Mark Hyman

At a glance

• Mark Hyman is an American physician and author. He founded and is medical director of The UltraWellness Center in Massachusetts and was involved with the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine.
• He is one of the best-known faces of ‘functional medicine’, an approach that looks for underlying causes of symptoms through diet, lifestyle and extensive lab testing. The approach is controversial in mainstream medicine.
• He has written more than ten New York Times bestsellers, including The Blood Sugar Solution, Eat Fat, Get Thin, Food Fix and Young Forever (2023).
• He promotes the ‘pegan’ diet, a mix of paleo and vegan with plenty of vegetables and little sugar or ultra-processed food.
• He hosts the podcast The Dr. Hyman Show and co-founded the testing company Function Health.
• For longevity, he is influential because he reaches a large audience with messages about nutrition and metabolic health.
• Takeaway: take his basic advice — real food, lots of vegetables, little sugar — to heart, but be critical of expensive test panels and supplements.