Transcript of #175 Dr. Gabrielle Lyon - The Nicotine Debate, Aging Conspiracies and Living to 100

Dr..

Gabriele Lyons. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

Dude, we've been trying to get this thing done for, I think, has it been over a year now?

Yeah, now here we are.

You're a busy woman.

I mean, there was a tornado or a hurricane or something and Kids. It's a whole thing.

Yeah. But, well, I got a whole slew of stuff I want to chat with you about. We just added another topic right before the camera started rolling. Cancer scares the hell out of me. It's like every day, every day I get a text from somebody else that knows somebody that died of cancer, that just got diagnosed with cancer. It's like my biggest fear. I just I never want to get that fucking diagnosis.

You know that you can screen for it very robustly.

I'm scared to do that, by the way.

No, we're doing it. We are doing it. I'm going to tell you why. I actually sent you a paper right before we came on the show. I published a paper with my husband, actually, who is a urology resident on bladder cancer and military exposures. I would say that military operators have higher rates of cancer. We're talking cancer as if it's one thing. There are various types of cancer. The good news is there are very robust screening tools. For example, full-body MRI scans. I'm sure you've heard of the prenovo scan.

What is it?

Prenovo scan. Have you heard of that? No. Full body MRI scan should definitely be doing that. Really? Yes. Also, something called the gallery test. We became very interested in this because of operators. Early detection cancer, if you can detect cancers early enough, you can initiate treatment. The Grail, originally in cancer research, it was called the Grail, now the Gallery Test, that is available to people through their provider. Early detection is critical.

Me and my wife had a conversation about this because we were going to do it. I was getting screen. I was going to go with this foundation I can't remember the name of it, but there's a foundation that does a bunch of military guys, and I was going to go with them. Then we're going to have Katie do it, too. She was like, we were both resident, but she had mentioned something and she's like, Okay, so what if one of us gets a diagnosis and it can't be treated? Then that changes our entire life right now.

I think it's a good thought.

Shit, I didn't think of that.

It's a good thought, but the reality is if you can get cancer early, these technologies allow for early detection when it's in its infancy. I strongly encourage you to do it. In fact, I'm going to hold you to it. I'm going to talk to Katie, too. All right. I do it every year. I just finished one.

How often do you do it?

Every year. Every year? I do. Every year. Because I had a lot of anxiety about it. I think everybody does. It's that one unknown thing that seems to take people out. Whether it's- What's...

Well, I did do a blood... Can they do a blood test? Yeah. So I did have a blood test. This is probably two years ago now.

Great. Was it the Grail, the gallery test?

I don't know. I went to a longevity doctor. He told me how long I was going to live. It was like '76 or something. Is that real? No. Okay.

No.

All right.

Besides It wasn't our game plan to live to at least 100? No. But I do think that we are seeing a rise in cancers. We're seeing a rise in cancers that are treatable. For example, colon cancer. Getting a colonoscopy at 45 before it was 50, now it's 45. I think that they're going to lower that number, even lower, because we're seeing an increase in cancers. These things, once they are identified, you can remove it. But if you don't go through regular screening, then the outcome is devastating.

How many different screenings are there?

Those are the two. I mean, that's a great question. There's a colonoscopy Everyone should be doing those. There is, obviously for women, there's mammograms for young men. Testicular cancer is one of the highest cancers in young men, 30-some years old. They can examine themselves or have a partner do it. Then these other various tests, ultrasounds, thyroid ultrasound, liver ultrasounds, We're more advanced with those tools.

Can the blood test test all of that?

Depends on the kind and depends on the cancer. But it's a great... I think right now, the Grail test I think it's 68 different cancers, 50 or mid-60 different cancers.

How many are there?

I couldn't even tell you.

Wow. Is it true it's hereditary?

No, not necessarily, not at all. Again, for a military operative community, they have exposures like Agent Orange. There are all kinds of various exposures that help facilitate DNA damage.

Are there cancer preventatives other than the screenings?

Yes. What? Diet and lifestyle. Do you know that obesity is one of the largest known risk factor for cancer?

I didn't know that. What about sugar?

I would say that it's not.

It's not?

No. Okay. We have to think about it. What is cancer? Cancer is an immunitation in the genome. There are various types. I I'm not a cancer expert by any means, but it's some derangement that the body cannot overcome. Could there be one insult? For example, smoking. We know that the relative risk of smoking in cancer is tremendous. But would a single dietary food cause cancer, like sugar or red meat? No. We have to look at the complexity of what we do in a daily basis.

What if you quit smoking or you quit vaping? Is that in you? I mean...

You can reduce your risk, for sure.

Reduce your risk back to the normal level as if you have never done it?

Over time. I mean, I believe that to be true over time. Yes. Okay. I mean, I think that we've all made bad choices.

I know I made a lot of them. But yeah. What about... Well, let me give you an introduction first before we get too far in the weeds. Dr. Gabriele Lyon. Today, we have got an incredible guest who's going to shake up everything you thought you knew about health and wellness, Dr. Gabriele Lyon. You are not the average physician. You're a game changer in the medical field. You're a board-certified family physician who's also fellowship trained at Washington University in Nutritional Science and Geriatrics. You founded the Institute muscle-centric medicine and made it your life's mission to keep people not just living longer, but living stronger. You educate people about how skeleton muscle is the largest organ in the body, the key to longevity, and the secret weapon against diseases like obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. You've worked with some of the toughest people out there, including special operations, military personnel, Olympic athletes, helping them to optimize their performance when it counts. You tackle big questions offering framework for navigating the health space that are grounded in both science and practicality in your podcast, The Dr. Gabriel Lyon Show. Your latest book, Forever Strong: A New Science-Based Strategy for aging Well, became a New York Times and Wall Street Journal and USA Today best seller.

Congratulations on that. Thank you, sir. We're going to dive deep into how we can all take charge of our own health, the impact of our dietary choices, and why muscle health might be the first place we look in our wellness journey. Then I have a whole bunch of subcategories, too, that I came up with right before he showed up to cross my mind, like nicotine. But we'll get into that in a minute. One thing I do have is a subscription account. It's on Patreon. Many of these people have been with us since the beginning. They're the ones that kept the lights on in the beginning and still do today because of them I wouldn't be here and neither would you. One of the things I do is I tell them who the guest is and offer them the opportunity to ask each guest a question. Since we're talking about longevity, this is a good one. This is from John Hoppen. Being 65 now and physically very active my whole life, back issues are plaguing me and most of my friends. There are seemingly Certainly tons of fixes, et cetera, out there. What do you feel is the best approach to outright repair or a routine anyway to lessen effects to be able to maintain at least close to a normal physicality Active, healthy existence?

Well, I think that's a great question. The first thing that I would say is mitigate injury risk. Oftentimes, we think that training like we did in our in these 30s, 40s, or 50s, might be able to take us through to 60 and beyond. For example, I don't do a ton of explosive crazy movements. I don't want to get injured. Picking things that you can do and do well. If someone's going to squat, if they're going to deadlift, picking a weight and doing it well. Also, prehab movements. There's the big three or big five, things like- Prehab What's that mean? Yeah, prehab movements. What's that mean? I actually learned this from an incredible physician. His name is Dr. Gerard Dinafrio, and he has taught me a lot about the tissue integrity. We think about muscle, but I think what a lot of the injuries happen, they are bone, they are connective tissue like tendons and ligaments. How do you warm the body up so you don't go balls to the wall and hurt yourself? These are movements like a bird dog or glued activators, things before you enter into the actual movement. Also making sure you're doing corrective exercises, figuring out what your imbalances are.

How do you do that?

Got to get screened. You got to go to someone who knows what they're looking at.

Well, I mean, so for somebody like me, you say you got to get screened. Who do I look for?

Well, I have the people for you. I have the people for you. Are you one of I would work with my colleague, for example, Dr. Jordan Shallo or Don Saladino, people I know and trust, and we would screen you. How are you moving?

How do you screen them?

For me, because I before my ham string, I knew that I had to get very particular actions. For me personally, and it's interesting, I would say the guys that have been in the teams, you have to be built very robustly. If you You are not built very robustly, you wash out. You don't even make it. But for me, for a normal athletic person, I have movements like my squat isn't right. Someone would watch my squat, someone would watch my lunge, just movements that maybe I'm not activating my glute or maybe my hip is dropping, but someone who knows what to look for. Just like a doctor who can look at bloodwork and say, You know what? Your eosinophils are elevated. You might have a gut bug. There are professionals that really look at the body comprehensively to see those movement patterns.

Okay, so they're actually screening-The way you're moving. Your exercises.

Screening, yeah, and in dynamic position With the back, typically, if someone has a sedentary lifestyle just outside of exercise, figuring out what mechanical thing that they're doing that is creating issues throughout their whole 24-hour cycle. Then the other thing, what about things like stem cell treatments? I think that that can be very valuable.

What is stem cell treatment do?

Take your blood, spins it down. It helps create an inflammatory process to help rebuild and repair.

Do you have to leave the country to do that?

