Sitting Kills, Moving Heals:

An Interview with Dr. Joan Vernikos

By Dr. Joseph Mercola
DM: Dr. Joseph Mercola
JV: Dr. Joan Vernikos

Introduction:
DM: Welcome, everyone. This is Dr. Mercola, and were here today with Dr. Joan Vernikos,
who is the former director of Life Sciences at NASA for many years. She was responsible for
monitoring the health of the astronauts as they went into space and finding out what were the
damages that were occurring and what can be done to counter them.
Im just beyond excited to have Dr. Vernikos with us today for a number of reasons. This is
going to be a little bit longer introduction because I would like to set the proper framework.
Many of you may not know that actually, one of my initial life ambitions was to be an astronaut
even up until college when I shifted to pre-med. Im glad I didnt, because I think there are too
many dangers in going up in space. But it was definitely an initial ambition of mine.
But then my new passion is exercise and health. Im so excited because what weve been seeing
in the literature recently within the last year or two is that if you are very, very fit exercise two,
three, four, or five times a week for a half hour to an hour of time, just exceptionally fit But if
you sit all the time or a great percentage of the time, there is some research that shows that
youre going to increase your risk of dying prematurely.
What Dr. Vernikos has done with her research with the astronauts has really kind of understood
why this is so and, even more importantly, provided us with a simple regimen that could
counteract those side effects.
I cant thank you enough for joining us. As I said, Im beyond excited to have you, because I
think youve really been instrumental in helping us understand a crucial aspect of living that can
really improve our life. And it does really cost hardly anything to do. So, welcome and thank you
for joining us.
JV: Thank you very much for having me and giving me this opportunity to explain to people, to
as many people as possible, how they can live a healthy life without really doing too much.
DM: Yes, indeed. Maybe you can probably provide us with a framework of how you first started
with NASA, some of your research, and how you uncovered this discovery.
JV: I started out I was hired by NASA in the early days because of my stress research. After
all, the concept was that if you take a human and stick them on top of a rocket, they probably
would be stressed. And so I was hired, one of very few actually. Much to my amazement, in the
early days of Gemini and even Mercury, the measurement of stress hormones were really very
low during the flight. They were high before and high after they landed. But during the flight,
they were low. I scratched my head and thought, Well, here goes a great career opportunity.
In that event, I could explain it on the fact that these people selected from fighter pilots and test
pilots, they had seen action, and this was fun. Being in space was a fun experience. It wasnt as
stressful compared to what the other things they have done that we would think of. Again, the
perception of what stress is comes into this.
But from that, we went to actually observing because most of the work that was done in the
early days were observations changes that happened as a result of being shot up into Earth
orbit, which is not totally weightlessness, but is microgravity. Its a considerably reduced level of
gravity. Thats what I studied. And then we had ground models, simulation models (because we
didnt have enough astronauts to study), or had people lie in bed continuously.
The Russians had come up with this notion that if you lie in bed continuously, it induces effects
similar to those we see in astronauts in space. That is because normally, gravity pulls in the head
to toe direction, whereas when youre lying down it only pulls across the chest. Also, the concept
of inactivity came into it. That if you dont have gravity, as you dont in space mostly, then you
have a kind of inactivity, because exercise is not efficient. Its not effective or as effective.
I then incorporated into my research at the Ames Research Center in California the model of
having people lie in bed and specifically the model of what we call head-down bed rest, which is
raising the foot of the bed by about 15 inches, minus six degrees head down.
This model came about again from the Russians. Because when their cosmonauts returned from
flight, they complained that as much as they really want to get a good nights sleep, they could
not fall asleep because they felt as if they were sliding off the foot of the bed. Theyve also
figured that if they raise the foot of the bed by about 15 inches with [inaudible 05:57] foam
works, which are nice and thick, it felt horizontal. The scientists took a cue from that and said,
Okay, maybe head-down feels closer to what it feels like in space than lying horizontal.
I imported this model to our research center in California, where we had the first human research
facility. Thats what I did for most of my ground research to support the changes that we see in
astronauts in space and how to overcome them or prevent them.
DM: Well, let me mention a point that I got from reading your book about sitting. Im a huge fan
of the exponential growth of technology and all the advances that it provides to us. But it seems
that its really moving in some direction that were becoming less and less active, because
everything becomes more efficient. We dont have to wash our clothes by hand; we have
washing machines. We drive everywhere; were not walking. We have a lawn mower service or
lawn mowers.
Our ability to move about regularly and do these chores is just decreasing dramatically with time.
As a result, its exposing us to this inactivity level. That sort of sets the stage. Within the last 10
or 20 years, weve had this progressively decrease in normal motions and activity walking,
sitting, and standing that really has led to the point where the vast majority of people in this
country is suffering with back pain and decreased mobility and flexibility.
So, if you can sort of expand on the story as to how you made the connections. You already
mentioned that lying down or sitting down is pretty similar to microgravity that the astronauts
experienced in space. What was the next step that you found?
JV: The next step was that in these volunteers that I recruited for the clinical studies who
showed the same changes the astronauts showed muscle wasting, loss in bone density, and
changes in the cardiovascular regulation that when they stood up after standing up or after
coming back from space, they have the tendency to faint. Their sleep wasnt quite what theyd
like it to be and so on. When they came back from space or when they stood up off the bed, they
recovered.
During Skylab, which was the longest mission we had in the early 70s, many medical observers
commented that astronauts were growing old in space. Of course, the astronauts didnt like that. I
mean, heres the right stuff and some doc is saying youre growing old doing what you love. It
was just not very popular in the NASA environment. But these changes were happening and
were very similar to what was happening in bed, in space, and in aging.
I came up in 1986 with a little pamphlet, basically calling it Parallel Processes, because I could
not claim that this was aging. Because after all, we presume we dont recover from aging. So, I
called it Parallel Processes and made the comparison between space and aging.
Then we wrote a book with my colleague Harold Sandler, whos a cardiologist. We edited, in
fact, the book and wrote part of it, Inactivity: Physiological Effects, which is the first book on
inactivity, I think, that was around. We used our research to develop that.
[-----10:00-----]

But still, it was only parallel observations; it was not a cause and effect. Until one day while I
was doing one of those bed-rest studies. I was helping a friend out whose parents had come from
Greece and spoke no English. The lady had fallen and broken her hip, had it fixed and replaced.
But she refused to stand up and get out of bed. She eventually ended up in a nursing home in
California.

I decided to help her out and go and visit her because I could communicate with her. I could also
communicate with the nurses and the staff who were taking care of her, because there was no
communication there. She was in bed. She wasnt getting out of bed. She wasnt doing anything,
and things were not looking good.

