biases did you initially come in with compared to where you are today?

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (04:30.498)

Yeah, it's, as you said, it's a very interesting transitioning and then mixing eventually. The transition is pretty obvious. I grew up basically in a very traditional Indonesian, Indonesian Chinese family, culture, ecosystem. And a lot of these were preventative in terms of health. As you know that

 

ginger, garlic, curcumin, green tea. These are the main state of prevention. And I could still see that through this little keyhole, for example, when I was probably nine years old, looking through the little keyhole, my grandfather was completely naked in lotus position meditating in a locked room, of course. And that's...

 

1. I grew up in that sort of culture and he was probably 70 plus years old but every afternoon he would just retreat and meditate for example. So that's all I knew. I had very little experience about obviously Western medicine which are acute medicine largely for example if you got a car crash you went to Western medicine hospital and got surgery.

 

Of course, that time, stenting wasn't around. Maybe there was a bypass surgery, but not that common. And then I went to Australia and of course, went through high school there on my own. I went to Melbourne on my own as a 15-year-old. And yeah, I loved it. And I grew up with a landlady and...

 

Her name is Miss Little. And so that was as Western as possible. I saw my first cereals, for example, for breakfast. And, I never had cereals for breakfast in Jakarta. And so now at that time, that was a long time ago, there was no education in terms of counseling what you were best to do when you finish.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (06:55.713)

high school. The tradition was if you're in sciences you would just do medicine as your first preference and that's how I gravitated to do medicine because I just so happened to be in that top 1 % so-called high school students in sciences and I only picked sciences because I didn't know a lot of English and sciences were good because we didn't have to communicate a lot, 1 plus 1 is 2, it doesn't matter what the language is.

 

Matt Feret (07:19.43)

Yeah, right. Right.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (07:25.397)

So, know, pure math, applied math, physics, chemistry, didn't need lot of English. Of course, we had obligatory English as well. And so, yeah, and it just so happened. I love it because my trade is curiosity, I think. I'm a very curious person and medicine turns out to be a beautiful ecosystem for curious people because there's so many questions about a body.

 

that you can ask yourselves. And so I loved it and yeah, so gravitating to medicine and just so happened that I guess I had the gift to do research, to do clinical medicine. and when I finished my cardiology training, I went to the States to do further fellowship and

 

As typical you guys, when you found someone suitable, you rolled out the red carpet and gave me an offer I couldn't refuse. So I stayed there and got my green card. I had to do another internship. I had to sit many, many exams to be re-licensed in the United States. But yeah, so I directed the cardiac imaging research. I did a lot of what we call development of quantitative.

 

computerized imaging algorithm to be able to assess blood flow quantitatively instead of just looking at it. And that has been very rewarding. and last 10 years, came back to Australia, family. As I shared with you, lifestyle here is great. Los Angeles is great, but certainly I think for family, for...

 

Beautiful lifestyle here in Sydney. children, education and so on. Yeah, I feel that Australia is preferable. And yeah, so I'm back here and I still have a lot of connection, of course, in the States.

 

Matt Feret (09:38.673)

Sure. So when you when you moved from Australia practicing to LA. Now we all know in the US West Coast medicine is also different than East Coast medicine. I think the East Coast probably traditionally goes toward the stereotypical Western medicine but East Coast there is a bit of a blend you mentioned your grandfather was meditating in the would you say the lotus position right when you were when you were a little kid.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (10:05.485)

Yeah, just...

 

Matt Feret (10:07.534)

And that obviously started there in the 60s and 70s and has moved its way across. But I think we all kind of know New York medicine is different than LA medicine. When you arrived here, did you have a certain expectation of the degree at which Western was Western or or did you come here with any biases that were either validated or invalidated by the time you spent time here in terms of the East West divide?

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (10:35.467)

Yeah, even up to today, a lot of Western, highly respected academics, I can share with you, there is one such organization in Sydney, well, in Australia, but based in Sydney, strongly, and the members are all the professors, and I was invited at least twice over the years to join.

 

It's called the Friends in Medicine and the organization's main aim is to lobby government not to teach anything but Western medicine disciplines in universities or tertiary colleges because they feel that the other medicine more or less are quote quackery or not evidence-based.

 

There's still a lot, and certainly during my formative medical years, there's even more. That Western medicine is it. Anything else is rubbish. the traditional Western medicine research for a long time mainly deal with treatment. How to treat, not how to prevent.

 

Matt Feret (12:03.846)

Mm-hmm.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (12:04.599)

So if you think about the stenting, the bypass, the ICUs, the different type of surgeries, it's all the pacemakers, the defibrillators, they're all to do with treatment. Very little was devoted to prevention until the mid 1980s when NIH redirected funding more towards prevention.

 

And that was as late as that. You can imagine that's not that long ago in the sense. And yet if you think about Eastern or the non-Western medical disciplines, because they didn't have the luxury of acute appendectomy or acute surgery or ICUs, the culture of medicine has been mainly aiming at prevention.

 

Matt Feret (12:39.512)

No, right.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (13:04.191)

in the traditional medicine because they're hoping that they stay well enough that they don't need to be treated in an acute manner, like an acute heart attack. And therefore, it's very logical in the sense how this culture is developed, how the traditional Jammu, which is herbal Indonesian medicine, and the TCM, traditional Chinese medicine, the Japanese.

