The Philosophy of Living Healthier for Longer: Dr. Mark Sherwood on Turning Purpose Into Practice

“It's always a pursuit of truth, isn't it? How do I understand people’s needs better? How do I understand life better? How do I make life better? And how do I influence, inspire people to maintain that mindset…” 

After getting this perspective to the question “What is longevity for you?” from Dr. Mark Sherwood, I knew this conversation was going to be about much more than life-prolonging therapies and longevity science—it was going to be about the core of longevity itself: building a philosophy of living better for longer, understanding the why behind it, and spreading that to others.

Glad to have you join us for this interview, Dr. Sherwood. To give our readers some initial context, would you start by sharing how long you’ve been part of GlycanAge’s partner community? 

It’s been about four or five years now. We started slowly, taking time to understand the GlycanAge test and glycoscience in general, since it's relatively new in the field. My wife and I love diving deep into concepts, exploring the “why's” behind them to ensure we fully grasp them before sharing with the 25,000 people we work with. That’s a large community, so we want to be confident in what we pass on. Now, we’re completely convinced that GlycanAge, and the study of glycans, is at the very forefront of innovation and a key step toward the development of more resiliency to the human lifespan.

We’re really glad to hear that you’re seeing the benefits of our test for your practice, and wow—25,000 people is a big community! Can you share with us when did you start the Functional Medical Institute and, more broadly, your journey into this field? 

Well, my history is a bit unique. I used to be a police officer, and at one point, I was put in charge of a wellness program—except we didn’t have one. So, I had to figure out what to do and how to do it. That led me to start studying and learning, and eventually, I decided to go back to school. I was still a police officer at the time, already a bit older, and my friends thought I was crazy for doing it. But I was convinced there was more out there for me to learn and do, so I never stopped studying.

I’ve been a naturopathic doctor since 2012, and I work with my wife, who’s an osteopathic doctor, at the Functional Medical Institute. Together, we kind of cover all aspects of health, and over time, we naturally gravitated toward the longevity space. I’d say what we do is a blend of functional medicine, longevity, and biohacking. We’re deeply involved in all of it, constantly exploring ways to mitigate the effects of aging and better understand the process.

You seem to have had quite a journey to where you are today. Was there something that specifically inspired you to "gravitate," as you put it, toward the longevity space?

When I was in law enforcement, I saw people dying before I thought their time was up, and it broke my heart. It really got into my psyche, pushing me to figure out what we can do to help people live more fulfilling lives. It wasn’t just about increasing lifespan; it was about increasing health span and decreasing sick span. So many people, especially in my country, are on a multitude of medications, stuck in a system that only focuses on what’s wrong without giving them the opportunity to take charge of their health. They become slaves to the system.

And I’m just as passionate about changing that today as I was 20 years ago. When I share this knowledge with people, I want them to have hope—to know that there are things they can do. There’s no 'bad luck' hypothesis. It’s all about understanding, acknowledging, and developing a plan of action.

I absolutely agree with you—having a clear action plan makes a difference. What do those plans actually look like in practice? What kind of methods or focus areas do you work on at the Functional Medical Institute to help people move forward?

There are eight key areas we work within. Four of them are things a person can control: how they eat, how they move, how they handle stress, and how they manage rest or sleep. We help people improve in these areas because they shape the environment they're creating for themselves.

Then there are things you can’t control, like genetics—we look into that too. We’re well-schooled in genetics and have developed our own performance and longevity panels. In fact, we've even taught genetics to clinicians around the world.

Beyond that, we look at hormones and peptides—both synthetic and regulatory—as key signaling molecules. We also explore supplementation.

But all of it needs to be measured. If you don’t quantify what’s working or not, people don’t have a reference point.

We test blood work—it’s like a snapshot of what’s passing through the “roadway”, and can be beneficial. We also look at micronutrients, gut function, and even antigen testing from a dietary standpoint. These are all part of what we do.

But when you combine all those actions, the question is: what are they doing to the body from a current, long-term, and predictive standpoint? That’s where GlycanAge comes in. The more I see the science reflected in the GlycanAge report—the associations with disease and how early they appear—the more I see its value in predicting processes as much as a decade in advance. That gives people direction—it helps them understand what they’re trying to accomplish and how to move forward in a meaningful way.

It seems that you see long-term health as closely connected to lifestyle optimization and building an environment that supports it—which aligns closely with our vision too. Many people and clinicians, though, still tend to rely more on medications. What do you believe offers a better path forward?

To answer that question is to understand contextually why a big part of what we do is related to lifestyle. 

The current system works like this: you have symptoms, go to see a doctor, and ask, "What’s wrong with me?" The doctor runs tests, follows an algorithm, and prescribes medication to start or stop a physiological process for symptom relief. While this approach has its place, it often focuses only on managing disease rather than optimizing health.

