In today's interview Harvard and Tufts neuroscientist Dr. Michael Van ElZakker shares his fascinating new paper Chronic Fatigue from Vagus Nerve Infection: A Psychoneuroimmunological Hypothesis. His hypothesis proposes that an infection of the vagus nerve can cause greatly exaggerated chronic sickness responses like fatigue, pain and more. Our interview also touches on the mast cell link right at the end. 

Yasmina Ykelenstam, ex-CNN and BBC journalist interviews Dr. Valter Longo of the USC Longevity Institute on his groundbreaking research into Fasting Mimicking Diets (FMD).

FMDs offer the same anti-inflammatory and cardiac protective benefits as water fasting, under less extreme conditions. Dr. Longo shares a particularly exciting and relevant nugget of information in this interview: the fasting mimicking diet can cause "faulty" mast cells to die off and encourage the immune system to regenerate healthy ones in their place. FMD research also indicates that it could prove beneficial in the treatment/prevention of allergies - all this in as little as five days.