 

traditional medicine are all focusing in prevention. There's absolutely no doubt that I know Japan has good access to oceans, but they didn't really have to be so focused in seafoods. But now the Western medicine has validated over and over and over again the EPA and of course the DHA of the Omega-3.

 

is fantastic for inflammation, and inflammation is one of the key drivers of aging, whether it is from your skin or to your kidneys, to any organ really. Alzheimer's is no doubt due to chronic inflammation. And yet, the traditional medicine has been focusing on this prevention of inflammation for thousands of years, from ginger to, as I said, garlic.

 

to curcumin or turmeric to omega-3. And the other big thing that I've been looking at more recently is the fermentation culture. And this fermentation culture is very Eastern, from tofu, from tempeh in Indonesia, from kimchi in Korea. This fermentation process that improve our microbiome is centuries old.

 

But we as Western medical science just pick it up in the last 50 years that we all of a sudden find out that, wow, this microbiome is very important. Let's research about it. But if you think about it, this has been the practice on everyday life for centuries. And that's why this merging really fits, because one has a lot of experience in prevention.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (15:25.062)

One has a lot of experience in acute medicine, which truly saves lives. If you have a heart attack now, you go to your nearest local hospital and have the blood vessel open up with a stem that reduces your mortality by immediately 50%. That's very good. I absolutely continue to practice Western medicine because it is very, very good in certain areas of life. But as I said,

 

the more traditional aspect that we can learn from, hopefully can help us to live well enough not to require this acute treatment, at least not very often.

 

Matt Feret (16:08.942)

Yep. It makes sense. Your research background. sorry, I'm getting a little feedback. Are you hearing that? Okay, let me try to...

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (16:10.125)

It makes sense. Your research background...

 

Matt Feret (16:27.736)

Okay, I think that's better. Alright, so I read where your work in your works and your research have been cited a lot globally. I think I remember somewhere around the 20,000 times piece that works specifically to this East West divide and the combination of both what discovery or which part of that research or your works that have been cited, are you most proud of?

 

which may or may not be how has it changed patient outcomes because I'm assuming some of your work has actually changed clinician practices, which then change patient outcomes. Any mix of the two in there?

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (17:10.347)

Yep. So Matt, the first part of my research output, as you could see, were all very mainstream Western medicine clinical research and a lot were to do in validating the way that blood flow in the heart can be quantitated where the blood vessel not flowing well.

 

and how we quantitate that flow, for example. Now you can't get a lot more Western than that. It's very high-end Western medicine research. then in the second part of my career, I just realized that I need to focus more on prevention research. So I've done quite a fair bit of, for example, Tai Chi research and how...

 

Tai Chi can be incorporated into the cardiac rehabilitation program after surgery, after stenting, after heart attack, in heart failure patients, and so on. And because Tai Chi has been shown to be able to reduce markers of inflammation, for example, Tai Chi has been shown to reduce this master switch of inflammation called NFKB.

 

NFKB is like the master switch. If you need inflammation, that has to be switched on and then it produces cascades of inflammation in your body, for example. And Tai Chi practice has been able to tune down that markers of inflammation. And to me, for something that you can do 15 minutes every day that has zero side effect compared to medications, hey.

 

Why not study that? Because people after heart attack and so on, the last thing they want is chronic low-grade inflammation. And therefore, that's an area that I see bang for the buck in terms of we can help these high-risk patients to be at the low risk with little expense. so, multiple research then we have been publishing.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (19:34.303)

And the other recent aspect that I've been focusing on is a technique called non-thermal laser, and that's called red light laser.

 

Matt Feret (19:45.719)

I've heard about this. I think I've read about it a little and again, like anything you read online, who knows, right? What's you mean? Some some people go, yes, it does wonders. And then you read other things are like, this is nonsense. Where do you where do you sit on that?

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (19:52.81)

I'm gonna go.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (19:59.118)

you

 

Yeah, so again, yes, I wouldn't go into research that I don't think is... I use the word bang for the buck because in research, generally, you want to do something that yields positive results. It's okay to publish a negative result. And sometimes it is important. For example, I have no shame in saying that one of my PhD students, we task her to study a special mushroom.

 

called Gadoderma lucidum or reishi mushroom. And so she spent three years studying the effect of this special mushroom in people with metabolic syndrome. And it turns out that it didn't improve their blood sugar, it didn't reduce their weight, it didn't reduce their inflammation markers. So all these publications, which we did publish, were, quote, negative studies. The reason why we chose that is because, in fact,

 

this mushroom called Regime mushroom has been shown to be very good in immunity.

 

In fact, it has been studied in HIV patients, for example. And in fact, African countries have used regi in the HIV clients or people. And so I thought, wow, OK, it has got an angle here. And we did study. But a negative study is not completely useless in the sense, at least we know the limitation of that supplement.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (21:33.739)

However, in general, we like to have positive studies in research.

 

Matt Feret (21:37.798)

Sure, you'd to define something new, but failure is an option because failure is also an answer.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (21:44.302)

Correct, because failure means that you help people not to do something, because then it's not a waste of their time, they can find something better, less cost, and maybe save lives, because they're not directing to something not working, in a sense. So I spent a lot of time looking at this red light photobot modulation, or PBM. Guess what?