I suppose in a short-term acute situation, that's probably wisdom and we need it. I'm not bashing medicine. I think there are some brilliant sides to it. However, I know that if a person focuses on what's wrong all the time, they lose sight of what's right. And I think what's right is much more right than what is wrong in a human. So when I look at the whole idea of functionality, I think we should be focusing on preservation and restoration of full functionality instead of rehabilitation. 

That's why I look into tests like GlycanAge which give me a predictive standpoint. My own immune age is 20, and my wife's is 20 as well—if my results show this, I must be doing something right. That’s the belief system we translate to the people we work with—rather than focusing on what is not working, we focus on making what is working even better. The stronger those functions become, the more motivated our patients get. And the more they see their test results improve, the more they feel alive.

We’re really glad to see that more and more people are starting to understand the difference between rehabilitation and preservation—that’s where true prevention really begins.

And as a tool, reflecting biological aging and the processes around it, we really strive to help make that difference visible. I’m curious to hear your explanation of the difference between chronological and biological age?

Your chronological age is just a number created to track time, but biological age tells us much more about actual health and function.

Let me put it this way. People’s organisms are much like a car. The car’s engine is designed to operate and be functional for a period of time. We’ve all seen the difference between a classic car that’s been taken care of—we always say it’s been restored.

But I don’t know that it’s restoration as much as it is overall care of that car. And then we’ve seen cars that don’t get taken care of—they rust out, corrode, and become completely useless. They die, if you will.

So when I look at the potential of human lifespan, I think it’s at least out there at 120 years, with a quality life. And I’m not talking about being broken down on multiple medications. I’m talking about being able to do what you want to do—not losing strength, not losing eyesight, not losing cognition, but maintaining a high quality of life while truly living.

I think with some of the innovative therapies and testing, such as GlycanAge, it can provide motivation and education, which drives innovation. And I think we’re on the right track here. I really salute you, Dr. Lauc, and your team for being brave enough to go in a direction where, at times, people probably thought you were crazy.

Speaking of preserving the “machine” for longer, healthier performance—many people turn to supplementation as a kind of fuel for the body; you mentioned that in your practice you also explore them. What’s your take on the role they play in supporting long-term health?

There are a lot of supplements out there that are being developed which is great. However, you can’t really outsupplement a bad diet. To us, a supplement is something from nature—in pill, capsule, liquid, or gel form. It’s delivered into the gut, broken down, absorbed into the bloodstream, and carried to the cell to support function within the mitochondria.

So for us, at the Functional Medical Institute, supplements aren’t the main thing—they’re adding to the process, like filling in the blank; helping with what we might be missing with the standard diet. And especially in our country, the standard American diet is so poor—it’s high in calories and low in nutrients.

I don’t know how we got so far off believing we live on calories, because we don’t. We live on micronutrients, which combined with oxygen, create ATP - the energy of the cell that gives us life. So, supplements just help us complete the puzzle—looking at the human body and identifying what might be deficient based on what they do and how they live.

For example, if you're a high-level athlete—and we work with a lot of those—you're going to be draining those nutrients quicker, compared to someone who’s less active or a little older. It’s a personalized approach to complete the puzzle of what nutrition is not doing.

You’ve explained really clearly what supplements are for you, and I’d love to explore what they are not. Can you share some of the most common misconceptions around supplements and health that you often come across?

I think I’ll give you three misconceptions that I’ve observed. 

First, there’s FOMO marketing—fear of missing out. People, including clinicians, will sell supplements with the idea of “if you don’t have this, you might…” That’s a false statement. Anytime you sell or buy something out of fear, it doesn’t create confidence. It’s based on panic or anxiety, and we don’t need to live like that. It comes from the wrong reason.

Second is the idea of a “pill for an ill”. Medicine is often used to start or stop a physiological process. Do we need that sometimes? Yes. Does it solve the problem? No. And the same is true with supplements. Take this pill to lose weight—that’s a classic example. All I need to do is take this pill and shed 20 pounds. That does nothing but hurt people. It damages their mindset and psyche. And obesity is one crisis destroying this country and the world.

The third is the belief that just taking a pill will do something. If you're eating poorly and your GI function isn’t working, is that pill even getting anywhere? We don’t know. Is it getting to the target? Maybe it’s just going in the toilet. The only way I know to check that is through testing—micronutrients, body function, and tools like GlycanAge.

GlycanAge helps us see if what we're doing is making a difference. If it changes the glycan structures, we know we’re doing something good. Sometimes it takes time but I've also seen things shift fast—like a man in his 70s with a GlycanAge of 29. 

It’s a shocking thing for a lot of people to believe this is possible. But this open-minded thinking needs to be taught. Even when it comes to clinicians. We get so linear in our thinking and too often, we major in the minors and minor in the majors. We need to take a step back, open our minds, take a fresh look and explore the question “why”. GlycanAge helps us do that - step back, open our minds, and measure what really works.

