Healthy To A Hundred: Dr Chris Shade Of On 5 Things You Need To Live A Long, Healthy, & Happy Life

An Interview With Savio P. Clemente

Healthy Sense of Self — Cultivating a healthy sense of self means developing self-awareness, self-love, and self-care, along with a genuine drive to express yourself in some area of life, whether that’s through work, art, sports, hobbies, community involvement, or a cause you care about. This kind of self-expression brings purpose and energy to your daily life, fueling a sense of fulfillment that the body and mind need to truly thrive. Research consistently shows that people who stay active and engaged as they age tend to live longer, healthier lives. On the flip side, those who center their identity around work often experience a noticeable decline in vitality when they retire too early.

The term Blue Zones has been used to describe places where people live long and healthy lives. What exactly does it take to live a long and healthy life? What is the science and the secret behind longevity and life extension? In this series, we are talking to medical experts, wellness experts, and longevity experts to share “5 Things You Need To Live A Long, Healthy, & Happy Life”. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Dr. Chris Shade.

Christopher Shade, PhD., is an internationally recognized expert, lecturer, and teacher on mercury detoxification and liposomal delivery systems. Growing up in a toxic steel town, Chris started asking questions about environmental sustainability early on in life, igniting his early career in organic and biodynamic farming and later completing his Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Aquatic Chemistry. His groundbreaking research on mercury speciation led to the development of Quicksilver Scientific’s Mercury Tri-Test, the only clinical test that differentiates mercury forms and assesses the body’s detox capacity. Dr. Shade also pioneered Quicksilver Scientific Delivery Systems®, a cutting-edge nanoparticle technology that enhances supplement bioavailability and underpins the company’s innovative approach to detoxification and metabolic health.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

I’ve always leaned toward alternative perspectives rather than the mainstream, but I initially approached topics like “health food” and “alternative health care” with skepticism. During college, however, I had a spiritual breakthrough that helped me connect the mind, body, and spirit. This shift led me on a journey through organic farming, various herbal traditions, and Western approaches to integrative medicine.

Eventually, I returned to graduate school to study environmental chemistry and toxins, with a focus on mercury. That research resulted in a patent for testing different forms of mercury and ultimately led to the founding of Quicksilver Scientific.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Peter Goehrig was the most influential person in my business success. A Harvard MBA, he grew Asics shoes from $50 million to $280 million in just three years, later ran and sold the Airwalk brand, and helped many entrepreneurs either grow their companies or recover from adversity. He taught me how to think about and manage small businesses, working closely by my side for many years, including a remarkable period of four consecutive years of 100% annual growth. He mentored not only me, but also many of our employees, and even my children. His impact will forever be felt at Quicksilver Scientific, in my life, and within my family.

You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Perseverance tops the list, closely followed by vision and agility. For years, my family lived on $35,000 to $40,000 a year, shopping at thrift stores and borrowing credit cards from our parents just to buy food. We did this while I worked to cut through the existing framework of thought in my industry to introduce entirely new ideas. It took a long, long time to break through and elevate our company’s concepts and products to a gold standard that is now widely respected.

There were countless times I wanted to give up, but perseverance, something I developed during my PhD,kept me going. Vision is something I’ve always had, but it takes constant courage to sustain it. Agility means understanding where the work is leading you, both toward and away from, and knowing when to pivot or stay the course. There’s no playbook for that; you have to stay open to your inner knowing.

These traits are essential for getting a company off the ground and building its strength. But for long-term vitality and success, you must cultivate a shared culture and community that maximizes people’s potential and fulfillment. That’s when people can truly invest their love and energy into the company.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of our interview about health and longevity. To begin, can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority in the fields of health, wellness, and longevity? In your opinion, what is your unique contribution to the world of wellness?

Both my experience in regenerative farming and my background in environmental biogeochemistry taught me the importance of systems biology — an interdependence that is crucial to integrative and functional medicine. A proper PhD trains you to see the signal through the noise in research literature. It became natural for me to absorb large amounts of data without getting too fixated on any single piece until I could see how everything fits together. It also teaches you to play the long game and avoid getting swept up in health fads.

Seekers throughout history have traveled great distances and embarked on mythical quests in search of the “elixir of life,” a mythical potion said to cure all diseases and give eternal youth. Has your search for health, vitality, and longevity taken you on any interesting paths or journeys? We’d love to hear the story.

My entire journey since leaving college has been a quest. One that has included literally studying European, Chinese, and Indian alchemy. Each stage of my health journey has brought me to a new frontier: detox, immune function, metabolism, cardiovascular health, hormonal balance, and ultimately, longevity. I innovate by solving my own challenges and those of the people around me. While it might sound self-serving, the inner listening and feeling involved in this process often lead to direct insights and meaningful innovation.

Based on your research or experience, can you please share your “5 Things You Need To Live A Long & Healthy Life”?