 

There are literally thousands of experimental data coming out of MIT, Harvard universities, and all these things. And yet there's so few clinical research in translating this experimental research or basic science research, animal research, cellular research, to human studies. So I thought, well, that's my forte, is clinical research.

 

And so we started doing some clinical research using red light therapy. And no doubt that some of this red light therapy is mature clinically. For example, for skin is very, very mature. So if you are over 50 and you want a low cost way, there many low cost ways, but the lowest cost way of if you're over 50, you want to delay wrinkles.

 

is really sunscreen. That's the lowest cost way. But using a face mask of red light laser is also a very low cost way and has no side effects at all. And that's very, very well studied. And there's been a lot of studies as well for hair growth, for example. And that's like a little helmet with a lot of red light.

 

diodes and you can just wear it for 15 minutes 20 minutes and so on and famous people use it and If you google you'll find famous people using this But in terms of internal organs there have been not as much So we have then started to study this on the effect of red light laser on microbiome, for example So we have had some positive results

 

Matt Feret (23:53.776)

Mm-hmm.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (24:07.762)

And because the key aspect why I think this is bang for the buck is because red light laser effects health through mitochondrial mechanisms. And mitochondria is truly the most important powerhouse that power our cells, basically. It produces energy to feed our cells to function in whatever the cell has to function as.

 

And so I thought anything that targets mitochondria has a future. And so we started doing that and amazing results, for example, in neurodegenerative disease. And there's some results now. Parkinson's has been the one that we chose, but I'm sure that we will study in other. There are other people who are looking at other aspects of neurodegenerative diseases.

 

Matt Feret (24:51.064)

Really?

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (25:06.796)

because lot of neurodegenerative diseases, including dementia, is really dysfunction of mitochondria. So the cells become chaotic. They just start fighting who has to have the energy because a cell has to function with optimal energy because they have to repair themselves, muscle cells have to contract and retract and so on, and yet they still have to repair.

 

may have to serve other functions in terms of reducing oxidative stress so that reduce the risk of that cell becoming cancerous. So all this multifunction of every single cell, have to be a portion energy and mitochondria produces all the energy. And so anything that disrupts mitochondrial function potentially will lead to dysfunctional cell.

 

Matt Feret (26:05.23)

And you're saying that that red light therapy you're studying for not only external but but internal functions, you mentioned the brain, how would you how everything that I can think of on red light is you go to a some place and lie down and in and get the treatment on your body or right. I've seen those little helmets on Amazon for the hair growth. I never knew if they worked or not. You and you and I still don't have a problem for we're lucky.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (26:05.55)

And so.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (26:11.533)

Correct.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (26:26.395)

okay. Right. Yeah. Yeah, there's very, very... No, you don't need to get one. Yeah. And you don't need to get the face. You don't need to get the face, Masi and Matt.

 

Matt Feret (26:35.329)

No, hopefully.

 

I don't know, I'm getting there a little bit dark. There's a couple you can't see. Well, maybe you can. But how do you get on the I mean, silly question, but maybe it's not how the heck do get red light therapy on your organs or inside?

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (26:43.799)

But I can assure you that...

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (26:51.117)

One is direct. If the organ is superficial enough, it directly affects the individual. Like your liver is quite superficial. You know, if you put red light over your liver, a lot of your liver cells will get the effect directly.

 

Matt Feret (27:12.664)

OK, yeah.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (27:12.725)

Right? In, for example, is direct because it's so superficial. But yes, that's why there hasn't been as much on the heart, for example, because the heart is quite deep. Right? There hasn't been as much like kidneys because kidneys is quite deep. But we have had now publications on kidney function with red light therapy. And this has been one of our PhD candidates.

 

studies from a hospital called Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney. So yes, we're studying this now. There are direct effect and there are indirect effect. Indirect effect is called a scopal effect. If you think about acupuncture, how does acupuncture work for your back pain? It's not really, you know, directly affecting the disc that's bulging, right?

 

Correct, yeah, it acts through nerve endings. That's not even necessarily close to that disc. Right? So it's called a Scope Effect because the nervous system, the hormonal system, all can affect in a remote manner of the other cells function. So...

 

Matt Feret (28:11.238)

It's the nerve endings, isn't it?

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (28:38.773)

And generally it is by generating either neuro hormonal signals or it is through some sort of a cell to cell communication effect. there are a lot of studies now that our cells connect to each other. They communicate directly. And that's such an amazing research area.

 

that is very quickly expanding. And so there are multiple mechanisms. Ultimately, it regenerates the health of mitochondria. So that's the other big area of my interest. But I'm very interested in any nutritional research. One of our medical students just finished a big analysis of

 

all the nutrients or vitamins that affect directly on mitochondria and what their effects are on Alzheimer's cells. So again, we're looking into does vitamin B6 help, does vitamin B9 help? For example, one of them CoQ10.