I've had it done multiple times. We send a lot of team guys to get them done, and But oftentimes, we don't have them leave the country.

Really? So you can get it here in the US?

You can.

You can make that recommendation on where to go?

I can. I think that when you go outside the US, there are various countries that have been doing it for a very long time. They do it in Dubai, they do it in Japan. I can't speak to those areas. I mean, some of my friends have clinics over there. There are various places in Mexico. Again, it's hit or miss. It's not regulated. You have to go to someone who you trust. I mean, it's really important because I've heard really bad stories of people that have gotten infected. Yeah. To be very careful.

Man, I've thought about that, the stem cell stuff from my back, but I haven't done it because I didn't charge it.

It has to be validated. It has to be vetted. There are reasons why we have certain regulations. One might argue that we might be slow to change. But I think there are certain procedures that, again, I don't do these procedures. There are certain procedures that can be done stateside that I think are very effective. I think there may be the opportunity to go outside the country to get them done, but you have to be very careful about the provider that you choose in that way.

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And then I go to the doctor and he's like, oh, yeah, everything looks good. See him in six months. But people don't know where to look. People don't know where to look for... What do we do about vaccines? Do we vaccinate them, our kids? Do we not vaccinate our kids? Do we take the COVID shot? Do we not take the COVID shot? Stem cells, is that healthy? Where can I go? Where is it reliable? There's this mass confusion of who can we trust in health care now? For a stem cell, where do you find reliable? How do you know if they're reliable?

If you're This is a very important question, and I think it goes across all medical providers. The first thing that you look for, is this person board-certified in what they're talking about? Did they do rigorous training? The thing with medicine is it does have a lot of problems. But I would say the one thing that we're very good at is vetting and having credentials, a governing board, that these people are capable. They are board-certified in what they are talking about. They have passed their exams. They hold an active medical license.

Okay.

Number one. Number two, you look for a fellowship trained physician. Was this person specialty trained in the thing that they are doing? Then number three, there are governing bodies like associations. Again, I'm saying this blanketly, but there's a ton of problems. You're right, because do we trust traditional medicine? How do we begin to think about these things? Even with hormone replacement therapy, the guidelines are set very low. For a testosterone replacement, does someone have 300? Is there a testosterone 300? Can you treat them? Is it that they feel terrible at 300? But the guidelines say that 300 or less or 290 or less is the low number. Looking also at these governing bodies, these associations, we'll have a list of providers that they feel are qualified. Okay. That's one way. I'll give you an example. A cosmetic surgeon is different than a plastic surgeon. Somebody could do a, I don't know, make up a residency Gastrointestinal Residency, then take a fellowship in cosmetic surgery, and then become a cosmetic surgeon. Interesting. That would be terrifying. If something goes wrong, that's terrifying. Really understanding where this person was trained, what their qualifications are, and who else do you know that has used this person and how are they thought of within the community?

It's tough.

It is tough. Me and my wife are always looking around and poking around at different things. What do you think about... I wasn't even really expecting to go here. What do you think about these, what do they call, these more natural doctors? What do they call them?

I can't remember.

Naturopaths or holistic.

Are you talking about- It's more like holistic medicine. Functional medicine, maybe.

Functional medicine. Okay. What do you think? So we've been looking for a functional medicine doctor because we're really concerned about the vaccines and stuff. But a lot of these functional medicine doctors I've gone to I leave and I'm like, this is like... That's right. This doesn't sound like a doctor. That sounds like a sales pitch on we don't do vaccines. And that shit weirds me out. It's like, look, man, yeah, we're not really into the vaccine thing. But we also want somebody that can do all the rest of the stuff that a fucking doctor should be able to do and treat our kid. And if my son breaks his arm, you better be able to fix it. Like your sales pitch to me can't be, well, we don't we don't do vaccines and tell me how fucked up they are. Like, I get it, man. Yeah, everybody's talking about this. But what else do you do other than just not give vaccines?

Another really astute question. So this idea of functional medicine, which I've been practicing and trained in functional medicine, I don't know if you know that, over 10 years. The idea of functional medicine, which it seems to have morphed over the years, is a root cause medicine. It's this idea of what is at the core causing these issues. Functional medicine is a way of thinking about it through that lens. I don't know if you know that, but I still have a full medical practice.

Wow, you got a lot going on.

I have a full medical practice. What we do is we practice integrative medicine. We practice the best of functional medicine, which the idea of functional medicine is, again, that root cause approach. For example, let's say you have GI issues. I know that your listeners, that many of them are going to have GI issues, whatever they eat, they're going to feel bloated. There's going to be all kinds of things that happen. If you go to a traditional doctor, potentially, a traditional doctor might say, Well, have some Metamucil. You'll be fine. But a functional medicine doctor will go, Okay, Why? Where is this coming from? Is there a parasitic infection that you've had? Is there a series of foods that you are eating that are maybe causing gas and bloating? Whatever it is. We find what the root cause is, and then we address it at the root. What you're talking about is, and I think a really good doctor thinks about it comprehensively, that a really good doctor is able to not just look at your numbers are good, this is fine, this is the standard, but what are some of these issues? Where do you want to go?

Functional medicine, and over the years, it's really gotten a bad rap. It's gotten a bad rap because when you are saying you are practicing medicine, you better be a doctor. That is, you better be an MD or a DO and have an active medical license. Then there are naturopathic doctors. There are a few that I trust, but I think that there's a large stigma that goes with them because can you prescribe medications in all 50 states? Have you had the same training? Again, I think that they're good for their own niche, but a truly comprehensive provider will look at the root cause. That's actually where medicine is moving. Who should be able to practice medicine? If someone says functional medicine, do they have a medical degree? I have nothing against chiropractors, are they practicing outside their scope? Are they trained to read bloodwork? Are you going to someone who is saying they're practicing functional medicine and they don't have an active medical license? Do we need primary care physicians? Absolutely. Do we need people that can provide an antibiotic if necessary? Yes, absolutely. Are supplements and natural treatments valuable? They can be. The natural treatments, valuable they can be, the severity of the illness must equally be treated with an impactful solution.

I'm going to explain to you what I mean by that. If someone comes to me with GI issues, typically that's not challenging to treat. We can use a combination, myself, my other providers in my medical practice, can use a combination of natural and antibiotics if necessary. We'll try to do it natural, but there are limitations. There are limitations to what a supplement can do. You have to match the illness or the challenge with a treatment that is going to have a meaningful impact. You have to be very careful. What has become so fascinating is with this distrust in medicine, there's all kinds of things that people believe that are not true. That doctors get paid to prescribe medications. We don't. This idea of big pharma. Big pharma has challenges, but there are other things like compounding pharmacies that make medication affordable. Have you ever heard of Empower Pharmacy, the largest compounding pharmacy in the world?

No, I haven't.

But this idea, for example, GLP-1s, that they are so unaffordable for everybody. Glps, GIP, people have heard of Ozempic and Monjerno, and people are saying, Well, these are just for the elite. They're unaffordable. That's not true. There are compounding pharmacies that represent 2% of this pharmaceutical massiveness.

Is there anything you need to look out for with a compounding pharmacy?

Yes. Compounding pharmacies, they have to be regulated. They have to have a reputation. They have all kinds of paperwork that they're required. I mean, again, we use Empower Pharmacy. They're the largest compounding pharmacy in the world. They make medications accessible and affordable to my patients. We don't have to go under this idea of big pharma. But your original question was, how do we know who to trust? It's difficult. They must be trained. They cannot be misleading. If someone has a doctor in front of their name, it can't be a... Again, this is a very large audience, so I'm not trying to offend podiatrists, or I'm not trying to offend dentists, or things of that nature. But if someone is saying they are a metabolic expert and it says, Doctor so-and-so, and that person has not done metabolic training, but hold a doctorate in I don't know, history. You can on Instagram, they will say, Doctor so and so, metabolic expert. But if you don't look under the hood, that expert has a doctorate in, I don't know, history.

Interesting.

Nothing is more important than your health. Nothing is more important than having a provider that you can trust, hands down. You need a great teammate at home. You need a great You need a great lawyer, you need a great accountant, and you need a great doctor. A real doctor relationship is someone you have a relationship with.

What is your practice? Yeah. Is it remote? Are you a primary care doctor?

I'm a primary care doctor by training, and then I am a fellowship trained in nutritional sciences and geriatrics. We have a practice that is all telehealth. My patients come to see me in Texas in I started my practice, believe it, in New York City. Terrible idea. Rent was $40,000 a month. Terrible idea. It was really interesting. I went right into private practice. In New York City, I was right across from Central Park. There's the Plaza, Columbus Circle, Central Park. It was very hoity-toity. I started seeing patients, whether they're celebrities or they're athletes. It wasn't really my cup of tea so much. Then I started seeing operators. For the listener, it's Seals, Green Berets, Reinders, but mostly Seals, started becoming very interested in them even before I graduated fellowship.

How did that come across your radar?