What struck me at the nursing home was that many of the observations Many of the things I
saw in these older people at the home were very similar to what I could see in my subjects who
have been lying in bed for seven days. And were not talking huge number of days; seven days
was the first studies that I was doing. Especially when they got out of bed, when balance and
coordination is affected, and they would pass out when standing up. They shuffled. Their feet
, in fact They walk on the top of their foot and slide it down. They dont step, pick up their
foot, and place it down.

I thought, well, this is very strange. These people who are in bed or the astronauts recover. But
here are these people in the nursing home who are showing exactly the same changes. Maybe
one should turn the question around. Maybe its not what causes the changes in them. Is it or
isnt it aging? But maybe it is the conditions that they find themselves in the inactivity or the
relative inactivity in space that induces these changes rather than the number of years one has.
When I started asking that question, then some of the research began to make sense.

Of course, we now know that with six months in space, the changes in bone and muscle that
occur here on Earth like one percent loss of bone or one percent loss of muscle over a year
happen in a month or even a week in space. You get almost a 10-fold acceleration of what now is
quite openly called the aging process.

DM: Okay, and then you continued the research further, I think, with one of the older astronauts
or actually one of the first ones. The very first one with a sub-orbital flight was Alan Shepard.
But then the first orbital flight was John Glenn, of course.
JV: Yes.
DM: And then he eventually progressed to become a U.S. senator. At the age of 77, he went
back up in space. And then you took the opportunity to do some experiments to validate your
theory of aging in the microgravity of space. Maybe you can expand on that.
JV: Thats a great story. He, of course, was a senator. He wanted to fly again, because when he
flew his first orbital flight, President Kennedy refused to allow him to fly again. He really
wanted to go to the moon. But President Kennedy decided it was not politically savvy to let him
fly. Because if anything happened to him, here was a national hero ended, and it would backfire
politically. So, John Glenn never flew again. And he always had that yearning.
When he saw my pamphlet I remember walking by the Public Affairs Office and seeing the
Senator on the floor of the Senate waving my pamphlet around. I was amazed at what all this
was about. Well, he happened to be chair of the Committee on Aging at the time. It occurred to
him, as he was listening to all these testimonies, that what he heard was very much like what he
had experienced and what he knew his colleagues were experiencing as they flew. So, he got
very excited.
One day in 1997, he walked into my office. He had done some fantastic research himself, not his
staffers. He himself had done the research comparing the aerospace medicine textbook with the
PDR on the effects of aging and drew the comparisons between the two. He said, Well, I think
if I flew again, it could provide information that could help everyone as we age. Being a
scientist, I thought, well, thats wonderful. But flying one person isnt going to do it. Were
going to have to fly a number of these older astronauts.
And I was quite concerned, because there was no president.
The oldest one who had flown then was Story Musgrave, and he was 50. And then after that,
Shannon Lucid, she was 52 and post-menopausal. But no one at 77. Mind you, he was a very fit
77. He took care of himself. He power-walked two miles a day. He did three times a day some
weight training. But still, there was a big risk.
My administrator came to me and said, Well, Joan, if you can assure me that Senator Glenn will
be all right and nothing will happen to him in this flight, then I will approve his mission. And I
thought, Wow, this is quite a bit of responsibility.
I went to my colleagues at the National Institute on Aging to Richard Hodes whos still
director there and said, Look, this is the situation. Lets help me find out what the
conventional wisdom is or the medical wisdom is about allowing a 77-year-old to go back into
space. We gathered some people around, some of the experts.
The conclusion was that it could be very useful. However, you needed more than one. We went
back and forth and thought, Well, we got to start somewhere. There are other astronauts who
are getting up to that age. So, we recommended jointly between the National Institute on Aging
and ourselves that John Glenn should fly.
I was concerned not because of what might happen to him during the nine days of flight, but
what might happen to him in terms of recovery. Because it was my observation that as people
age, they can do almost anything if theyre reasonably fit. But they need more time to recover
between exposures.
Thats how John Glenn came to fly. There was a lot of resistance among the astronaut core
because he was displacing the regular astronauts.
He had to do a lot of work. His regimen, his physical regimen was no different. But he was still
in the Senate while he was preparing. He would fly back and forth with these CDs of training of
what he would have to do every single minute (because thats how shuttle flights were
orchestrated), what these astronauts have to do every single minute, who does what, participate
in the research experiments that whoever he displaced would have had to do, provide the samples
and monitoring to doctor onboard, and just generally learn all about the shuttle, which wasnt
like his own spacecraft when he orbited the Earth.
It was a whole different kind of technology that he had to learn. He was fantastic. He participated
in all the ground tests and all of that. And then the flight happened. Everyone observed it.
President Clinton took credit. The administrator took credit. It was just fantastic. Theres press,
of course. [Theres] huge resurgence of interest in what NASA did, because, you know, it was a
very important person taking the chance.
We then had a presentation of the results at the NIH one evening, a full auditorium. We did
All the results were double-blind. I didnt know what the results were. Others didnt know. They
knew what we knew. What they showed on the slide was out of the six people who flew, one was
an outlier. So, we all thought to ourselves, Oh, dear, theyre his. Hes an outlier. Hes older,
thats why.
[----- 20:00 -----]
DM: These were the six people that were on the flight?
JV: These were the six people that were on the flight. Their average ages were between 35 and
45 and then one of 77. We thought, Oh, dear me. There we go. This confirms that if youre
older, you will react too differently. When the identity of the astronauts in those data points was
revealed, he was not the outlier; a 35-year-old was. He was smacked in the middle of the cluster
of the other astronauts.
That was fantastic. Because it suggested that if you take care of yourself and if you are healthy
The two miles of power-walking a day, it was not excessive. It was thorough, but it was not
excessive in maintaining his fitness. If you take care of yourself, you can do anything. Now,
again, I was worried about recovery. But he recovered just as fast as anyone else.
DM: So, you found no difference on the aging process and the recovery from microgravity in
space?
JV: Absolutely.
DM: And no one knew that before?
JV: No one knew. No one would have guessed it. No one would have bet on it.
DM: Thats a profound observation that youve uncovered. Can you give your estimation or
recommendation on what that means to us living here on Earth all the time?
JV: What it means is that the changes that accompany aging are the result to me, at least thats
what it means of our lifestyle rather than numerological or physiological age as we have known
it, and that we can do something about it. We can correct it. We can prevent it. We certainly can
delay it, and maybe even prevent it.
As a result of Glenns flight, I did a lot of public speaking. What amazed me at the end of my
talks was that people would come up to me and say, Where can I read more about it? My jaw
would drop because there was a textbook, but nothing for the public that they could understand. I
thought, Well, this is ridiculous. The next time I go on a talk, I want to have some notes with
me, or something I can hand out.