 

Matt Feret (29:47.238)

Hmm.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (30:07.245)

or ubiquinone or ubiquinol, but specifically we were also looking at one specific quinone called mitoquinone and that's called mitoq I think in the trade name, but it's mitoquinone, it's one of the quinones, one of the CoQ10. And that has shown some promise. So these are so-called

 

non-traditional medicine and yet they have a lot of future because they are not expensive, they're widely available, they have literally no risks. So quinone, for example, has been studied a lot for heart muscle function. So if you have heart failure,

 

Matt Feret (30:39.684)

Yes. Right.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (31:03.029)

One, the only, if you have heart failure, the only non-prescription medicine that heart failure specialists, including me, would prescribe is CoQ10. Yeah. And that is so well researched that it is in the guidelines. Okay. So there you are. It's riskless. Yep. It's riskless.

 

Matt Feret (31:16.773)

Yeah, I've heard that, yeah.

 

Matt Feret (31:28.688)

There you are right there. When did that start happening by the way? Like how long did that take to get the QQ10 in there? Given.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (31:32.234)

It helps.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (31:39.768)

Since the mid 1980s, yeah. It started with transplant patients, in fact. And then gradually, the scope becomes bigger. I'm treating a few patients with genetic cardiomyopathies with very high dose CoQ10, like 2,000 milligram a day. And that's one of the acceptable treatment.

 

Matt Feret (31:43.151)

Okay.

 

Matt Feret (31:49.178)

and then it's moved back down.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (32:09.133)

as a, I guess what do you call it, mainstream treatment in the sense that I'm not being considered off stream by giving these people with congenital muscle myopathies this high dose CoQ10. In fact, it is very acceptable. In fact, it's one of the few things that we can give.

 

So, yeah, so you can see that for prevention, it trumps using traditional so-called non, I guess, non-acute medicine.

 

Matt Feret (32:35.13)

Right.

 

Matt Feret (32:46.564)

Yeah, so prevention wise, you've mentioned, right, you've done research on Tai Chi, you're doing research on red light therapy, you're doing a lot of research on individual molecules of broader based branded products, or your, you know, your students are as well. Let's, let me ask this, if you're 50, anywhere in that range, I guess. What's

 

Is it too late to reverse biological aging? You know, you've seen your grandparents or your parents have whatever colon cancer, Parkinson's, heart attacks. mean, obviously, not everyone in your family lives to be 120. But then you see these kind of things happen in your life, you're 50. And all of sudden, that clock is ticking. Are there things when you're 50 ish call it middle aged?

 

that you can do to reverse some biological aging? Or are you starting at this point now and what you're saying is prevention is going to be better moving forward, but you can't necessarily reverse it? Or is that wrong?

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (33:59.502)

It's a fantastic question that I have to address almost on daily basis with my patients. I often say, no, no, that's right. It is such a common situation. The typical situation is I see this patient for the first time because he had an acute heart attack in a holiday home somewhere 300 miles away.

 

Matt Feret (34:06.736)

So it's not a unique question. It may be fantastic. Thank you for that, but it's certainly not unique.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (34:27.881)

and he was resuscitated, now he's good. He came to see me for, quote, prevention.

 

and just being candid and humbly, I have to admit that I'm fortunate enough that I have six months waiting list for patients to see me because they just want to see me to get my advice on these sort of things.

 

I always say to them, Jim, the best time for prevention may have passed for you. It probably should have been 20 years ago that you started. But the second best time, of course, is now, today, with us. And that's so true because, yes, there is so much evidence to show you can't reverse. One of the best evidence is...

 

Publishing Circulation, which is one of the best journals. They took probably about nine or ten, somewhere between 50 to 70 year old, that they have done a stress test, symptom limited treadmill exercise test, when they were in their 20s.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (35:50.156)

So they knew how much they can do when they were in their 20s. They can do 18 minutes using the Bruce protocol, let's just say. Of course now they can't. And they were subject to six months training.

 

How many of them were able to go back to that? How many percent do you think?

 

Matt Feret (36:15.659)

I feel like that's a trick question because my answer is going to be 0 % can go back to 18.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (36:17.665)

Let's just say out of the 10. Okay, all right. In fact, 100 % of them were able to achieve what they did on the stress test, the ability to, the workload on the stress test when they were 18. I know this is research trial. Of course, people who have had their leg amputated wouldn't be, okay.

 

Matt Feret (36:28.165)

Wow.

 

Matt Feret (36:47.098)

be a different be it wouldn't be a stress test it'd be a road test perhaps.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (36:48.333)

Yeah, the gist is, yes, it obviously has reversed. Okay, that means that you are able to go back to that level of work intensity just by consistent training. Yes, it is a very research-oriented training, just like probably...

 

Who was that guy that did the werewolf? An Australian actor. Yeah, of course Hugh Jackman did very, very good training to be that sort of big guy to appear in Werewolf, right? But it just shows how he could go back to look like when he was probably 25 with a good training and good nutrition, etc. during that

 

Matt Feret (37:21.75)

Hugh Jackman.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (37:44.352)

few months of filming, for example. And that's when the F40 was popularized because it was using this F40 training program. And that's when the so-called time-restricted eating became popularized because he was using the 16-8 diet. That means that he was fasting for 16 hours and he ate during that

 

Matt Feret (38:02.086)

Hmm.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (38:10.943)

eight hours. If you think about how much he had to eat, he had to eat about 5,000 calories a day in that eight hours. yeah, and he and his then wife openly said in the interview that they became very unsociable because they have to stop eating at 6 p.m. so they couldn't go to any function basically during those filming. But you can see that

 

Matt Feret (38:19.45)

To put on all that muscle. Yeah, that's, that's insane.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (38:39.661)

The 16-8 diet really reduces inflammation, reduces injury, and the proper training using F40 at that time made him into this sort of amazing guy. So yes, anything is potentially reversible. I have numerous patients, we show that they have got a bit of cholesterol plaque on the carotid artery on ultrasound.