It was mindset. Medical training is difficult. Medical training is sacrifice. You sacrifice your youth, you sacrifice your time, your energy. You become very good at sacrifices. People think medicine is noble, which it is, but it's very rigorous. You are working 24 hours. My husband's working. I shouldn't even say the amount of that he's working because he can't violate hours, but you miss a lot. It was hard for me. I did two years of psychiatry training, which I didn't like at all. I spent two years at the University of Louisville working. My first residency was psychiatry, and I left that residency. I thought it was something different than it was. I thought psychiatry training was people were really thinking thinking about how to get the best out of themselves. That's what psychiatry was. I remember this patient This was my first couple of months on the job as an intern, and this guy jumped off a parking garage, and he died. They call it psychiatry. He broke every bone in his body. He was a medical student. His father was a surgeon who worked at the University of Louisville. I was like, I had to tell his dad.

I brought his dad back to his body. That was just one example of the experience in psychiatry. It wasn't what I thought It was a lot of medication. The brain is an organ. You and I were talking about addiction before. The brain is an organ, and the brain can get sick. I switched and I went into family practice because I felt with family practice, I could reach a lot of people. I could help a lot of people. I would be the first line of defense. Someone comes in, your stomach hurts, you have low testosterone, you have a cold, you broke your arm. I'm going to be able to be useful and send you to where you need to go. But during that training, it wasn't easy for me. I would say that it's not easy for any physician. We get a lot of slack or a lot of flack, but that training is tough. How I got to operate is, again, this is long-winded. You told me we had six hours for this podcast, so I could actually talk a little bit more than I normally ever do on a podcast. But I turned to the people that I thought that were the best at being mentally tough and capable Wow.

How did you meet your husband? So your husband was a seal.

My husband was a seal. We got married while he was still active duty. He was on Team 10. His name is Shane Cronstadt. He's bummed. He's actually working today, so he can't make it. But do you know who Mark Devine is?

Yes. I've not met him, but I know who he is.

Mark is unusual. Mark, I think what you see online is different very much from who he is. He's very sage-like. He'd probably be embarrassed if I'm saying this, but I've known Mark for over 10 years. Again, this was over a decade ago. Mark was talking a lot about mental toughness in a way that I could understand and think about. It was a way that really resonated with me. I found him. I went and I learned from him. That was my first exposure to the mentality of what I believed that an elite operator had. Because there are not that many of you guys at any given time, there's 2,500. Remember, 10 years ago. Right now, the SEAL community, I think, has a lot more exposure than it did a decade ago. Would you agree with that?

Absolutely.

If you think a decade ago or over a decade ago, where were people turning to to think about how to cultivate mental robustness? I don't even know. Maybe they Probably. I mean, I don't know. For me, I was looking for mentors, from mentors that weren't just heads. It's one thing to say you're mentally tough and then not actually go through challenges that allow you to express that. I was just very interested in the culture. It helped me a lot. It helped me get through residency and training and the sacrifices that I was making. Because it's, again, I missed almost every holiday. I missed time out with friends. I missed relationships. I miss a lot. When I started to learn tools and ways of processing things, it made me a much better doctor. Now, Now, how I met my husband, Mark called me and said, Hey, I have this guy who wants to go to medical school. Can you talk to him about what it takes? What are the things? When my husband was deployed in Afghanistan, he taught himself physics and calculus. He was a medic in the teams, and he knew that he wanted to go to medical school at that time.

I think he saw a lot of lower body injuries. He just saw a lot of injuries. I know he wanted to be able to do more. An introduction was made. I don't know about you, but any normal woman would never want a date a seal. No offense, friend. I had already graduated residency and fellowship. Again, I was already taking care of the special operations community at that time because I really feel like they provided an incredible value as humans.

What were you doing?

Gi stuff. Basically, when a guy gets out, I would see guys that were out or a handful of guys that were trying to get into buds. Then most of my patient population were guys that either were on medical leave, transitioning out or out. I know that I can speak freely on this podcast? Yes?

Oh, yeah. That's what we do here.

Okay. There was a period of time I think that the forward-facing, and then again, please, you'll tell me where you disagree and where it's too much or I shouldn't say, but I think that the forward-facing special operations community can be very glamorous. The sacrifice behind the scenes is tremendous. The sacrifice behind the scenes for the wives, the sacrifice behind the scenes from TBI, from just chronic injuries, people don't see that. When the guys would get out, they'd already been to the VA, they'd already been to all these other places, and they were not getting better. They felt terrible. They would come to me and we would do a comprehensive analysis. I'm part of the Seal Future Foundation. I work on their medical board. We would get guys from Seal Future Foundation, from Task Force Dagger. We'd look at gastrointestinal problems. That is a huge complaint. Guys would go, get deployed. Whole platoons would get sick. They would go to Mayo Clinic, they would go to John Hopkins, and they wouldn't get answers. I became very good at treating complex things that were not tested for a while. A lot of it was infectious disease, Lyme disease, parasites, figuring out, facilitating who they needed to go to.

The old-school paracytologist, right now everyone does these gut tests that have to be sent out, and it's something called PCR. Pcr Misses, I don't know, the number, I'd say at least 80% of these diagnosis. Wow. These guys weren't getting better. Eighty %? I mean, I'm saying that from my clinical experience. I don't know what the data says, because what we do is we We would send out these PCR testing because now it's the gold standard. Nobody wants to go and do a rectal exam on a patient or do a rectal exam, take a stool sample, look it under a microscope. That is a dying field. It's a dying field. The old-school paracytologist, that's what they used to do. Now, you get a stool sample and you send it and it goes to a lab. That missed almost everything. We would send them to old-school paracytology in New York They would come back with whip worm, round worm, liver fluke. We would treat them, we would treat their wives. Because if one person in the family has it, typically everybody has it. Holy shit. These things were going undiagnosed. There was one guy had schistamaniasis. He came to me because he was having phantom limb pain, and he ended up having schistamaniasis.

Schistamaniasis?

What is It's a parasite that can get in the bladder, irritate the bladder. But again, so you asked me, what do I do? Because I still treat Special Operations community. We still treat them. We figure out what's going on in all domains. Low testosterone, send them out for... It's a lot of head trauma that happens. Got to send them out. They have to get testing. There's a lot of exposures. The barracks are full of mold. The places which people live in water-damaged areas full of mold. The body cannot get rid of that. It's complicated. There are groups that are putting together ways of looking at the operator. It's not just the operator, it's everybody. But we are in an environment that is very challenging, and the treatments are not so simple.

Where did these parasites come from?

The number one place? Yeah. I would say food, and now we live in a global society. I will say I never eat anything raw. Sushi is out the window. Are you kidding? I would not touch it. Listen, I never eat raw. People will say, Well, if you freeze it, then it'll kill whatever bug. I don't see that. I don't eat anything raw. I don't eat any undercooked meat. When we go to dinner tonight and your wife looks at me because I'm ordering my steak well done at some great steakhouse that we're going to and ruining the entire food, I will tell you, I do not want a worm. I'm good.

That's where it comes from, huh? Yeah.

A lot of people... I mean, you can get it from water, you can get it from animals. Parasites can come from animals. Giardia, yes, you can get it. If dog is sick and then they're kissing your mouth, then you can get it all over. It's ubiquitous.

How do you get rid of them?

Here will be the difference. Most people, many people will try to treat it naturally. I haven't found that to work. You use antibiotics or you use whatever protocol is necessary for that. It's fixable. You treat everybody, it's fixable. But I will tell you, for example, a Helmuth infection, which is a worm, is one of the leading causes of iron deficiency anemia because of what it does to the intestine. It creates... Well, number one, they create their own issue, but it affects absorption. See, John, we can fix all these things, by the way, my friend.

If you had to put a percentage on it just off the top of your head, I'm not asking for exact numbers, but I mean, What % of people do you see have some type of parasite?

90 %.

90 %? So I probably have a parasite.

Oh, you definitely... Yes, my friend, you definitely have one. You definitely have one. I've never had a team that has not had a parasite.

No kidding.

Never.

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You've been checked the traditional way which is PCR testing. That's right. That's part of the issue. And we got really good at treating and testing for those kinds of things because you need solutions. Although you're very robust and healthy, some guys end up really struggling. They end up really struggling.

So what I mean, if let's say I have a parasite. Yeah.

We're going to test it and we're going to treat it.

What would I be feeling? What does it do to me?

You don't have normal stools. You might go to the bathroom more frequently. It's not always related to food, can't figure out why your stomach is bothering you. We might see it on your bloodwork, malabsorption. Almost everybody has it. You might have, are you ready for this? Itchy Itchy feet, itchy ears, itchy anus. You might find that these things happen cyclically. This is going to sound crazy, but during the full moon, this is when they seem to be very active because they go through life cycles.

No kidding. Yeah.

It's very common and it should be treated.

What about acid reflux? What caused any of that?

Probably H. Pylori, yes. What is it? Bacteria that should be treated. Easy to treat, easy to test for. It is a risk factor for gastric cancer. Got to treat these things. But what's amazing is that we're very skilled. This is where medicine is wonderful. We're skilled at these things. Reflux. 50% of the population might have H-pylori. But you got to treat it. You got to test it. You got to treat it. Nicotine probably doesn't help for the reflux, must say.