I started collecting these notes to hand out. It soon became a book. It took four years. I decided
to leave NASA and really devote myself to communicating what we had found, what we were
finding, and what we were doing with their taxpayers money, my taxpayers money, and your
taxpayers money in terms of knowledge and advancements.
What became abundantly clear to me very quickly was that gravity plays a big role in our
physiological function and in the aging process.
Now, I came at it completely from the gravity perspective. I see now folks writing articles and
exercise physiologists. I really have to smile because theyre excellent in their work, but they
hung up on the once-a-day intensive exercise routine.
DM: Yes.
JV: I explained to them that astronauts exercise a lot in space. In fact, nobody has flown in space
without exercise. Even from the very early age, they had the [inaudible 24:29] they called it,
which was bands, you know, various stretch bands. They could hardly move in the Mercury and
the Gemini spacecraft. Nevertheless, they did something. They did not just sit there.
So, we dont know what would happen to the body if we told them, Dont exercise. First of all,
they wouldnt do it. But we just dont know. We know that if we send rats up there, they wont
exercise. But all we know is that it accelerates the changes we are seeing over time in spite of the
exercise.
The Russians have been exercising up to four hours a day. But you see what happens And it
has only occurred to me recently when were trying to think about exploration to Mars, for
instance, and all these grand schemes various people have and want to go to. Sometimes they
only want to go one way to which, you know, is a different issue.
DM: Yeah, there are 80,000 people who volunteered for a one-way trip.
JV: I know. Im being aghast about this sort of thing. But what happens and what hasnt
occurred to people is that when youre on the ground and you exercise, when you stop
exercising, youre still in gravity. Now, you may sit for the remainder of the 15 hours a day.
Thats your choice. Or it may be your occupation that encourages you to sit. That one hour is not
very effective under those circumstances. But if you carry on a normal day at work or life, then
you are very healthy.
But in space, you can exercise as hard as you possibly can. In fact, one astronaut, Steve Hawley,
said to me he has the strangest feeling. He said, I pedaled on that treadmill so hard I just could
not do anymore. The moment I stopped, I felt like I had done nothing. I did not pant. I did not
sweat. Nothing. Its not that I did not exercise while I was exercising. I was exerting myself as
much as I could, but there was no lasting effect.
When you stop and think about it, when you stop exercising in space, youre not in gravity.
Youre absolutely in microgravity, weightlessness, or whatever you want to call it. Low gravity.
And you immediately start responding to it as if its the first time youre exposed to it. Its only
while you are exercising that you might be having some benefit. But you cannot exercise the
whole day. So, some different approach has to be taken as far as exploration.
DM: Well, maybe we can expand on that. Because in my mind thats one of your biggest
contributions to exercise physiology: the appreciation that gravity is an essential component.
And that you could be hyper fit, super fit with relatively small amount of exercise, especially
what we call high-intensity exercise training programs, which is only required 20 minutes a few
times a week.
JV: Yes.
DM: And you can get really fit. But if youre sitting in essentially a microgravity situation, not
exerting yourself against gravity, youre going to suffer. Maybe you can detail what your
observations were and what your recommendations are, because this is really the meat of your
discovery.
JV: Yes. I still keep improving on the products. Its because you become philosophical, as you
have in your presentations. Gravity is one of the four forces of the universe. You couple that with
light, you couple that with magnetic fields, and you begin to have all the key factors that
inference our birth and development on Earth. This is what we are born into. Were born into
none of these or at least a buoyancy environment, having never experienced the full force of
gravity.
Suddenly, we have to adjust. We have to adapt. We have to use these environmental forces
gravity, light, and magnetic fields to develop, grow, and function in the best way we can to be
most effective on Earth. If we ignore them, if we say, Well, theyre there, Ill take a pill
(which, of course, there isnt one, at least not for gravity), then were doing it at our own risk.
Theres nothing wrong with sitting. Sitting is part of our regimen. Now, I have things against
chairs or the invention of the chair. There are other ways of sitting. Squatting is better than
sitting.
[----- 30:00 -----]

We were designed to squat. We were designed to kneel. Sitting is okay. But its uninterrupted
sitting that is bad for us. We are not designed to sit continuously. We are not designed to be
quasi-microgravity.

DM: If I can interrupt you, because I think this is really, really profound, and Id like to
emphasize this. Uninterrupted sitting can cause serious damage to you. And most of us almost
everyone watching this in contemporary society is exposed to this risk factor on a regular basis.
Its just so profound. Because it really wasnt appreciated until relatively recently. Youre one of
the pioneers in bringing
JV: Its still not appreciated. Because people are still doing research of how many hours of
sitting is bad for you. Its not how many hours of sitting is bad for you; its how often you
interrupt that sitting that is good for you.
DM: That is so key.
JV: And you know, the other thing is that when you say Stand, or I say Stand up, then you
say, Okay, standing is the opposite of sitting. No, standing is not the opposite of sitting,
because sitting continuously is bad for you, and standing continuously is bad for you. The body
is not designed to respond to square waves.
DM: Okay, so, theres a consequence of that statement, which is another profound statement that
either sitting all the time is bad or standing all the time. Theres this trend or movement for many
people who believe sitting is dangerous, so they use standup desks. But from your perspective,
thats just as bad. Is that correct?
JV: Well, any retail employee will tell you that they suffer all kinds of consequences of many
hours of standing on the job. Even nurses have known this for years: standing on the job is not
good for you. The guards at Buckingham Palace pass out regularly if theyre not careful or do
something about it, like contract their muscles while theyre standing. Its a well-known thing,
except youre right. People have said, Okay, well, Ill do the opposite of sitting; Ill stand.
Thats simplistic and is not good either.
The desks have gone to extremes. There are desks There is one desk actually called the
extension that basically slides up and down. You can move with it as you Now, who wants to
do so much movement while theyre working? I dont know. But obviously some people feel that
they dont want to waste a single minute. But it is the interrupting the sitting. The interrupting
the sitting is not necessarily walking; it is the change in posture.
Now, let me come back to Because Ive taught in medical school, like I know you have. Its
very important because we dont teach our medical students about gravity. Gravity doesnt exist
in medical textbooks. But even more than that, postural change. The importance of postural
change is not emphasized even in basic physiology texts. And it is an extremely key factor.
The people who have worked on something called non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT),
James Levine at Mayo and more recently Marc Hamilton. He did work in rats, and now hes at
the Pennington. They say in their explanation Theyve looked at fat metabolism. And they
showed that lipoprotein lipase is reduced during inactivity dramatically. It increases with
activity, with exercise. And they say that the most effective in increasing lipoprotein lipase is
standing up. Gosh, what a surprise.
DM: Maybe you can just explain the importance of lipoprotein lipase.