 

We can see cholesterol plaque very easily because cryoarthritis is really only about 6 millimeters underneath our skin. So we can actually see the plaque and these plaques can disappear.

 

when we lower that cholesterol with proper diet and medication. And that's how reversible it is.

 

Matt Feret (39:30.861)

So so it's reversible that means it's also not fixed is another way to say it. So if you had to design and I know this is so unfair to you to get you to sound bite this because you've got all of your experience and all of your research in flight. But if you had to design the prescription for longevity, food, medicine, movement,

 

workout regimes, if you could give it enough in a package, I know everyone's different, and everyone's genes are different. And everyone's current starting point is different. But what would you say if you just had a couple of minutes to say what's the prescription for longevity, if you start in middle life or even older than middle life?

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (40:23.437)

Yeah, I always just teach all my patients and this is what I emphasize so often for virtually all my YouTube channels videos would be one of these five things as you say

 

I'll change the order a little bit. I usually say the top of the pyramid is purpose because purpose directs you. With purpose, everything else will have a meaning. Why you want to do that?

 

If I don't have purpose, why should I eat well? Like a mother, she'll just die. But if I say, I need to be healthy because I want to do something. So purpose to me is the top of the pyramid. The second one, I always say, is rest. Because rest truly stabilizes you. And I'm very much focused in meditative type of exercises, good sleep.

 

Matt Feret (41:14.97)

Mm-hmm.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (41:32.459)

Because to me that gives you the like the baseline to do more. The more tired I am, the more irritated I am, chances are I'm not going to do all these other things I have to do as well. So I put rest usually as a second tier.

 

The third tier is truly movement. Because movement strengthens you. You can move, it reduces inflammation, it makes you stronger, it makes you be able to enjoy life better. And any movement is better than no movement. And the fourth one is connection. Because with connection, connection literally means

 

communication. again, isolation, which is the opposite of connection or disconnection, is such a potent inflammation enhancer, believe it or not. Correct, yeah. It is so potent that probably as bad as smoking in terms of mortality risk.

 

Matt Feret (42:37.743)

Really?

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (42:52.62)

if you want to compare in terms of just numbers. The reason is it increases all these markers of inflammation in all these different studies that we have looked into. There plenty of studies and when you talk about caregiver before, and this is one of the great studies by a UCSF professor, but I claim it because she is Australian.

 

Matt Feret (42:56.346)

Wow.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (43:22.412)

She was born in Tasmania, Elizabeth Blackburn. She is the queen of telomeres. Telomeres is the tail end of DNA and it dictates the wellness of your DNA. With age, it will get shorter and shorter and shorter, naturally. But you can retard the shortening. And she has done a beautiful study on caregivers. One caregiver is one of the twins and the other

 

twin is not a caregiver. And in eight years, she showed that the caregiver mother is so much shorter clinically by about seven to eight years difference, equivalent, shortness, compared to her identical twin, which is not a caregiver. Now, that's called stress.

 

Matt Feret (44:20.686)

That's what I was saying. the caregiver side, the caregiver twin had more daily weekly stress because of the role of the caregiver versus the non caregiver.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (44:27.051)

Yeah. So the chronic inflammation marker, in fact, increases. Isolation does the same thing. Because there many, factors why isolation does that. But the bottom line, you know, because you can be isolated because you're depressed, you have no friends, you are anxious to go out, etc. But the bottom line is when you're disconnected or isolated, doesn't matter what the

 

cause is your inflammation markers goes up. Your adrenaline level, your cortisol level go up and your chronic inflammation markers and one of them not yet clinically easily done is called SUPA, is called soluble urokinase plasminogen activated receptor, SUPAR, S-U-P-A-R. And that is the most

 

We do it in research, it's a blood test. And the most potent marker of chronic inflammation. Now CRP, for example, many people have heard of CRP, chronic, it's called C-reactive protein. And it has been done a lot in research as an inflammation marker. So CRP is an acute reactor. If you are inflamed, you're infected, it will go up. And the higher CRP,

 

the shorter you live, basically. But because it is an acute reactor, it does come up and down. While some other more novel now chronic inflammation markers, I'm sure Supa eventually will be done with a dozen, it's just that it's still quite novel. It tracks this low grade chronic inflammation and it is the most potent inflammation marker. So it just shows that

 

Matt Feret (46:02.512)

Mm-hmm.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (46:23.649)

this chronic low-grade inflammation is so much more dangerous than your acute sinusitis that gets your CRP to 100.

 

And that's why a trait called hostility is such a bad prognostic marker because people who are hostile is chronically inflamed. Yeah.