Yeah, probably. Well, I mean…

Sleep The apnea, all team guys, if your neck is greater than 17 and a half inches, you have to be tested for sleep apnea.

Well, if you don't breathe through your mouth, do you have to worry about sleep apnea?

Yes, you got to be tested.

Jeez.

I got a lot of tests. But listen, I don't want to be Debbie Downer. Now we have to switch this to some positive stuff, is that it has never been easier to be healthier. We're at this precipice where it's never been easier to take action. We have access to more capacity than ever before.

Let's talk about nicotine real quick. Okay.

As you want to do it. Yes.

Because I went to Tucker's event. Tucker had a bit of... He's coming out of his own nicotine pouch. He is? He is. He's coming out of his own nicotine pouch. It's called ALP. He had a party here. So I went.

So do you feel bad that you're not using his nicotine right now?

Don't tell him. It's not out yet. I already chewed them all. But no, I went. Anyways, I went to this event and I was like, all right, whatever. It's a nicotine party. I don't do any of this stuff. But I was like, all right, I'll have one. And then I was like, I like this shit.

So nicotine is amazing. Nicotine is amazing.

So then because I was talking about it around my phone, now I'm getting all these fucking nicotine heads.

Wow, they are on you. They are on top of it.

But I saw somewhere, I can't even remember what it was, but apparently there's some benefits to nicotine.

There are some benefits to nicotine. Nicotine is a naturally occurring substance. It is stimulant. It vasoconstricts. It vasoconstricts blood vessels, skin, probably in the mouth, just all over. There are nicotine receptors It's in the brain, in the body. It's thought to release adrenaline. Nicotine comes in various forms. It's actually part of the nightshade family. It comes from a nightshade plant. From what I understand, they probably can manufacture nicotine now. But when nicotine is smoked, that's not good. Nicotine in the form of a cigarette. I think that we have to be fair, Do I recommend people all go on nicotine? It's highly addictive, which-Figured that out. You figured that out, my friend. You have figured that out. I personally love nicotine, and it has to be used discretionary. What are some of its benefits? When I was doing my fellowship at WashU in Geriatrics, part of the job as a fellow is to obviously do research, and I did research, but we I ran a memory and aging clinic. The things that were coming up on how do you make people more cognitively robust, what are the studies, what are we looking at for new data coming out?

One of the papers that came across my desk was, in fact, nicotine. It was nicotine improving cognitive function in Alzheimer's and potentially Parkinson's.

How does it improve Alzheimer's? I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know if it It does in a meaningful way, but one of the things that it seems to do is it improves attention, concentration. There are just various domains of thinking and memory it seems to affect. It gives you that boost that you love. Again, I love it. I have to be very careful because it does cause gum recession. It may have negative... It increases blood pressure. The cardiologist that I use, I send him all my patients. He's amazing. His name is Dr. Mike Twyman. He sits there with blue-blacking glasses. He's hysterical. He's very calm. He's very zen. I remember I go to St. Louis every year for all the testing, and he was like, That nicotine habit, that's a terrible habit for your blood vessels. There may be, I joke and I say that, There can be negative... There's a negative impact on blood pressure, some vasculature, gum recession. Am I selling you on it? Are you still keeping it?

I'm going to quit.

It's difficult.

I like it, but I'm going to quit.

Because it's something that you need, that you love?

Like I said, I've only been doing it for a couple of weeks, but I was like, it It came in like a wave. I interviewed somebody who's an investor in this new one called Sesh, too, and he brought a whole basket.

It's highly addictive.

Now the whole damn team is chewing nicotine.

I will say that me personally, I prefer gum. But you see, it can increase energy expenditure. I think there are positives with it, and then I think that are our negatives.

Let's talk about some hormone stuff. Great. It's no secret. I mean, team guys come out, sounds like TBI and PTSD and a lot of these other things, lower. It just lowers testosterone for whatever reason. You get all these guys coming out and they have a T-level of what, 2, 300? For starters, before we go any further, what is a normal level?

It's complicated because normal testosterone is going to be individual. Let's say the number, depending on the lab that you look at, goes up to a thousand. A great robust number. It's not the total T, it's a free tea. Again, it depends on the lab. But guys always got a team guys care about two things, good hair and testosterone.

I'm fucked with the hair.

Listen, I I can make these jokes. I'm married to a team guy. I take care of lots of them. Or maybe I can't make them, but they're coming anyway. Everybody knows. They're coming. It is about the free testosterone. The total testosterone below 300 is low, but that's weird. If it goes from 300 to 1,000 and someone is 350, they might feel terrible. But there are these, again, we talked about medicine. How do you know? Who do you go to? How do you know where to trust? There's the AUA, which is the American Urology Association. That's one entity. Then there's the Endocrine Society, that group that will all have different recommendations. But it's the free testosterone that matters. Again, I think people feel better the higher the number. Again, that's just my opinion. But it's not just about the testosterone number. There are receptors. It is all about the sensitivity of your receptors.

Okay.

Do we know what your receptors are? We don't. We can test it at Baylor. It's called a CAG repeat. For example, you might feel great at a testosterone of 400. My husband might need a testosterone of 700 to feel good.

So is it the higher the T-level, the more free testosterone you have?

Depends. I mean, that's your best bet because in order to get testosterone free, so testosterone and sex hormone binding globulin, testosterone or Sex hormones are like children. They can't go anywhere alone. What you care about is that free number. Testosterone in the bloodstream is typically bound to sex hormone binding globulin. Then there's a free number. That free number You want as high as... I say as high as possible, but that free number should be high. It'll vary depending on whatever the lab is, whether it's 45 or higher depending. Again, it just depends on that lab range. But what I think is really important is that hormone replacement therapy has this taboo film around it. Would you agree with that? There's struggles even right now with, can you treat team guys? Can you treat active military? There's a lot of challenges with providing hormone replacement. It's old. It's old school. When you look at where that came from, testosterone and hormone replacement therapy got a bad rap when the drugs with sporting happened. I'm not old enough to know what it was like to practice medicine before then. But I will tell you that since I have been in medicine, it has had a huge stigma for men and women.

Testosterone is not FDA-proof for women. In my clinic, we put women on testosterone all the time.

Really? Why?

Off label, sex drive, low levels of testosterone. S Dyspnea, decreased muscle mass. But what's so interesting is that I can give you a medication to make you less fat, and nobody thinks twice about it. I can give you Ozempic, I can give you a GLP-1, GIP, Monjurna, Wegovy, no one thinks twice about it. But when I write a script for hormones or talk to you about anabolics, it's like people think that's crazy.

Is it true that the population as a whole here in the US has lower testosterone than our grandparents, our great-grandparents? Yes. Is that from the food?

What is that from?

It is from- Is it environmental?

Obesity. It is from our sleep habits, which I have terrible ones. It is from the It is potentially endocrine disruptors. We are under blue lights all the time. We are outside of the natural environment. We do not train. We are not robust as humans. Fertility levels have also decreased. The funny thing with medicine is once we get an idea, we believe that idea. I'll give you an example. For the longest time, people thought testosterone replacement therapy would cause prostate cancer. Did you ever hear that?

Oh, yeah. I didn't do it because of that.

It's not true. Nobody questioned that until the likes of the legends in the field of andrology, like Abe Morgenteller or Dr. Moha Kera, began to study this. It doesn't cause prostate cancer. In fact, depending on the type of cancer, those that have low testosterone do worse. There seems to some protective effects.

Really? Yes.

I think what we have to recognize is this common theme of having an idea that remains unchallenged. For decades, people believe, and probably still do, that testosterone causes cancer.

Yeah, I've always heard that it can increase the speed that cancer grows in the Again, probably depends on the cancer, probably depends on a multitude of factors.

But overall, testosterone replacement does not cause cancer. Testosterone replacement can be protective. Also, this idea of testosterone replacement therapy affecting adversely your risk of a heart attack. They did something called the Traverse Trial. It does not increase negative outcomes for cardiovascular impacts. I mean, these are serious things to understand because as a society, we make overarching statements about our care based on unchallenged information or rhetoric or repetition.

Another question. So With my primary care doc-Who I now will be.

I don't go to anymore. Yes, I'll take over.

It was always, Well, it's good for your age. Well, my question to you is, if I felt my best at age, let's just say 25, and my testosterone was way up here, now I'm 42, and it's down here, why wouldn't I want to bring that up to the level was at age 25 throughout the duration of my existence?

You would.

So it should be at that level. Does that mean going back in time to before we had all these environmental issues and obesity and all the other shit that's contributing to low T, would a human being maintain the same level of testosterone throughout the duration of their I believe, yes.

For men, yes. Now, sex hormone binding globulin, which is exactly what that is, that protein will increase. But for example, my dad, who's 74, his testosterone is 750. He lives in Ecuador. He walks everywhere.

He lives in Ecuador?