JV: Lipoprotein lipase is a wonderful enzyme that grabs fat from the bloodstream and transports
it into muscle to be used as fuel. You have what every overweight person would desire, a
mechanism to transfer your fat, accumulated fat, and use it for fuel. Its as simple as that. I
oversimplified it, because there are many lipoprotein lipases and so on.
But this is a human lipoprotein lipase that does that and that responds to activity and inactivity. If
youre lying in bed, if youre in space, or if you are sitting for long periods of time, it hits
bottom. Its amazing that standing up will prevent it.
What amazes me even further is that these brilliant people Levine and Hamilton still cannot
understand why. What is the mechanism of standing up? What does it do? What does it do thats
different? Because when you think of walking you think of X steps and you think of so many
calories burnt. But do you think of standing up as exercise? Not really. We all do it. Do you think
of raising your arm as exercise? No.
Yet somethings happening when you raise your arm and keep it there. Because if you didnt, it
would be hanging down beside you. Or your muscle legs are doing something when you stand
up; theyre contracting to keep you there. Because if they didnt, theyd be crumpled on the
floor. These are all movements, almost below-threshold kind of movements, that do not burn up
a lot of calories, as we know them, but that are designed to work against gravity.
Now, let me bring you down to what I think of gravity and how I talk to people about gravity. I
think of gravity as a virtual rod that runs through our bodies when were standing up to the center
of the Earth. If we did nothing, it would pull us down toward the center of the Earth. Thats
important, too, because I would come to that in a minute with respect to relaxation, which is
terribly important to activity.
I think of gravity as this virtual rod and as our stimulus. It was designed to be our source of
stimulation to our body. When we use it, when we challenge it, when we challenge its downward
force, its acceleration, or its factor that gives us our sense of direction, our position relative to our
environment, it is our weight. Its not just one thing. Its not just the load on the body. It is not
just the vestibular system in the rear that tells us where we are relative to the furniture around us,
to the screen Im looking at.
It is much, much more than that. [Its] a sense of acceleration and a sense of fun. Because Ive
come to the conclusion that all the fun activities that we indulge in are based on gravity, okay?
DM: Yes, indeed. Like downhill skiing or one of my new favorites, which is bodyboarding in
the ocean.
JV: There you are, bodyboarding, downhill skiing, rollercoaster, your sports car, a motorcycle, a
swing, hanging upside down on parallel bars, every fun Bungee cord jumping, I mean, you
know, skipping rope, and trampoline. All these fun activities, all these games and play that we
think of, are gravity-dependent. We are using gravity every which way. The moral to the story is
be a child again. Have fun. Have fun. Play!
The other thing that this virtual rod of gravity tells us, which is terribly important to what people
are suffering from these days from too much sitting, is stooping. I see women walking pass by
my window, and I think thats wonderful. Theyre out there walking. But you know what? Their
head is hanging forward, and theyre looking at their feet.
[----- 40:00 -----]
Yes, theyre walking, but theyre not walking upright. Theyre not getting the full benefit of
gravity.
DM: Can you explain that? Because thats a really surprising distinction.
JV: Yeah. If you think of using this gravity rod, think of it going through you. Any way you
orient yourself to this rod changes how much it is used by your body. So, if you bend forward, it
is In fact, the weight of your head is being pulled down also by gravity. If youre holding it
upright over your spine, it is not pulled forward. It is exactly where its supposed to be: your
spine carrying the weight of your head.
We know that your head falling forward is not a healthy thing. You may want to elaborate on
that. But it is a very dangerous sign of aging and something that needs to be corrected as soon as
possible.
DM: Its surprisingly common. I mean, its pervasive.
JV: Yeah.
DM: And its sad, because theres such a simple solution. It doesnt All it rightly involves is
time. Its not expensive. It doesnt involve equipment.
JV: Exactly.
DM: Its just simple postural adjustments.
JV: When you think of sitting or people sitting at the office, again, the office chair is not your
friend. First of all, its not your friend, because if its on rollers, it prevents you from standing up
to go and get that thing thats a few feet away. Youre scooting on the rollers of the chair.
Secondly, it is designed for comfort. And weve become comfort-addicted.
DM: What do you propose as a better alternative to the traditional office chair?
JV: An upright wooden chair with no armrest.
DM: Interesting. Why?
JV: I will accept the armrest if you promise me that you really rest your elbows on it. Youre not
resting your elbows, are you? If you rest your elbows and push them back every so often, which
means your shoulder blades are being pushed back, and then you can relax again. But you do it
as often as you possibly can. That will correct a lot of your postural problems. But if you sit in a
hard back chair, a good old-fashioned chair, it can have a nice comfortable pillow, but it at least
forces you to stand up and to sit up.
There are many things you can do at the office. I used to hold standup meetings, for instance.
They were only 10-minute meetings, which was wonderful because we get a lot done, everybody
had their say, and off we went to do whatever we were meant to do rather than just lounging in a
chair and listening to someone talk. There, just getting up from your chair.
I had a person in one of my talks put a hand up and say, Well, I cant do all this. Ill get fired. I
said, What do you do? He said, Well, I work for a computer company. I said, Well, do you
drink water? He said, Well, yes. I said, Do you get up and go to the water fountain? He
says, We dont have a water fountain. Another casualty of modern technology. But he says, I
have a bottle of water on my desk.
I said, Wonderful! Put it on the desk next to you. Put it on the window sill or whatever you
have, so that when you are thirsty and want to drink, you get up and go there. And I said,
Drink as much as you possibly can. He says, Well, I do. I said, And you go to the bathroom
often? He said, Well, I havent thought of it that way. I said, Well, all it is is structuring your
life to incorporate these movements that our parents and grandparents used to do in the course
and the business of living into your day. You do them without thinking. Thats why I call them
gravity habits or G habits.
DM: Would it be safe to say that these habits are also quantified or determined as non-exercise
activities?
JV: Yes.
DM: NEATs? The challenge is to get more of this into your life.
JV: Absolutely.
DM: Because almost all of us are deficient in that.
JV: We need to incorporate it all day, every day, including weekends. That gets a chuckle. I
mean, why exercise on weekends, right? No, you move.
DM: Now, after I read your book, I was inspired. And really, I got it. Could you tell us the name
of your book? I dont think I recall the title specifically.
JV: Sitting Kills, Moving Heals.
DM: Sitting Kills, thats it. I highly recommended the book. Its a simple book. Its not complex.
Its easy to read, in one sitting almost. After I read it, I was inspired, because youve presented
very eloquently and simply, the concepts. What I understood is that I just have to change this,
because I was one of the biggest guilty people out there for sitting all day long. I've structured
my lifestyle very efficiently, I could sit almost all day. What I did
JV: Yes.