 

Matt Feret (46:41.446)

you

 

Yeah.

 

Matt Feret (46:52.1)

You know what I noticed you didn't say was part of your prescription. was an actual prescription. You didn't say everyone should be on a statin. You didn't say everyone should be, ingesting, you know, 15 different types of vitamins. And maybe you, maybe you do, but, I mean, you, you mentioned was a co-Q10, but you actually focused on the behavioral sciences.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (46:59.263)

No, I haven't. So I like to...

 

Matt Feret (47:16.002)

if that's even the correct phrase for that you focused on the living pieces, just movement and community and connection. Not necessarily and purpose. mean, those aren't you don't hear that from a doctor every day. You usually hear Sure, take your B12 and your vitamin D if you live in a northern climate, so you don't get sun. Not saying those aren't important, but I'm it's interesting you didn't even you didn't mention any of those.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (47:44.782)

I like to mention now the fifth, which is the bottom of the pyramid, and that's what I call nutrition. Nutrition is eating and drinking. So, of course, there are a lot of nutrition that increase, there's a lot of food and drinks that increase inflammation, and there's a lot of foods and drinks that decrease inflammation. But nutrition, hydration, of course, is that base of our pyramid. So yes, those five.

 

Matt Feret (47:47.27)

Okay. Yep. Nutrition. There it is.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (48:14.985)

I call it prime, which is purpose, which is the P. R is rest. I is what I call interaction or connection.

 

and is movement and the last word is E which is eating, so prime. I just tell my patients it's prime. So yes, because if you think about the longest living people in this world, I just went to Aritso which is one of the blue zones in Sardinia.

 

They don't know vitamins, don't know supplements, they don't know anything.

 

Matt Feret (48:56.666)

you know, I watched that documentary too. And I asked the same thing. I was like, how many of these people I mean, because what it was a it was a place in Central America was a place in Japan. It was and and I'm going, not none of these people are going to you know, your pharmacy store and stocking up on on B 12.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (49:05.613)

Yeah, we a RECO each one, then we put the NANAMA and...

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (49:17.535)

Aritzor doesn't have a gym, and it's a little town. And it's a center of shepherd country. yeah, it's it's eye-opening to see how they are so old and they have to climb all these stairs back to their house holding this grocery. And they're huffing and puffing.

 

Matt Feret (49:19.75)

Right, right.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (49:44.726)

And of course they still had to do it because they have to get home. And if you ask them, have you ever had a multivitamin? Like, wow, what's that? But they have to go to market every day because they eat fresh food and they hardly any refined food because everything is fresh.

 

Matt Feret (49:57.851)

What's that?

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (50:13.343)

And the neighbors come and help. And when I had lunch with them, literally neighbors come in and out, have a bite, and all of a sudden they disappear. Okay, so these are what I call connection. They don't care when they drop in. They don't care how long they stay. And the homeowner doesn't care either. It's beautiful connection. So to me, they have to move every day. They always have a...

 

purpose they look after the grandkids or they You know help their son in their little shop It's always something to do in a sense and the connection is no issue The movement is no issue. The nutrition is fresh things all the time so yeah, and it's it's essentially the genes

 

Matt Feret (50:51.366)

Mm-hmm.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (51:09.377)

very very clearly play a role. But again, so many research and a lot came out of the States. One of the largest research from the States on genes is the New England Centenarian Studies, NECS. But a lot of studies came from Europe on twin studies. The Danes, the Swedes, the Finns all have done these twin studies.

 

to show up to about 80 years old, your gene only plays about 15 % of the responsibility for your health today. Okay? The other 85 % is what we call epigenetics governed. What you do, what you eat, how you rest, how you move, what your purpose is, what your connection is. Yeah, congrats. Yeah.

 

Matt Feret (51:52.1)

Really? Hmm.

 

Matt Feret (52:03.364)

what's in your environment with you what you've been exposed to the air you the air you breathe right all that Yeah, yeah. Huh. I thought it was always higher than that. Why did I think that? Are there other studies that say that genes you know,

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (52:08.844)

And then

 

No, no, no, no, is no other studies. That is the most strongest medical evidence because studying twins is amazing, and amazing these three countries have done quite a lot. And the next also is very good because the next, the NEC New England Centenarian Studies,

 

Matt Feret (52:19.472)

Huh.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (52:42.828)

veterinarian studies is an over 30 plus year studies. 8,000 or so participants now tracking them and they can see that until about 80 what you do is by far say 80 percent, 85 percent govern your health today. As you get older there's less and less effect what you can do to make you live.

 

longer and that's acceptable. That's easily understandable. If you're 110, you know, walking a hundred thousand steps, probably it's not going to make you 155. Yeah. So the return for the effort becomes less. Okay. And then your gene plays more important role then.

 

Matt Feret (53:29.84)

Yeah.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (53:39.693)

whether you live to 115 or 110 or 105. But categorically, 70 to 80 is that window when things start changing. And that's pretty good to me, if you can do that. And again, even up to 80, one could still see that those who are healthier up to 80 will live longer.

 

So that means that what you have done, all the prevention that you have done, still play a role, but just less roles. And that is one of the most commonly imagined myths, is that your genes largely govern who you are.