He does. He lives in Ecuador. He walks everywhere. He is very diligent on everything. He lives very close to nature. We do not have to face the state of the health that we are in. We do not have to be where we are at all.

Do you think that because all There's a lot of discussion on all of these. It seems like health care is just being revolutionized right now.

We are entering a renaissance. We are entering a golden era. I believe so.

So are our children... I mean, are our children Are they going to deal with the same issues, do you think? People are eating cleaner.

People are- People are not.

They're not.

By the speculations, by 20, 30, 50 % are going to be obese.

Well, I mean, okay.

Our children, mine and your children, yes, they are going to be stronger and more capable and more robust.

People are getting away. Maybe not everybody, but there's a lot of discussion. I mean, RFK is coming in.

He's going to- And he has an opportunity to do incredible work.

So as people start moving away from plastic, so people start eating cleaner and people start doing the farm to table type food and going the local farmers versus, and get chicken and beef there rather than- Chick-fil-a? Chick-fil-a rather than the stuff that was raised in a pump full of hormones.

Hormones don't. So let's talk about this. Yes. Okay. Let's talk about this.

Let's do it. Okay.

We have the capacity to be healthier than ever before from a nutrition standpoint. Nutrition science is relatively new. It's not something that we've all known about. I've trained in nutritional sciences. That's my area of expertise. I trained professionally in nutritional sciences for seven years. That's what I've done. I will I'll tell you, over the last 20 years of watching this, number one, the guidelines, which are called the RDA, or that's the recommended dietary allowance, and the dietary guidelines, when it relates to meaningful numbers, let's just say protein. They haven't changed in the last 50 years. Saturated fat, this percentage number is, I believe to be wrong, also hasn't changed. If we go back, because history repeats itself, where did this come from? In the '40s, they started to really think about food for people because of World War II. World War II, the backs were up against a wall. 40% of those that enlisted were unfit for war. Coming out of the Great Depression, they were just a mess. There was this three-day conference. The idea was, you win the war with food. How do we take broken Americans and make them robust? They began to put in rationing.

Rationing was, they recognized the importance of dietary protein. Children were rationed one to one and a half pounds of meat a week. It sounds like a lot, right?

One and a half pounds of meat a week? A week?

It's not that much, right?

I don't think that's a lot.

It's not. The current dietary guidelines are recommending less than what we were rationed in the beginning of World War II. Wow.

What should we be eating?

Close to one gram. The science says 1. 6 grams per kg, which is 0. 7 grams per pound. I believe if you want to age well, you're going to be closer to one gram per pound ideal body weight. But the statement that I'm making here is that we've had decades of misinformation and confusion, these guidelines have not changed. They came up with this hypothesis, this guy named Ancil Keyes came up with this hypothesis that saturated fat caused heart disease. Saturated fat caused LDL to go up and it caused heart disease. The guidelines still exist with this foundation. Then they determine, well, 10% of the diet or less should be saturated fat, which by definition, anything above saturated fat would be considered unhealthy, which means any animal food, if you look at the landscape and the guidelines, would be considered unhealthy. An egg with 18% saturated fat will never be considered healthy. We've created this construct, which is why I think we're hearing this eat less animal products, because that's what we're hearing, which I'm hoping is going to change. Now, with the new administration, we have a real chance to change that. For the first time, I believe, ever.

That narrative that was built has defined American eating. One could argue that, Hey, Americans don't follow the guidelines anyway, right? But guess who it affects? Anyone that receives federal funding, our military, nursing homes, and schools.

Let's talk about HGH since we're on hormones. What are your thoughts about that?

I think that HGH, if prescribed appropriately, can be I think you have to measure IGF1 levels.

Do you feel like a lot of doctors push this stuff on you for the sale?

I think no good doctor would do that.

Then say no good doctor. Is it common? They would need you to take this.

They would need you to take that. I think it would be very unethical. I can't speak for other physicians, but I know that my colleagues physicians in my practice, the colleagues that I respect, they would never do that. It's unethical. A doctor's first oath is to do no harm, period, end of story. I explained how rigorous training is. You don't do that because you're hoping to make a lot of money. You're not going into medicine because this is a financial thing. There are way other avenues, there are many other avenues to probably do much better financially without a ton of debt, without all this stuff. People go into medicine, I believe, because they truly care about their fellow human. I do believe that. If there is a doctor that is pushing things on a patient because of a sale, then it is not the right doctor. I will also tell you this, a doctor will go to find solutions for that patient. For example, compounding pharmacies. That's why I brought up in power. Or pick your favorite compounding pharmacy that you know and trust. The job is to make medications affordable. How do we make testosterone affordable?

How do we make, I don't know, HGH affordable? How do you make Ozempic affordable?

What percentage of your... I mean, you deal with a lot of team guys.

I deal with a lot of executives, a lot of moms.

Do you see a lot of commonalities with team guys?

I do. Yes, I do. I see a lot of commonalities within patients across the board.

What are some of the most common? What are some of the commonalities? Okay.

Well, now, I have to clarify, there's not that many team guys in general. The practice, while we service special operators in their families, we take care of a certain type of person. That type of person is willing to do whatever it takes to get better. They are expecting more for themselves. You're not coming into my practice because you want to feel average. You just don't. You are coming to me because you want to remove physical limitations to be the best version of yourself. Maybe you are someone with Lyme, maybe you are someone with gastrointestinal problems, maybe you are someone who wants hormone optimization because you want to feel better. I would say across the board for guys, let's say a middle-aged guy. Who is your audience, by the way, aside from everybody in the world?

Who's my audience? Yeah. My audience is But we have a huge variety. Variety. Audience, obviously. But I would say my audience is comprised of just a lot of people that are looking for They just want to know the truth about things. I'm a very curious person. That's why I think this is going to be a great interview. I'm always digging for the truth. And I think that my audience is also very... It's a very curious audience. They want to know about things like what we're talking about right now. They want to know how to find... Because It's tough for people like me who don't have... I don't have knowledge in medicine other than basic trauma care that I was taught in the team. But there's some good fucking salesmen out there. I want to be able to sniff through the bullshit. And I know my audience wants to be able to sniff through the bullshit, too. And so that's why I'm asking these questions.

They're great questions. So I'm hoping that we're clearing things up for people.

We are. But it's tricky. Somebody can sound like they know exactly what they're talking about, especially in the medical field, because there's a lot of knowledge there. There's a lot of terminology that people aren't familiar with. And so people, it With everything that happened in COVID, it created a lot of distrust in health care. It caused people to go down rabbit holes. Now we see the stuff with seed oils. We see the stuff with what in our food, how was it raised, when farmed to table, the vaccination thing, there's a huge controversy there. I think everybody just wants to know, who do we trust?

Let me tell you, that is actually exactly why I started my podcast. My podcast doesn't have people that you know. My podcast has experts that have been in the trenches for 20 years that can talk about seed oils. Seed oils, for example, is a really hot topic, and there's influencers everywhere. But what is it when you actually examine the evidence? Who is the expert? Who is actually doing those studies? How do we make sense of it? Those are the people that I bring on my podcast. Before we started, you'll see them in your email, I had, for example, the former President of the Lipid Association. His name is Kevin Mackey. You're not going to know him on social media, Dr. Kevin Mackey, but you will know that his science, he doesn't care what the answer is. He just wants to know. We had this long conversation about seed oils. I said, Dr. Mackey, what is it? What's the truth? He said, Well, if you go back and you look at the overwhelming body of evidence, the overwhelming body of evidence will support that they are neutral. I know that, again, this is not my opinion.

He said, They are overwhelmingly neutral, if not positive, when you were placed for saturated fat. I was like, Well, how can that be? That seems crazy. He said, Well, the data isn't perfect, but this collection of data supports that. Again, why are we worried about seed oils? Because people are worried about inflammation. Inflammation is driven by overall dietary choices that are bad. Do you know the number one food consumed in the US?

No. Pizza.

Do you know the Do you know the number one- I love pizza. Do you know the number one vegetable, the number one vegetable consumed in the US?

Carrots.

Potato in the form of potato chips. Do you know, this is my last, do you know Do you know the number one fruit consumed in the US? Think of the most carb-heavy fruit you would pick. Bananas.

That's what I was going to say. All right.

So That's not bad?

No.

It is not. Should our seed oil is unnatural? Totally. Have we tripled their intake over that last handful of decades? Yes. Do we know that they are harmful? Well, they're usually omega-6s, so seed oils would be canola oil, anything that comes from a vegetable. Is the problem that we are eating them with pastries, baked goods, and fried foods? Is that the problem? Are we overheating and heating this substance multiple times? Or are Are you not balancing it with not enough omega-3 fatty acids? The data, again, data is not perfect. There's probably a lot of problems with it, but I emotionally want to believe that all seed oils are bad. Is that emotion backed by what the evidence says? It's not. Do I believe that highly processed foods are killing us? Yeah. Are we on a suicide diet? Totally.

You don't eat pizza.

I I don't really like pizza.

What? I don't really like pizza. What? It's gross. We're going to have to change the dinner reservation.