DM: Was I found an online timer, and I had to go walk every 10 minutes. And then the simpler
version is just to stand up. That would be sufficient. But I think the minimum is you need about
35 times a day to stand up. But right heres the innovation that I thought of. Because I always
like to tweak things and make them better. In your book, you have a table of different activities
that have exposure to gravity. One of them is jumping up and down.
JV: Yes.
DM: That gets you up to six times gravity. What I do is I stand up every 10 minutes when the
timer goes off
JV: [inaudible 46:47]
DM: And I do four jump squats. To show you what I do: I just go down like 10 minutes. I come
down, and I just do forward.
JV: Thats wonderful.
DM: And I sit down again. So, do you think that integrating a higher G-force activity into the
Because thats still an exercise. I mean, the heart is up a little bit, but its basically a non-
exercise.
JV: Right.
DM: Do you think that that would Im just getting your comments on that, because Im really
interested.
JV: Absolutely. I hope I could use you as a poster child.
DM: Sure.
JV: Because it is exactly that. The more gravity stimulation you get, the better of your Its
interesting, because in 2005, I wrote for Popular Science. They have a very short thing called
Headlines from the Future. They wanted me to say something about...
Because one of the things I did before I left NASA is design what I call the human-powered
centrifuge. Im not an engineer, so dont misunderstand me. It was just that as I was growing up,
I went during the summers to Greece. We my sister and I had to pump the water up from the
cistern. We used to take turns at pumping them. I thought, well, theres human power involved
here.
Why? Because they said we cant put the centrifuge on the shuttle, because it takes up power.
And I thought, well, this is stupid. Why not use human power as you rotate that plate that you
spin around on the centrifuge to generate gravity. So, I designed such a thing and patented it. It
will see the light of flight one of these days. I thought for Headlines from the Future that
everyone should have one in their basement. Thats basically, you know, if you want to lose
weight.
Animals in the 50s, theres research thats done that a variety of species from mice, chickens,
rabbits to monkeys spun on a centrifuge at only two times as gravity. After a month, if you
study them, they had another drop of fat in their abdomen.
DM: This was being continuously exposed to two times daily?
JV: These animals were less active, and they ate more. Yes.
DM: Interesting. So, can we expand on how you came to the conclusion of the number of times
you just stand up a day? What were the thresholds? Because under a certain If you only do it
five or six times a day its certainly better than nothing, but youre not going to get the
benefits. And then maybe you can discuss what some of those benefits are.
JV: Yes
DM: Because they are really quite profound.
JV: The research I I was doing these bed-rest studies and came to this.
[----- 50:00 -----]
Were trying to find a way of protecting the astronauts. The exercise, it didnt matter what kind
aerobic conditioning, aerobic endurance, or VO2 max was easy to achieve, relatively easy.
Once a day you could maintain aerobic capacity. But you always have, like, a 50 percent
effectiveness of whatever exercise you did. Whether it was isotonic, isokinetic, strength,
resistance, or whatever, it was only about 50 percent effective. Now I think they have it up to
about maybe 60 to 70 percent, they say.
But this was always never quite enough. And youve still got all the changes, you know, the 10-
fold loss of bone, muscle, and so on when the astronauts return. Obviously, its not really what
you want it to be. I thought, well, maybe the question to ask is what would it take How much
time would I have to spend upright if Im in bed 24 hours a day? How many times do I have to
stand upright? Or how much time do I need to stand upright, or upright and walking, to prevent
being in bed 24 hours.
So, I got a group of volunteers. In fact, we did a double-blind. All the conditions were done in all
of the subjects. They would come at monthly intervals, and theyd be exposed to one condition.
We only had them in bed for four days, which is plenty, to induce these changes. By the way, if
you get the flu or something like that and you cant exercise, there are things you can do to help
you not feel weak and nasty after you get up from the flu.
The question I asked was, okay, how many times do I need to stand up, or stand up and walk?
Much to my amazement, the answer was that standing was more effective than walking. Now, of
course, that was contrary to everything we believed in.
DM: Absolutely counterintuitive.
JV: Totally counterintuitive, contrary to the exercise routines we were using, which were more
and more intense. And what I had done in a very simplistic way was that I asked my subjects to
stand up every hour on the hour by the bed then for 15 minutes (since I know you dont need).
Or wed wheel them on a gurney next to a treadmill, and they would walk at three miles an hour,
which is mild, for 15 minutes. And then go back to bed.
We found that standing up by the bed was more effective than walking certainly for
cardiovascular changes and for metabolic changes. For calcium excretion, though, as little as 30
minutes once a day was enough. It did not take very much. I dont think you would need many
times of doing that during the day. What was important was that to prevent the changes, you
needed at least 16 times a day of standing up for the cardiovascular system. Sixteen times.
DM: Thats one-six 16 times.
JV: That is enough to prevent the 25 percent loss in aerobic capacity in four days, the plasma
volume reduction, and the sensitivity of the pressure receptors in the neck. I was very perplexed.
Of course, the next study would have been to have them stand for less than 15 minutes. Because
after all, you dont stand still for 15 minutes; youre contracting muscles. I want to make sure
that it was a minimum standing without too much of the energy-using, energy-generating muscle
contractions. And of course, to see if you stayed in bed longer, would you need more whatever.
But at that time, I was recruited to go to NASA headquarters and be a bureaucrat. That was the
end of my actual experimental research.
When I saw that and as I started thinking about aging and people sitting more and more,
including myself, I realized that obviously the trajectory from lying down to standing up is much
greater than sitting to standing up. I speculated that it would take at least 32 to 36 times of
standing from sitting to generate the same effect.
Since that time, there is an Australian exercise physiologist called David Dunstan, who has done
some actual sitting experiments and found in fact that that is so: you need many more times to
stand up. But we all do stand up that many times. Its not excessive when you stop and think
about it.
DM: Well, I dont know. Im not sure if thats quite accurate. I knew it wasnt true for me. I
mean, I would wind up sitting for hours at a time without standing up.
JV: Yeah.
DM: Because theyre just, you know, beginning the projects.
JV: Yes.
DM: It was interesting. I didnt realize that it was 16 times from the lying down supine position
in bed.
JV: At least.
DM: That you have to double that to 32 times.
JV: That was what Im saying. Its a sheer speculation on my part at the time. It did not We
did not have the basic research at the time.
DM: All the research supports it now, it sounds like. No, but the Australian did, right?
JV: Yes, the Australian has done it, and there are others.
Theyre still looking at hours sat. I tried to explain to my audiences that if you stand up every
half-hour, for instance, from sitting. That is, what, 32 times? If you stood up and sat down
repeatedly within 32 minutes, it is not the same effect. There is a difference. You need to spread
the responses, spread the change, and spread the signal and the stimulus throughout the day.
Thats a very important factor. That is an extremely important factor.
DM: That is. You just cant do Because otherwise youre almost converting those 32
JV: Exactly.