 

Matt Feret (54:33.51)

Yeah, I mean, it's a myth. It's a myth that I yeah, that I've bought into because I can remember reading. I don't remember how long ago it was, but I think it was a it was a heart surgeon and that heart surgeon said some ratio, right, but it wasn't 15%. It was some somewhere along the lines of genes is 40%. That's the number that was in my head, but I couldn't tell you when or where it was.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (54:33.61)

Now in my book with...

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (54:53.068)

In fact, if you do a whole meta-analysis of all these genetic studies, it ranges between 10 to 25 percent, with an average of 50 percent. That's why I usually use that one number. And so there's never been more than 25 percent.

 

Matt Feret (55:12.944)

make sense.

 

Matt Feret (55:16.518)

1. Look, yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (55:17.612)

In my book, we... Oh. Yeah, in my book, Wisdom from Two Worlds, in fact, it is more or less like an autobiography a little bit because I did share, for example, both of my grandparents, both sides have diabetes and some of my grandparents have hypertension. My dad had acute heart attack at the age of 65 and he had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and so on.

 

How did I escape all this that I'm still, you know, got clean arteries and so on? It's to me, I can only merit that too because I knew better. I had done my prevention a bit earlier and so far I have escaped my genetic through my epigenetics, through these five, what I call prime, five key habits basically.

 

Matt Feret (56:16.774)

Yep. I still, I still I'll say it again. It's fascinating that you didn't come up with literally a prescription of right, take these supplements in this timeframe, use this therapy. Um, and that's not a bad thing. I think those are wonderful foundational pieces as well. And those are, can be expanded upon as well. Um, this has been a really fascinating, fascinating conversation. know I could, I could spend another hour with you. Um, but before we go and wrap.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (56:18.092)

So, I'll see you

 

Matt Feret (56:46.586)

Are there any questions? And we've covered a lot of territory, but I know we only just touched the surface on this. What questions about the topics we covered or that we said we were going to cover? What questions did I not ask you that I should have or could have that the audience would benefit from your knowledge?

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (57:08.204)

I maybe one of the more common questions

 

how much the supplement or extra things that we take help.

 

Matt Feret (57:24.176)

Great one. Sure. I'd love to hear this.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (57:24.874)

Yeah, I have a friend who takes this exact number he told me, 64 capsules and tablets a day.

 

Matt Feret (57:34.598)

I couldn't swallow that many. Even if that would, even if you told me to do that, there's no way I could eat all that in one day. I would make myself sick.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (57:43.082)

Yeah, and he is a longevity guru, okay, and he preaches longevity. He has got collaboration with a few countries to produce supplements and so on. I'm absolutely for supplements, but I just feel that everything we put into our mouth, whether it's food or fluid, it needs to feed us.

 

it needs to have an indication. Okay, so if you already have low inflammation, you already move well, you are not suffering from any chronic deficiencies, 64 pills not going to make much difference other than probably a lot of money, well some money, and a lot of fluid, guess hydration is good.

 

But otherwise, I don't think it will make a lot of difference because what I have prescribed, those five pillars.

 

This is what the longest living people have been doing, still do today, without 64 pills. So the so-called longevity influences have neglected that healthspan is very natural. None of the things, the five pillars I've mentioned, are new. They're not new. They've been practiced forever.

 

Okay? Ikigai has been a word for centuries, which means living with purpose. So, I haven't invented any of this. Western medicine hasn't invented any of this. All these longevity people, even the seven adventists in Loma Linda.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (59:44.694)

They're the longest living Caucasian population in the first world country. What's new that they practice? Nothing. They just practice these five things. Okay, they're churchgoers, they're connected, they know from the preaching that certain foods are not good and they eat reasonably good food. They're so-called clean living people.

 

Okay, and we know what clean living is. McDonald isn't probably. Kentucky probably isn't. Inflammation probably is very intuitive. If you have inflammation, you wouldn't feel well. And how can you feel well, for example, if you have Kentucky fried three times a day? You wouldn't. Okay, you wouldn't. Yeah, so it is so intuitive.

 

Matt Feret (01:00:33.926)

Oh, no. Even even once a once a year. I mean, I love it. I love it too. It's it tastes great, but it doesn't feel good about 10 minutes later.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:00:44.617)

Correct. And let me just tell you one another fact, Because we now have so many people on Ozempic and Montero to lose weight. More than 50 % of these people after they stop, they didn't return their weight. They didn't regain their weight. Because they have adopted, because...

 

Matt Feret (01:00:55.334)

Mm-hmm.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:01:10.239)

The medication, in fact, just makes you not want to eat as much. It slows down the gut motility so that the food stays in your intestinal system longer, so you feel full. Now, when you feel full, you generally don't want a lot of fatty things. You just shy away from all this heavy stuff. You will tend to pick lighter stuff like salad and so on. Because if you feel quite full,

 

the last thing you want is really heavy, creamy thing. And guess what? They feel better and they look for these things even after they stop the medication. Because it's intuitive, they just feel nicer, they just feel lighter not to have heavy foods. And to me, that's what most people have done in this Okinawan and Blue Zone.