No, I'm scared. No, you guys are definitely not taking me to pizza. I know for a fact. But listen, I think that we have to understand that we are eating in terms of what is the dietary pattern? There's a lot of noise out there in the health and wellness space that makes it very confusing for people. That noise creates distraction. That distraction allows for distrust, and it allows for people to be taken away from proper action. We can all agree that Whole Foods are probably best. We have an entire nation to feed. Are conventionally-raised beef, is that just as healthy as grass-fed beef? If my choice was, I'm going to eat convention or organic, or I'm going to eat, I don't know, a pastry because it's not organically-raised meat, I'm going to eat conventional meat. Is conventional meat tested before it goes on market? Yes. Are there a ton of antibiotics? There can't be detectable limits of this stuff in beef. But beef also can't defend itself. Beef is a commodity. Red meat is a commodity. Commodity. What do I mean by commodity? Well, you have... If I say the other white meat, what do you say?

The other white meat? Yeah. Chicken?

Well, you'd probably say pork.

Pork? Yeah.

If I say does a body good, what am I talking about?

Milk.

Exactly. If I say, blank, what's for dinner? What do you say? Say beef. I'm going to say beef. This is an example of a commodity. Commodity is under the monitors under the umbrella of the USDA. Usda has very strict regulations. These commodities, they have a collective marketing budget of $750 million. That was the last number that I looked at. They are very restricted about what they can say. Where am I going with this? I'm going to get there. $750 million for all these commodities, dairy, pork, omens, probably throw omens as a commodity in there. Versus now, they can only They say they're part of a healthy diet. This is a good source of B vitamins. Versus anything that is a processed food is under the FTC. Pepsico, that marketing budget is $2 billion. That's one company. Two billion dollars.

Their marketing budget? Correct.

Is $2 billion. All of the commodities, all of these wholefoods alone, these foods that are coming from ranchers, whether it's organic, whether it's conventional, however they're doing They pool their money together in this checkoff. Their collective marketing budget is $750 million altogether. Wow. Fate meat can say and create rhetoric and narrative to say, red meat is killing the planet. Omen juice. Omen juice can say this has a better carbon footprint than milk. The commodities, which is why you see such a vast difference in what you're hearing, commodities cannot defend themselves. They cannot say, because of the restrictions, they cannot say, Actually, no, fake meat is not good for you. We are a much better source of protein. They cannot be disparaging against any other product. What does that mean for the consumer? When an anti-animal narrative, which is fed by, as you can guess, the guys with a ton of money and a machine, they can say whatever they want. Then the American public doesn't what to think, what to believe, or how to eat. Again, that's a huge problem. We have to go back to the fundamentals. The fundamentals are good solid nutrition, which, again, these guidelines haven't been updated in, I don't know, 50 years.

We were chatting, Why did you write a book? I wrote my for that reason, and there was a moment that I knew I had to do it. Do you want to know what that is?

What is it?

I was in fellowship, just coming out of fellowship, and I had not been on social media at all. During my time at WashU, I was in a geriatric fellowship, so I did combined nutritional research in geriatrics. Have you ever been nursing home?

Yes.

Pretty depressing, right? Yes. You never You never want to end up there, right?

No.

Part of my job was to take care of these patients. On the weekends, I'd round at the nursing home. Broken hip, percentage of those people are, first of all, they're never going to survive. Their quality of life is over. We know that their mortality rate is extremely high within the next six months to a year. What did they lack? Muscle. They weren't training, they lacked muscle. They go to the doctor. The doctor says, You need to cut back on your cholesterol. Stop eating red meat. Which, by the way, they took cholesterol out of the guidelines in 2015. That was taken out of the dietary guidelines in 2015. I wrote this book because when I was on social media and seeing these things, people were talking about how we should go more plant-based. The American diet is 70% already plant-based. Whether it comes from processed seed oils, processed whatever, we are not aging well. I'm like, Well, all this information, they're talking about red meat and cancer. That's not true. Talking about all this stuff, how protein is bad for the kidneys, how animal protein is going to raise cholesterol, all of this stuff when all of this stuff was not true.

You asked me, Did I write my book? I wrote my book, and that's exactly why.

Because- Good reason.

How am I going to protect people? I wrote this book Forever Strong. I didn't call it marginally weak. It's a joke. It's my mom joke. But it's the people in the middle that I'm worried about. It's the people that have a chance to be able to actually change the trajectory of their life. By the time you're in the nursing home, I don't want to say it's too late, but I mean, that's a tough place to start.

Scurred in the line, huh?

Then I worry about our kids.

Me too.

This idea that... Have you heard that exercise isn't good for our kids? They shouldn't be lifting weights. Have you heard that?

I mean, they took PE out of classrooms, right? Yeah. Out of school. Let's talk, you Dig on longevity. I watched... There was a docuseries I saw. I think it was How to Live to a 100, and this guy went around. Do you know what I'm talking about?

It was this. This wasn't the Blue Zones, right?

It was. It was the Blue Zones.

Blue Zones, there's a lot of problems with the Blue Zones.

Why is that?

Because the Blue Zones are hand-selected places, which, by the way, the Blue Zones, depending on where it is, have some of the highest poverty rates, highest level of smoking, lowest level of education, and income.

Interesting.

You can't pick areas and say, this is what's going to make you live to 100. It is a culmination of how you do your life. That doesn't necessarily translate to us in the US. Unless you're like my dad in Ecuador, who's walking four hours to go from somewhere to the grocery store, these blue zones, there are a lot We have issues with that.

Okay. Well, how do we live to 100?

Well, be strong as hell. Stronger you are, the more robust you are, the more muscle mass you have, the longer you're going to live. God forbid, you get any of those things that we're talking about, cancer, fall, the greater your survivability. We don't have an obesity problem. We got the problem wrong. Just like we got the problem with testosterone and prostate, just like we've gotten the problem wrong with, I don't know, you name it. We have the problem wrong with obesity. It's just a symptom of unhealthy skeleton muscle. You want to live to 100? Be as strong as you can for as long as you can, have as much muscle mass as you can.

How many hours a day do you contribute to your fitness?

Less than one hour.

Less than one hour? What do you do?

Three days a week. Three to four days a week, I train. I work with my trainer, Carlos Mata. He's amazing. I should just call him the Punisher. Three days a week, what do we do? We do heavy sled pushes. We do compound movements. We do kettlebell swings, we do bag tosses, we do rope pulls, we do isolations, we do resistance training. We do it in a form of progressive overload, meaning my goal is to get stronger and better. I do that 3-4 days a week. But the other days, I am active. You see how much I'm moving now? I should sit on my hands. Probably be a terrible interview. I'm sorry, guys. But I move. I'll put a weight vest on and I'll walk around. Take calls while I'm on a treadmill, wear a weight vest, walking, rucksack. With my kids, we don't do any electronics.

None.

Terrible idea. It's a terrible idea. I would I have a lot more time if I use electronics with them, but we don't. What I've done is I build into my life activity. It's not, do I train three to four days a week for an hour? Yeah, I do. That's four hours a week. It's activity during the day. I hate this term exercise snacks. It's terrible, but it's this physical movement that you put in throughout your day. I will tell you something else, zone 2. Have you heard of zone 2? No. It's It's having its moment, that slow, steady-state cardio. It's having its moment. I don't have time for that. Do you have time for that?

No.

I think as a society, we have to recognize there's multiple ways to get to an end point. The less time you have to train the more intense it has to be. You do not have to spend hours doing zone 2 cardio. We tend to not like to get really uncomfortable and breathe heavy. When shit sucks, it's exactly what we should do. You get away with 20 minutes a week of that, and you'll still have longevity benefits.

Interesting. To live to 100, it's just exercise.

Body composition. Body composition. What do you mean by that? I don't want you doing a bunch of marathons like my husband. You have to be strong. You have to lift weights. Does diet play a role? Yeah, we've got micronutrients that we need, not just the macronutrients. We have nutrients of concern like iron, zinc, Millennium, B12 for brain function. You need all those things, too. But if you do not move and move in a meaningful way, then your capacity to move reduces You have to become very intelligent about the ways in which you're pushing forward. I think the worst thing that can happen to someone is they get injured, shoulder injury, back injury. How do you facilitate a life that allows for maximum movement in a meaningful way for outcomes. You want to be able to lift your kids over your head when you're 75. These are the things that we have to do. You have to train in a meaningful way with resistance training. I'm sorry, walking is not going to do that for you, my friend. It's not. You have to lift things. Do you have to do some high-intensity training once a week?

I think that you should, unless you're just going to do zone 2, which will take hours.

Well, I mean, I know what you're saying works because I have a good friend, also my attorney. I don't want to say his name because I don't want to But he took you on or you took him on as a client, and I just saw him a couple of weeks ago.

He looks amazing. Oh, that's right. Katie, someone messaged me. Katie, your wife messaged me. She didn't say who, but she He was like, Oh, I just heard. He told me he was start with you.