DM: Its almost like a regular exercise; its not a non-exercise activity. So, how do you think
these jump squats I just demonstrated to you If you integrated that into the standing process,
will that decrease the requirement because youre in a bigger stimulus?
JV: I dont know if it would decrease the requirement of the multiple times throughout the day.
DM: Well, I mean, it may go down to 16. Because it sounds like 16, if youre lying down, is
sufficient.
JV: Oh, Id love to [inaudible 58:01].
DM: Yeah, Ive heard.
JV: Right.
DM: Because clearly its exposing you to more of this force that really is a crucial part of our
health
JV: Yes.
DM: Thats incredibly underappreciated.
JV: But they have to think of it as an on/off switch. In fact, what were doing is were tuning our
body. Our body needs to be tuned, so that when the need arises for it to run away from a lion,
climb a tree, or whatever, it is fit to do so. The fact that we dont use this need anymore unless
were in Afghanistan or somewhere in the battlefield or were an athlete doesnt mean its gone
from our makeup. So, its the on/off.
DM: Right.
JV: The ability of using this standing-up gravity stimulus. The more, the better, to tune us or to
keep us tuned. In order to stay tuned, we need to do it throughout the day. It appears so that some
studies are beginning to show that. In fact, several times a day on the same energy expenditure, it
is more efficient in regulating insulin and lipids than a bout of intense exercise once a day, sitting
the same amount of time. Its been some Dutch work and so on.
DM: Have you reviewed the studies that found what I mentioned earlier that the people who sit
more tend to have an increased risk of death as opposed to those who dont? And if you have
reviewed them, how does that correlate with your theory?
[----- 1:00:00 -----]
JV: I was pleasantly surprised.
DM: What were your observations?
JV: Not because theyre dying, but because it reinforces the seriousness of what sitting does.
What these studies did was epidemiological. They went back and looked at the statistics of risk
of various cancers. They looked at breast cancer, at colon cancer, and the fact that how many
died and how many hours sitting, which was again anecdotal. They asked the people how many
hours they sat. They were told. The risk of death increased with the number of hours sat both for
colon cancer and breast cancer.
Of course, the wise guys in my audience say its only for breast cancer and colon cancer. I say,
Hey, thats where they started with the studies. Dont kid yourself.
DM: They have been the two most common cancers known to man, at least in North America.
JV: Thats right. But it doesnt mean that because you have prostate cancer, youre off the hook.
It is now being shown that it is true for the incidence and risk of prostate cancer. It is true for
almost any cancer you look at. And of course, it is true for It is becoming true for various
cardiovascular risk factors like heart attacks, stroke, and things like that.
DM: Well, lets have you comment on another aspect to the aging study with Senator Glenn. I
think it has inspired me. Because someone could listen to what you said and become very
discouraged. You know, Ive been sitting for 30 or 40 years. Im doomed. What can I do? But
the exciting aspect of your research is that the human body is dynamic, and it can reverse this
process. So, why dont you explain that? Because its just very exciting. Its never too late
essentially.
JV: Thats good. Youre absolutely right. It is extremely exciting. Thats why the first book, I
called The G-Connection: Harness Gravity and Reverse Aging. People say, Come on, you
know. Well, that was 2004. I think today I could say it with more conviction, because yes, you
can change what you are.
The body is plastic. The body changes all the time. We have new cells being generated all the
time new brain cells which was thought not to be the case some years ago, as well as new
cells everywhere, including skin cells.
It is extremely exciting, because the stimulus that these gravity-related activities non-exercise
activities generate is easy. It is simple movements every which way. The greater variety, the
better. Thats important, because the body gets used to the same thing over and over again. The
more variety you introduce, the more on and off throughout the day, the better. Introduce the
concept of fun and playing.
Dance. Dancing is a wonderful activity. I had an 87-year-old [inaudible 01:03:30], where I spoke
one day. She was there with her walker, a very elegant lady with her walker. When I asked
people what exercise they did, she put her hand up, and she said, I dance. I thought, Oh,
yeah? Okay, how? Oh, she says, I put the music out loud, and I have chairs in my kitchen
with rollers on them. I push them around, and I dance. And I thought, Isnt that wonderful?
Absolutely wonderful. Theres nothing to stop someone from having fun. That is very important.
DM: Absolutely. I was wondering if I can get your insights on a tool that I believe initially was
using this base program. Its the acceleration training or Power Plate, which is one of the first
ones and which absolutely can increase the gravity up to six times or so, depending on the
settings that you use. Im wondering if you could comment on that, what your observations were,
and I guess the potential integration of that into a program or an ideal approach that you might
recommend.
JV: I think that there are all kinds of [inaudible 1:04:48] that generates gravity stimulus. A sway
plate is one. Vibration is another. Clinton Rubin up in New York has developed a high-
frequency, low-intensity vibration, which seems to be It doesnt generate that much gravity. I
mean, its not a jarring stimulus, but it is subtle enough. The information about high-frequency,
low-intensity seems to be important.
When were moving around and we see a speck on the floor, we bend down to pick it up, is that
exercise? No. If we reach up to get a book off the shelf or a pot off the cupboard, is it exercise?
No. When we brush our teeth, is it better to brush with a brush or with an electric brush? Electric
brush already takes away some of the movement that we would normally do with a regular
brush. Play golf. For heavens sake, if youre going to play golf, dont take a cart. Carry your
golf balls.
DM: Sure.
JV: Or at least, push your golf container down the slope. Yes, by all means, do sports. No one
says dont exercise. I think that is very important to bring across.
DM: But were talking about that in a moment.
JV: Yes.
DM: I just want to clear up the question on the acceleration training. Into the frequency, has
anyone you know looked at the importance of the different frequencies? Because you can go low
frequencies like 30 cycles per second, 30 hertz up to maybe 50 or 60.
JV: Yeah.
DM: If thats your sweet spot, it doesnt matter if youre like standing on it, because the
vibration.
JV: It seems to be transferred to the heels.
DM: Gets transferred to your heels.
JV: It seems to be a function of the proprioceptors. However, it is very interesting, because I
asked Clinton whether, for instance, people with spinal cord injury could benefit. He said, Well,
weve been trying to get funded to do that study, but the peer review says, Come on, I mean,
you know, youre going to sever your cord.
They finally had a pilot study approved by the VA and the NIH. They put a tooth sensor in
people. They had them sit obviously with their feet on the plate. The sensor in the teeth picked
up the vibration in the feet, which meant that something was getting up there. They havent
finished the subsequent study, which was to take people with spinal cord injury and look at their
bones and their muscles, and see if they can be maintained with such treatment, which would be
fantastic. Oh, I should know
DM: So, this should be the application that they have in medicine.
JV: I know you would appreciate it. Very few people have noticed, but I had to put it in. The last
chapter in the book is about gravity therapy, using gravity as treatment.