1. Healthy Sense of Self — Cultivating a healthy sense of self means developing self-awareness, self-love, and self-care, along with a genuine drive to express yourself in some area of life, whether that’s through work, art, sports, hobbies, community involvement, or a cause you care about. This kind of self-expression brings purpose and energy to your daily life, fueling a sense of fulfillment that the body and mind need to truly thrive. Research consistently shows that people who stay active and engaged as they age tend to live longer, healthier lives. On the flip side, those who center their identity around work often experience a noticeable decline in vitality when they retire too early.

2. Healthy Integration with Others — The mind-body cannot thrive in a purely self-focused state. When we operate from a place of isolation, negative thought patterns around self vs. other can emerge, feeding a sense of competition and scarcity. These patterns over-activate the nervous system’s fight-or-flight response, which in turn contracts our body systems and undermines vitality. In contrast, giving of ourselves, whether through intimate relationships, friendships, work communities, or neighborhood involvement, builds connection and gratitude. It helps counter the alienation that’s become so common in our increasingly virtual world. Attention to beauty, aesthetics, and the care of shared spaces plays a role here too, as it enhances our sense of environment and our place within it.

3. Physicality — Physical movement plays a key role in regenerating and circulating energy throughout the body, reinforcing the mind-body’s natural sense of vitality and well-being. This includes obvious forms like exercise and mindful movement practices such as yoga and Taiji, but physicality also encompasses human touch. That might mean intimate touch with a partner, holding hands, hugging friends and loved ones, or receiving healing touch through modalities like massage. When touch is absent, our autonomic nervous system may lack the signals of safety it needs, often triggering a subtle but persistent fight-or-flight response that can block the body’s capacity to rest, heal, and restore itself.

4. Diet and Supplementation — What we put into our bodies has a profound impact on both physical and mental health. While there’s no one-size-fits-all diet, the quality of our inputs, food, water, plant-based elements, and supplements — matters deeply. These should be as clean, pure, and fresh as possible, especially given the toxins that are so common in our modern food systems and environments. Supporting the body’s natural detoxification processes through smart supplementation can be a powerful foundation for long-term health.

5. Spiritual Life — This is a deeper dimension of connection with “Other”, a sense of belonging to something greater than yourself. Feeling part of a larger whole helps loosen the grip of the contracting mind and its negative stories about isolation or separateness. While organized religion can sometimes be divisive in certain expressions, a spiritual life doesn’t have to follow any one path. It can be as simple as reflecting on the implications of quantum entanglement and the deep interconnection it reveals, or resonating with concepts from Taoism, Buddhism, or Indigenous traditions that emphasize unity within individuality. It might also be rooted in a more traditional belief in a Judeo-Christian understanding of God.

Interestingly, people who’ve had near-death experiences, like actor Jeremy Renner recently, often return with a profound sense of connection to a greater presence or purpose. They report an overwhelming gratitude for life and a deepened sense of meaning, which naturally supports emotional healing and life satisfaction.

Can you suggest a few things needed to live a life filled with happiness, joy, and meaning?

The most important thing is to get out of your head and into a broader center of awareness. In Buddhism, the ego, the endlessly self-referential part of the mind whose role is to keep the body alive, can start to take control, leading to what are called the “afflictive emotions”: greed, jealousy, fear, and pride. This self-referential habit keeps us trapped in judgment and doubt, separating us from the vast world of potential and beauty that fills the universe. Simply allowing yourself to be more present, in a mindful, attentive, and open state, can quiet the echo chamber of the brain, stop the cycle of self-poisoning, and let joyful light shine through.

When that happens, the body’s autonomic nervous system naturally shifts toward health and balance, and that light becomes contagious.

Some argue that longevity is genetic, while others say that living a long life is simply a choice. What are your thoughts on this nature vs. nurture debate? Which is more important?

As with any binary question, the answer is usually both. Understanding your genetic guardrails, without identifying with them as limitations, allows you to maximize your potential and even bend the rules a bit.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Living in more communal social structures that involve growing and producing food for the community has a profound impact. There is no greater influence in breaking down the social alienation and self-centeredness that plague our world, and in replacing them with care, compassion, and togetherness. These qualities enable our hearts to love, and to heal both ourselves and the world around us.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.

————-

About The Interviewer: Savio P. Clemente, TEDx speaker and Stage 3 cancer survivor, infuses transformative insights into every article. His journey battling cancer fuels a mission to empower survivors and industry leaders towards living a truly healthy, wealthy, and wise lifestyle. As a Board-Certified Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC, ACC), Savio guides readers to embrace self-discovery and rewrite narratives by loving their inner stranger, as outlined in his acclaimed TEDx talk: “7 Minutes to Wellness: How to Love Your Inner Stranger.” From his best-selling book to his impactful work as a media journalist covering resilience and wellness trends with notable celebrities and TV personalities, Savio’s words touch countless lives. His philosophy, “to know thyself is to heal thyself,” resonates in every piece.