He was amazing. When we scheduled the podcast and I saw him and I was like, Holy shit, man, you look fucking amazing. He said, Yeah, I feel great. Now, my wife, I don't know if she's seeing you yet or not, but if she's not, she probably will be soon because he told me that that was going to happen. But I've seen your work in person, and it looks amazing. I think. Let's keep going. How do we live to 100? What about supplements? A lot of people are saying that fruit, vegetables, we already touched on the meat, but the pesticides, and they don't have near the nutrients that they used to have 50 plus years ago or 20 plus years ago. It seems like it just kept diminishing more and more. A lot of people are turning to supplements, greens, different multivitamins, whatever, fill in the blank. From what I've heard about you, it sounds like you don't think that replacing food with supplements is necessarily the best idea.

Here's what I think. I believe everything that you're saying in terms of there are changes in soil, the way in which our fruits and vegetables are, they're not what they used to be. If you've ever had a natural blueberry or a strawberry, they don't taste the way that ours do. So they are cultivated to be significantly sweeter. We also pick food and then it sits and then it's sent and it respires. It loses its nutrients. All of that is true. Wholefoods are ideal. Are Wholefoods enough? No, I don't believe Wholefoods enough. Do I believe in supplementation? I absolutely do believe in supplementation. But how do I think about it? I think the best diet is a diet where it's both plant and animals. Whole Foods diet, plant and animals, fruits and vegetables. Lean red meats, if you want to throw some salmon, organ meats, gross. I hide them in my kid's food. It's amazing. I even hide them in my husband's food. Do not-What do you mean organ meats? Lever. Lever? That was my daughter's first food.

Lever? Mm-hmm. What's the benefits of liver?

It is unbelievably rich in iron, fat, soluble vitamins. There's no replacement for it. Retinol, there's no replacement. This vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin D, there's no replacement for our liver.

What liver?

Cow liver, chicken liver?

Doesn't matter.

I mean, it's an acquired taste, but you don't eat a ton of it. You can cook it in a burger. Just a little bit. Maybe that was my daughter's It's first food. When you think about supplementation, it's what is it that you're potentially missing? I don't eat a ton of vegetables, so I use greens. I use green powder. I I use red powder, I use things that are rich in phytonutrients in colors. Do you use a red powder, green powder? You should. We will. I'll fix that.

I have. I shouldn't say no. I go, here's the thing. I'm just going to be 100% honest. I saw a fucking got me pared.

But- Wait, wasn't I supposed to get a present? I felt bad.

Do you want some?

No. What is it? It's not CPD, gummy bears, is it?

No, they're just gummy bears.

Yeah, where are my gummy bears?

Dude, I was embarrassed to give you some because I thought you- I watched your show so many times.

I thought you would yell at it. Listen, I watched your show so many times, and you know what you always start out the show with? The hand-tick and you go, Everybody gets a gift.

The doctors don't get the gummy bears.

Wait, I watched Duckworth. Was that her name? Duckworth? What was her name who was doing the remote viewing? It was amazing. She got gummy bears.

Doctors don't get gummy bears. I'm embarrassed. We'll take a break. When we come back, I'm going to give you some gummy bears.

Where's my present?

You can put them up there as a gift. But man, now I just lost my train of thought.

Wait, we were talking about gummy bears. Now I feel bad. No, no. Wait, we were talking about gummy bears. We were talking about- We were talking about...

No, we were talking about supplements. Supplements. This is important. My thing is I'm coming out with a supplement, too.

Amazing. What are you making?

It's going to be 2,000 milligrams of Cordyceps, 2,000 milligrams of Lion's Mane mushroom extract. I love mushrooms. It's a Nautropic. We're still perfecting it, but it was a huge discussion with my business partner. He wanted another thing to mix. We're going to do the mix. But I was like, look, man, I have to do something that's fucking easy because you're running three businesses. You understand being busy. I'm already overwhelmed as it is. I can't even believe I'm saying I have a billbox that has all my stuff in there, my fish oil, my multivitamin, my what, K3?

Vitamin D Yeah, that stuff.

It's got a bunch of stuff in it. But I just don't have time to...

It has to be easy.

I don't... All right, let's do the red powder. All right, let's do the green powder. Mix it up. Let's do the mushroom supplement. Mix it up. That's like 30 minutes of just mixing all these damn supplements and putting them in. So what we did was I was like, it has to be something easy, whether it's a shot or I don't know. So it's an eye dropper thing. It's the dropper thing. You just do two of them.

I think those are amazing.

But that's my... And then there's the protein powder. And then there's this. So what I'm saying. I'm saying.

I'm a dropper of mushroom extract in the protein powder.

Well, so you see what I'm saying, though? It's just not the most convenient thing. And I'm always looking for convenience. And then that creates It's 50 dishes that you have to clean and wash and run through the dishwasher. And I'm like, man, I don't want to do all that stuff. I just want... Can we just do one thing here that's just bam, done, do it on the fly? Smart. And it doesn't take any time. And so that's why we came out the... We're coming out with the with the with the eye dropper supplement because it's so convenient.

That's exciting.

But yeah, if I had one, I'd give one to you right now.

I'll send you some when we get them. I'm going to hold you to it and gummy bears.

And gummy bears. But that's the thing with the supplements. And so is that what you do? Do you mix the reds and then you mix the proteins?

I'll tell you exactly what I'm doing these days. I start my morning with... Have you ever heard of Strong Coffee?

Yes.

Amazing. So I have Strong Coffee, which has collagen, healthy in it. I put an An extra scoop of collagen. If you want to know exactly what I'm taking, I will tell you. Yeah, let's hear it. Do you know Bubs? Glenn Doherty's Foundation?

Oh, yeah, I love Bubs. I take Bubs.

Okay, so a scoop of Bubs. Then I have a very small scooper of Amra, which is colostrum. That is my first thing that I take. I'm winning. I'm already winning. I have extra collagen, extra vitamins, all of this stuff in the shake. I go train and be looking at me crazy, not complicated. Three to four days a week, I might slam a protein shake. I do use a protein shake. I'm on my AG1 cake. Have you tried AG1? It's amazing. I actually mix it together with vanilla protein powder. I don't care. Tastes amazing. Fine. I take something called Urolithin A. What is it? Urolithin A. What's that? The company called Mitopure. It says Urolithin A. It is a postbiology It is very good for mitochondrial function. It has a lot of good data, has over a decade of data. Take 1,000 milligrams of that. I should probably break it up. I take fish oil. I have a little pack. It has fish oil, magnesium, zinc. Take that with my shake. I'm like, good to go. That is so easy.

Let's go back to the Arma, the colostrum stuff.

It's great for gut health.

Just interviewed Breca, and he wants me to take that. He did the whole gene test thing on me. Okay. Threw it on the show. What's the deal with colostrum?

Colostrum is mother's milk. It's the stuff for mother's milk. There is a ton of nutrients and bioactive ingredients in it. If you get a company where the colostrum is not overheated and killed, then you have something that has a ton of immunoglobulins. We think about- A ton of what? Immuno globulins. What is that? Proteins. So things that are really good for the immune system in the body, the things that we were built on. This is amazing.

What does it do Well, there's some great data for gut health for me, and that's why I use it.

I was having some weird, probably from my nicotine gum. Can't believe I'm saying this on a show. But probably from chewing nicotine gum, it affected my ear laughing. I've never talked this much on a podcast. I'm sure all your guests do. Welcome to the Sean Rock. Do all your guests say that?

Oh, yeah.

I don't think I've ever talked this much. My husband might disagree, but the... My I was getting weird tingling on my tongue. It was just getting very sensitive. I think that the nicotine was affecting the mucosal integrity. I was like, Well, I got to fix this. It's unacceptable. That's why I started using Amra, and it has absolutely helped. But I use it for gut health.

Gut health. What's the importance of gut health?

It's everything. It's your interface with the outside world. We talked about nutrition, but you're only as good as what you absorb. You can eat perfectly, but if you do not have good gut integrity, which is basically the way in which the lining is intact, the way in which the mucosal is intact, it doesn't matter what you eat, it matters what you absorb.

Do you test for that?

Of course, I test for it.

How do you do that? Is it the same thing, the stool samples and stuff?

We do stool samples. We look at proteins like Xonulin, calprotectin, various markers. Then you can see a pattern in the bloodwork. If someone is not absorbing their nutrients, There's a multitude of ways to get an answer, and it has to check out.

Okay. Is it...

Gary probably also wanted you to take some B vitamins. He probably wanted you to take some methylated B vitamin complex. I'm guessing. Do you remember?

Man, I can't remember all of them.

The other supplement, so colostrum is great. I think that It has great benefit to collagen. Collagen does have a protein score of zero, though. People will say, I get protein from collagen. That is not. It's an incomplete protein. Collagen does nothing for muscle health, but for skin integrity. I think that there's good evidence. I think that we don't know exactly all of what collagen's benefits are yet because it's difficult to test. But But I do think that there's definitely benefits for gut, for hair, for skin, and nails. Then a red-green powder, whatever you choose. I've been on an AG One kick. My mom actually got me on it because she was obsessed with it. It's like a multivitamin. It's not really a green powder. It's just multivitamin. It has a whole bunch of stuff in it. Then we have to think of it as a food matrix. The foods that we eat, I think old school days It's your bodybuilding type stuff, it's your carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. The new school of thinking is really the food matrix. What is within a food that makes it comprehensive? That's why I think AG1 is a good product.