DM: Wow.
JV: There are obvious ones like rehabilitation, for instance. But I think one of the very near and
dear to my heart is the treatment of kids who were born with cerebral palsy. There are volunteers
that go to the hospital and use the pullover legs in a walking type of motion, so that the brain gets
the idea that this motion is part of what it has to do.
But what they dont do is have the babies upright, so that they can benefit from the stimulus of
gravity while theyre moving their legs. There is an institute in Hungary called the Peto Institute
that does just that. They dont know why, but they know that it works. I mean, they never evoked
gravity as the reason. But to me, looking at it, its obvious that thats whats happening. So,
gravity as treatment can be used. It can reduce the number of deaths at birth.
Because the way weve changed the birthing process: we cut the cord and pick up the babies
upright. Well, theyre like astronauts: they pass out, because they dont have the regulatory
senses developed to send the blood up to the head. Therefore, the longer you have them lying
down until they get adjusted to living in this gravity environment, the better off theyll be.
[----- 1:10:00 -----]
There are a lot of implications that I think would be found eventually. Certainly, I think it will be
useful in diabetics, spinning on a centrifuge. Because the right kind of muscles You see its
posture muscles predominantly its what we call stabilizers rather than the mobilizing
muscles, the big, big, vast [inaudible 1:10:42], hamstrings, and so on. Posture muscles are what
work against gravity.
DM: Could you give us some examples of the posture muscles or these small muscles in the
spine?
JV: Theyre small muscles in the spine. Theyre relatively very thin muscles on the back of the
gastrocnemius and the leg. Theyre the ones that when you stand up, thats what you recruit.
People who have trouble standing up. Again I do that in my talks. I ask people to stand up, and
they roll all over the place, lean on the table or on the chair to get themselves up. I said, Thats
okay. You start out that way. But eventually those soleus muscles are going to be strengthened
to the point that you can stand up without leaning on your knees or leaning on anything.
I want to tell you about a study, which is not in my book, that I saw recently, about a Brazilian
group (you may have seen it) that has developed a scoring for aging.
DM: Yes! We did an article on that. It was fascinating, absolutely fascinating.
JV: Most of us cant get up from a seated-on-the-floor position without leaning on something.
[Inaudible 1:12:13]
DM: [inaudible 1:12:13-16]
JV: But then you have something else, Muslims pray five times a day. They go from an upright
position. Its very interesting the way they drop into their knees, so theyre holding their upper
body postures straight. They drop into their knees. They do this three or four times. And then of
course, they kneel over and put their head on the ground, kneel over and put their head on the
ground, and then stand up again. They do this five times a day. Well, guess what.
I think, you know. Someone said, Oh, thats why they lived to be a hundred. I said, Well, there
may be some truth to that. Theyre not the soonest people in the world necessarily, but they
obviously can do that. Thats just like the Brazilian group.
DM: Youve really opened the eyes of so many people about the importance of these non-
exercise activities. Im wondering if you could sort of frame the exercises you just mentioned
and how they would integrated that to a regular, traditional exercise program, where youve got
these mobilizers as much as the large muscles in the body, the ones that most of us both think of
when we think of exercising, such as running, high-intensity exercises, or strength training.
I guess its sort of a curiosity question if I think ideally we should do both. But if for whatever
reason, a person is limited to one or the other, sort of an experiment, is it your belief that if they
didnt exercise, the non-exercise activity would be
JV: Yes.
DM: Healthier?
JV: Yes, its my belief that the non-exercise activities are the foundation of the foundation of our
tuning and our health, and more important than regular exercise.
DM: Theyre more important than regular exercise.
JV: No, regular exercise is the next step. You build on the foundation.
DM: Oh, everyone has it backwards!
JV: Because if you get injured or if you have too much work to do on your project, and you
dont have time to exercise, you always have time to move around. You stand up at the
commercials when youre watching TV or whenever.
DM: Not too much now. We have the VCR. You can just forward, you know.
JV: Thats the problem. We have all these technology thats designed to make our life easier
(whatever easier means) sitting.
DM: Well, it does. I mean, it provides a lot of benefits to us and humanity as a whole. But as
long as we understand the basic requirements that are dictated to us by our ancestors, our
upbringing, our biochemistry or genetics, and if we honor those with relatively simple techniques
that only take a few minutes a day, it can have dramatic and profound implications
JV: Absolutely.
DM: On the quality of our life and the length of our life.
JV: A colleague of mine whos head of the University of Virginia Endocrinology section said, I
tell my diabetes patients to do three squats, three full squats, every hour. I said, Thats
wonderful. Who came up with this? He said, Well, I just came up with it, and I tell my
patients. Then I said, Well, youre brilliant. Thats all I can say. Hes seen tremendous
improvements.
DM: Did he see big improvements by having
JV: These are type 2 diabetics.
DM: And these are type 2 diabetics, Im assuming.
JV: Squatting is an extension of standing. Ideally, if you squat and stand, you might get the
absolute maximum benefit of using gravity, of working against the force of gravity. Youre
absolutely right.
DM: Or particularly the next step is jumping.
JV: [Inaudible 1:16:32] go from a squatting to a jump and land again and squat. That is the
maximum exercise you can possibly do without any equipment. Thats about your 6.5 G.
Trampoline is the next one. Trampoline goes up to 4.5 G.
DM: [inaudible 1:16:52-55]
JV: Absolutely. Because
DM: Okay, so, whats your opinion? You want trampolines rebound?
JV: Also, the balance.
DM: Okay.
JV: The balance is extremely important. Because I see kids (because thats what they are for
me), 20-year-olds. If you think that we develop until about 20 and then we quit moving. We go
to college, and we sit.
DM: Absolutely. So, what is the ideal regimen for someone using the trampoline? Would you
give your comments on that?
JV: You would go out there and have some fun and play once a day.
DM: Just once a day?
JV: The important thing is dont do nothing the rest of the time its not an Ive-ticked-the-box
routine. And vary it. Do squats and jumps one day. Do some trampoline one or two days. Go to
the playground. We should have adult playgrounds. Nobody The children arent using them.
Both Finland and Germany have adult playgrounds.
DM: Really?
JV: Oh, yes. Its not my creation. I thought I had invented it, but no. They have them and theyre
used. Not only that, but I told the locals her, I said, Look, if I recruit the older people to go and
use the swings at the playground, perhaps the children would go also because they wouldnt fear
the safety factor. Its this sort of encouraging And Im worried about the kids, because I think
the kids are sitting so much.
DM: Oh, absolutely. But its a simple solution. Its getting back to the playground, that seesaw,
another perfect example. That was one of my favorite
JV: The seesaw, paddle bars
DM: Equipment, the seesaw.