 

societies basically. And Harajuku, which is 85 % full. That's not new. That's a key word for centuries in Japan. Well, mainly in Okinawa. So we, including me, used to tell my kids, eat everything on your plate. And this culture says Harajuku, just eat 85 % until you're not that full.

 

Matt Feret (01:02:30.565)

Mm-hmm.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:02:39.659)

And that is so intuitive for good health. Over-eating is very key of bad health. Everyone will agree.

 

Matt Feret (01:02:52.464)

Yep. I think those are really wise words of wisdom. And like you said, this isn't this isn't new, except of all the influencers.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:02:52.679)

So yeah.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:03:02.645)

Well.

 

Matt Feret (01:03:08.81)

around for centuries. It's pretty it's it's more simple than you think. It's just that we don't want to think it's simple necessarily. And there are substitutes to simple that seem how do I say this and a reason or an excuse or an opportunity to do something different rather than your five core principles which I think really hit home for me. thank you for this.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:03:15.935)

Yes.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:03:35.881)

No problem. On the other hand, if you already have a lot of inflammation because you don't follow all these five pillars, 64 pills, very unlikely to fix it.

 

Matt Feret (01:03:49.831)

So, so what you're saying is 64 pills is unlikely to fix anything. Yeah, good or bad, right? Yeah.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:03:50.067)

There I'm like.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:03:58.858)

because supplements can only help if you have the need for that particular supplement. If you have heart failure, I give you CoQ10, 100 to 200 milligram a day. Now again, there's been recent research. More isn't better for CoQ10.

 

So if you take 2000 milligram CoQ10 and you don't have frank myopathies like some of these congenital myopathies, in fact it shows that it's not good. So just because you want more doesn't mean it's healthy. But 100-200 milligram, if you've got heart failure, yes, it will help you.

 

Matt Feret (01:04:39.739)

Mm-hmm.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:04:45.311)

But if your blood pressure is good, it's not going to make any difference whether you take CoQ10 or not.

 

Matt Feret (01:05:00.186)

how do I go about thinking and I know we're over time, but how do I go about thinking about? I mean, is my is my primary care physician going to diagnose me with chronic inflammation? Is my is my is a specialist going to do that? How do I know if I've got chronic inflammation? I know if I've got high cholesterol, I know if I've got high blood pressure, because those are the

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:05:00.628)

Alright.

 

Matt Feret (01:05:21.946)

things we check at least once a year every time we go to the doctor's visit. These things that are hidden. How do I know this? Or should I just take the supplements just in case? You're saying no, don't do that.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:05:35.798)

Symptom is one. Of course, you've got chronic sinusitis. That's chronic inflammation. You've got gingivitis. You kept getting a bit of gum bleed every time you brush your teeth. That's chronic inflammation. That's been evidence-based to prevent you from the best health span and life span. It increases the risk of vascular events like heart attacks, for example.

 

If you have got colon polyps, that's a sign of chronic inflammation.

 

So these are what we call symptoms and signs. But biochemically, I always recommend all primary care physicians, every time you do a blood test for your patient, you do CRP, which is the most basic C-reactive protein, because this has been so well researched. If it is more than two, you will start increasing your cardiovascular risk.

 

And so that's again an extremely cheap test. As I said, there are a few like SUPA, for example, that's probably coming into clinical realm. And some GPs, primary physicians may even do interleukin 6, for example, and that's fairly common now as well. So there are some blood tests. For example, if your full blood count, which is red cells, white cells, show abnormality, that is a...

 

can be a sign of chronic inflammation. So there are simple blood tests, very cheap blood tests that can help to track this. And CRP is probably one of the now most guidelines, anchored tests for inflammation. And so, yes, so if you have chronic arthritis, you are low greatly inflamed. Okay, so you need to be more careful about your lifestyle. You don't want to add

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:07:40.927)

to that low grade inflammation by eating a lot of fried foods, et cetera. We haven't talked about things called ages, advanced glycation and products, which are obviously the more fried you cook a food or the more high heat, the more ages. And that's a very, very potent trigger of inflammation in your blood vessels and in your cells. So yes, the so-called healthy living.

 

Matt Feret (01:07:46.266)

Mm-hmm.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:08:09.927)

is quite intuitive, I think.

 

Matt Feret (01:08:14.746)

Dr. Kiat, four decades of insight into not only heart health, but longevity, quality of life, power of purpose. Thank you very much for joining me.

 

Dr Hosen Kiat (01:08:32.309)

Thank you so much for the opportunity, Matt. Yeah, I hope to catch up with you again, especially if you come to Sydney.

 

Matt Feret (01:08:38.694)

I would love to. To the audience, have you took something valuable from this conversation, share it with a friend or a family member who could use a dose of motivation perhaps to take better care of themselves and make sure they're not taking 64 supplements maybe. But you can find Dr. Kiatt's work videos and newsletter at drkiatt.com. All these links will be on the show.

 

episode page on the show website, the Matt Feret show.com and his his website is Dr. kiat.com. You can follow him on LinkedIn, which I will find you on LinkedIn and, and send a request or on YouTube as well. So more science backed way is to live longer and live well, all those resources are there for you from him. And as always, thanks for listening and watching. Here's to your wealth, wisdom and wellness. I'm Matt Feret, and I'll see you next time.