You touched on something powerful—the importance of stepping back and asking “why.” That question is so individual, and it’s where true personalization begins. 

In your own quest to keep exploring that “why,” what kinds of innovations or approaches are you applying or paying attention to in your practice right now?

We’ve been doing a lot of unique things and exploring different therapies for a while now. One of those is peptide bioregulators. It’s a unique science—probably old, but just now coming to the forefront in some subcultures. These can act as epigenetic modifiers, even for organ function. You can actually rebuild tissues and restore function where things have become dysfunctional. Using bioregulators has shown the ability to slow down and even reverse biological aging.

We also do a lot of IVs, and lately, we’ve been working more with molecular hydrogen, which is fascinating. I use a bottle that generates hydrogen and infuses it into water. Here, I have my bottle right next to me while we are talking and I drink that; we also inhale it using machines with a nasal cannula while working.

So we’re talking about a therapy that reduces damaging free radicals, lowers intracellular inflammation, and likely improves repair on a cellular level. This and other such therapies are already out there, and I really think the sky’s the limit for what we’ll continue to discover.

Wow, these therapies really feel like the future has arrived—fascinating stuff.
Aside from advanced therapies, we also love sharing practical tips with our community—people who are curious, looking for answers, and trying to stay consistent with their lifestyle. What advice would you give to those who want to take actionable steps in their daily lives?

Every day you wake up is a gift. Every day. I tell people that—you can think about yesterday, but you can’t live in yesterday because if you do, you’ll not make it through today and you’ll certainly have no eyes towards tomorrow.

So, I tell people to start with one thing at a time. Make sure you provide an excellent meal once per day to start with. Replace just one meal a day with something good—because deep down, we all know when we’re eating something that’s not good for us, we can’t have good results. Yet, we continue not changing that. 

Then, every day, put your tennis shoes on and do something—walk around the block, go to the mailbox, just move.

Also, read something and say something kind—to others and to yourself. These are simple things, but powerful when done consistently. It’s like how a baby goes from lying on its back to running—it takes purpose, and a little more effort each day.

I’m tired of average, and I want people to stop making excuses. I want them to stop asking, "Why can’t I?" and start asking, "What can I do about it?" I want people to get off their backside and quit allowing excuses to rule their life. Instead, address the question: tell me why you can, and do. How do you solve the problem?

And it is also acknowledging that we need help with that. And that is not a negative thing to do. That’s a very positive, constructive thing to do. But it’s also about setting a realistic goal. I’m going to live with excellence in mind. Will I reach perfection? No. But will I have excellence in my life if I put a purpose behind it? Yes. And I take that one step in those areas every day. And I get consistency with that—basic, small steps that are consistent. It becomes predictable. It becomes trustworthy. It becomes reliable.

And that’s how we get results. Over time, we build on that. It’s like building a house—one step at a time. And if you build it right, it becomes solid. It builds this thing I call human resilience. So, for people reading this article, just understand: you have to start somewhere going forward. If you start nowhere going forward, you’re going to continue going backwards.

And what about clinicians? What’s one key piece of advice you’d share with our partner community and healthcare professionals in general?

Thank you for the question—this is a troubling area as well. I see a lot of clinicians who don’t master the basics in their own personal life, yet expect to master the basics externally. And that can only go so far.

My wife and I—we’re never going to ask someone to do something we’re not doing ourselves. I look at it like this: the human earth suit I walk around in, is my business card. It represents everything I am. And whether we like it or not, people make a judgment call on that. They make a decision based on what they see in a blink—before even talking to you.

If you're a leader and you choose to be influential, always be aware that your influence needs to be trustworthy. There’s too much going on right now that’s affecting our health in a negative way. But I believe we can turn it around—one person at a time.

Everything you’ve shared has come through with such passion—so before we wrap up, I’d love to hear: what’s your personal definition of longevity?

I’ve been on a lot of stages in my day—with clinicians and not only—trying to motivate people. But I’ve realized this…

To me, longevity means being able to do what I want, how I want, for as long as I want—and not hurt. From where I stand, that’s longevity. It’s being able to live your purpose until your life is fulfilled by that purpose, whatever that looks like.
It’s not about living longer. It’s about living better. And I see so many people suffering needlessly, and I just believe there’s a better way.

I sincerely believe there’s a better way—and that’s all I want for my life. That’s all I hope to inspire people to do. Maybe have some small part in teaching them how to do that. And that’s the reward I get.

If you’d like to learn more about how Dr. Sherwood and his wife Dr. Michele L. Neil-Sherwood are redefining longevity at the Functional Medical Institute, visit https://fmidr.com/about/.