JV: Hopscotch. Who plays hopscotch anymore? Who skips rope? These are all fun activities.
DM: Yeah.
JV: Bicycling. Bicycling is very good. Its not a particularly gravity-related activity, but its an
acceleration aspect of the gravity stimulus. We mustnt forget that. We need to stimulate all the
receptors we have that perceive gravity. We dont know yet what they all are. We know the inner
ear is very important. We know that we have receptors in the soles of our feet and our hands
probably. But we probably have them everywhere. The beauty of gravity is its a mechanical
force.
Now, there is, as you know, the great movement in mechanical transduction. In other words, if
you take a cell and you elongate it, you change its shape, that triggers a stimulus that conveys to
the next cell that its time to do something and change my shape.
[----- 1:20:00 -----]
I sincerely believe and thats why I think people with spinal cord injury, for instance, would
benefit. I believe that the stimulus of gravity gets through from one cell to another through
mechanotransduction. Its transduced. Its changed into a protein, into a chemical message that
gets into the next cell.
Also, we now know that inactivity reduces the number of telomeres in the mitochondria, the
oxidative stress component. If youre active, if you do non-exercise activities, you restore the
telomere length.
DM: Interesting. Some age experts believe that the telomere may be one of the most important
barometers of how long youre going to live.
JV: Well, its certainly a marker. There are many markers. I think inflammation, acidity, and the
telomere length are some of the very critical markers that you can use for the aging process and
for disease, any disease.
DM: And non-exercise activities like youre promoting
JV: All of those variables.
DM: Will include all
JV: All of those variables.
DM: All of those variables.
JV: Definitely. Activity will affect inflammation, will reduce inflammation. It will increase
telomere length together, of course, with nutrition. I dont believe that any one thing does
everything.
DM: Of course. Its a whole variety of different factors. Im passionate about health. Ive been
studying it for decades. Im trying to teach people how to do it. But I can tell you that what
youve uncovered is just novel, virtually no one knows about it, and it may be one of the most
important factors. Its very rare to ever learn new information like what youre presenting that
has such a profound impact on health. And its so simple.
JV: Oh, yes.
DM: What Ive learned about health is that usually the best and important ideas are the simplest.
JV: Its fascinating. Let me tell you another one that Im working on, and that is the relationship
of gravity to sleep. I thought youd like that.
DM: Oh, interesting.
JV: Astronauts in space sleep what apparently looks like perfectly normal EKG variety of
sleep adequate hours. But for one, they will tell you when they wake up, they do not feel
refreshed. If you, as Im sure you have, sat on an airplane and tried to sleep sitting up, you sleep.
But you get up and you feel terrible. There are soldiers, for instance, who will sleep upright.
DM: Right.
JV: But its never satisfactory. Why do we put our head down to sleep? You got it.
DM: Gravity.
JV: I am persuaded to get my sleep colleagues at Brigham to do the research, because Im
convinced that gravity has a role. It is very interesting. The other thing that nobody knows
anything about or very little is what happens during sleep, during the night, to the metabolism.
Yeah, we know it goes down. We know certain hormones increase at certain times.
But for instance, if you go in water, if you sit in water, if you go into a pool at night If you go
into a pool during the day, the first thing you do if youre a child certainly and some adults is
pee, okay, right? Now, if you do that at night, you dont.
DM: Yeah.
JV: We had a guy who wanted to know whether during the night in our bed-rest subjects Let
me re-address this. During the day, in bed-rest subjects, as in space, you lose calcium. You pour
out in the urine, but you dont turn around. But over time, you do.
DM: Interesting.
JV: The story on that is we lose by continuous inactivity, lack of postural cue, whatever it
turns out to be. Im inclined to posture cues as the trigger over time we lose that shutdown
reflex for the kid during the night. People as we age have to get up and empty their bladder. Ive
made it my personal goal
DM: Interesting.
JV: Not to succumb to that. And you can.
DM: Yeah, thats a Well, and it just radically sort of dominos your health in a downward
spiral, because you need sleep. Sleep is another important constituent of health.
JV: Absolutely.
DM: If you cant sleep well, youll just radically spiral downwards.
JV: Yeah.
DM: Im just so grateful for your work and for all the pioneering efforts youve done. Because,
you know, Ive been fit my whole life. I started exercising when I was a teenager. Ive been
exercising for 50 years now. But I noticed when I started to get into my 50s that my flexibility
wasnt what as it used to be. I just have to strain to get out of the chair. I couldnt be able to get
up.
But I am convinced now. Theres just no doubt in my mind. Its because I wasnt doing enough
of the non-exercise activities. I was becoming very efficient in sitting in my chair and getting a
lot of stuff done and accomplished. I was ignoring this absolutely crucial component of health.
JV: Yeah.
DM: Its very rare, as I said earlier, where I find people who really have this profound insight on
health and you have. Probably one of the 10 greatest appreciations that I have on health is what
youve discovered. I cant thank you enough for doing that.
JV: I thank you for the platform, your support, and your help. Lets get the word out there.
DM: I think we definitely will.
JV: Fantastic.
DM: Weve done it in many other areas like vitamin D and other issues. The dangers of swine
flu vaccine were another one. Essential fatty acids, astaxanthin. Theres a whole variety of
different topics where weve really been the leaders in catalyzing. This will not be hard because
it makes so much sense, and theres no cost to it. All of this is standing up.
JV: Yeah.
DM: I mean, ideally, you want to do all the other exercises. But I guess one of the final thoughts
I have as a question for you is if the person did nothing else other than stand up 36 times a day
I mean, they would have to do some of the others, but essentially none of the others if they did.
Would that be sufficient to provide a stimulus to prevent the downside
JV: I believe [inaudible 1:27:57].
DM: Of not having to do exercise activities?
JV: What do I want to do? Whats my objective? I want to be healthy, and I want to be
independent. I want to be independent as long as I live, which means I maintain my
youthfulness.
DM: Right.
JV: Obviously not my age, so that I can enjoy life however long it happens to be. Once you ask
that, then you say, okay, where do I start? Try and be minimalist: few activities that are directed
toward this fundamental approach. Its how you do it, what you do, how long you do it, and
youve got it.
DM: Yeah. Its so simple. Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the pioneering
work youve done in this area.
If people want more information, we will have it on our article that comes with this. But your
book is Sitting Kills, Moving Heals. Its available online at Amazon. Its easy to get. Its a simple
book. I highly recommend it. Its an easy read. You can go into some more details in that book.
But it helps reinforce this concept.
Hopefully, everyone watching this There is not anyone alive who doesnt need or benefit from
this activity. Its just absolutely crucial. Virtually no ones doing it. Its just crazy not to integrate
this into your lifestyle.
JV: Thank you very much, Joe. Yes, you can do it.

[END]