It's comprehensive. It's a food matrix. Same with the colostrum. It's not an isolated vitamin C. That's where I think the next iteration of supplements are actually going, is this idea of how do we recreate as much as possible a natural wholefood matrix?

Interesting.

Creatine. Every team guy should be on creatine. 12 grams for the brain.

For the brain? Not for myself. I've not heard this before. Yeah.

Why? What? 10 to 12. There's some great evidence that creatine can help, especially as individuals are aging with cognition. I don't know the mechanism of action, but the data that I'm seeing in terms of cognition and memory, I think that's exciting.

Interesting. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, I want to talk about-Gummy bears. And we'll give you some gummy bears. Tired of tech companies selling your data and forcing you to deal with an AI chatbot for support? Unburden yourself from what has been with Bunker. Bunker is family-owned, US-based, and committed to upholding the people's rights to the fullest extent of the law. The company offers a fast-growing app for more secure messaging, cloud storage, password management, and notes. Bunker helps eliminate criminal activities and fraud from its network. Bunker customers take their lives seriously, from professional athletes, business owners and executives, to law enforcement agents, military personnel, and high networth families. We help our users save time, stay organized, and stay protected from identity theft, fraud, impostors, and surveillance. Plus, plus, all customers get access to Expert Live human support. Download Bunker Now from the App Store, Play Store, or visit their website, bunkr. Life, and use code SRS to get 25% off. Help protect what matters most. Download Bunker today. No one knows music like Rolling Stone. Senior writer Brian talks the biggest music news from the biggest stars. Almost everyone is teaming up on Drake.

It's like Drake versus the World. You first met Prince, you were driving for him before you were drumming for him. That's correct.

Steven Wonder. You have to understand how Stevie began.

White Radio. That's where the money was. That's where it still is. You know what I'm saying? Rolling Stone Music Now. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. All right, Gabriele, we're back from the break. We're on the road to 100. But we had a conversation earlier, and I actually wanted to about podcasting, and then you brought up your podcast on the show in the interview, and you had mentioned that you were interviewing people that nobody had ever heard of. For whatever it's worth, that's what I do, is I find people that nobody's ever heard of, and I bring their story or what they're saying to light. I I think that's really what sets it apart. I don't know. I think if you continue down that road and just stick with what you're interested in, they don't have to have the big name behind them. I think you're going to see a lot of success. I know you're already having a lot of success. I mean, did you say you're number three in health?

In medicine.

In medicine? That's amazing. So congratulations on that.

Thank you.

Thanks, my friend.

We're going to live to 100.

Everybody gets a wasn't on the show.

Let's tell them. Obviously, you didn't edit it out. You're the only doctor. I was the only doctor.

You're the only doctor, I believe, that I'm given gummy bears, too.

Andrew and Gary, no one ever got these?

Dude, I'm embarrassed to give them to the doctor. It's just junk food.

They will definitely be eaten. I don't know where they're going, but they're definitely going to be eaten.

Well, there's no collagen protein or ARMA or anything like that. They're basically just a sugar pill. Or what we call them on the team's fat pills.

I'm grateful. I have watched enough of your podcast. I was a little... I was surprised. I didn't get my bag. Now I feel bad.

I feel bad now, but that's all it is.

Well, I got two bags. Most people only get one.

I'm so It's just about giving sugar to doctors. But there you go.

Thank you.

Then you got the gummy bears.

I'm so excited.

They're sold out online right now.

I'm auctioning them. If you guys want them, I'm auctioning them.

Where are you going to auction them?

Ebay.

Nice.

My Instagram, I'm going to auction them. I bet you they get sold.

I bet they do, too.

Supplements. Supplements.

Supplements. Well, hold on. The road to 100. Yeah. Where we left off, I wanted to talk to you about we talked about supplements, we talked about hormones, we talked about a whole bunch of stuff. Let's talk about sleep.

I'm not great at it. You?

Me? I'm horrible at sleep. Horrible.

We are both going to have dementia. I don't want to hear that. I'm sorry, me neither. But sleep is... We should also backtrack this idea of living to 100. We don't want to live old and decrepit. It's all about the quality of how we want to go out. The longevity space, I feel, oftentimes tries to not acknowledge the inevitable. It is the thing that no one gets away from. It's coming for all of us.

My great grandma lived to 102 years old, and she was sharp as a tack until the last week and a half. We all thought she was gone crazy. Not really crazy, but she's 102 and she's dying. She started seeing angels and people that she knew, and she was talking to things that none of us could see. Now, after we talked a little bit about that subject before we interviewed here, but now I think we're the dumbasses that didn't know what was going on. I think maybe she wasn't crazy in all of those entities and spirits or angels or whatever they were, relatives of hers. They probably were. They're welcoming. It was a welcoming party into the To the next cycle of life.

It's wild. I do think it's... I don't know if you're afraid of death or the end, but it is... I don't know. I think that when we have young kids, we don't look forward to that. Before, I would argue that you feel like you have less to lose. Once you have children, it layers on a whole other level of vulnerability.

It I have more of a fear of leaving my kids behind in this atrocious of the world than I do of dying. But what I do worry about with dying is I want to be able to go out like my great grandma or like... We were talking about some of the stuff that's in the studio here, like that sword, Don Grace, 99 years old. He was 98 when I interviewed him. The guy was like, Just like we're talking right now. Totally with it, remembers every little detail. I mean, super sharp human being. Still that way. I still talk to him every once in a while. But that's how I want to go, whether that's at whatever age. But anyways, let's move to sleep.

Okay.

How much sleep do we need?

You probably... There are a few genetic outliers that can get away with 4 hours of sleep. I think that that is genetic. They don't feel tired. They roll like that. The rest of us, and by the way, do you know the operative community self-selects for those people?

No, I didn't.

How do they do that? Fascinating. Well, those are the ones that can complete training and remain robust. I had a sleep neuroscientist on my podcast. She is still It was a crash of duty. That was one of the topics that we covered, that in terms of how much sleep we need, the average person probably needs seven to eight hours. There's a range, whether it's six to eight. Then there's a handful of people that function amazing because of a genetic mutation on four or so hours, and it doesn't seem to have the negative implications. No kidding. Yeah. You're probably one of those people.

Well, that makes me happy to hear because I can't sleep. It's getting better. I started these peptide things with our mutual friend, Conover. Delta sleep peptide? Don't know. But It's a peptide.

It works, and you sleep.

Yeah, but I still wake up, though. I wake up at 2: 00 AM, damn near on the dot every night. I've always had this, and I was I trained my mind to think, actually, Sean, this is a blessing that you're not sleeping because you can get that much more work done and you just don't need sleep like everybody else. But then I see these damn things on social media. I saw one the other day that showed this person that looked horrible, horrible health. It was like, this is what six hours of sleep will do for you. I'm like, holy shit.

What do we know about the science? We know that sleep is critical. It's the time that our brain processes. It is also the time where it cleans itself. One of the risk factors of dementia is not sleeping. Unfortunately, I say this doesn't mean that I'm good at it. Deep sleep, sleep is critical for memory. If you are not sleeping well, the body doesn't seem to recover in all aspects. I'm not talking about from training, but we know that when you lose sleep, don't sleep, it can affect metabolism. I remember when I was doing the 24-hour night shift, I put this I sound like a total nerd, but I put a glucose monitor on to measure my blood sugar. The nights where I wasn't sleeping, my blood sugar was through the roof. Those things over time, one night, two nights, here and there of impaired sleeps, probably not a problem. But those lifetime habits, and we live in a society where I'll sleep when I'm dead is a thing. It is important, but you have to understand you may be a person who doesn't require as much sleep as the next person. That is true. But it's critical.

When I was screening patients for dementia, one of the things that we always asked was how much sleep. You want to know what else affects sleep?

Good thing we're on nicotine.

Thank God we're on nicotine and caffeine. But also, what is the reality of it? Do your kids sleep in your bed?

No.

I can't get my kids out of my bed.

We moved them out in eight weeks. My wife was adamant about it.

I've been trying. Three and five, those kids will not sleep in their own bed.

What?

I don't know. The last night I had a good night's sleep is when I was here. But all kidding aside, I think a lot-Your kids sleep in bed with you guys?

Oh, my God.

I cannot get them. Yes.

I move them. Doesn't that destroy your sex life?

Well, my husband's creative. Okay. All He'll find a way. It doesn't matter. All right. Don't worry. Oh, my God. Right here? Yeah, exactly. The laundry room?

Okay. How about sex? What about that on the road to 100?

Very important. Very important. Sex organs, while smooth muscle, they're still a muscle. Sex, life, is a barometer to overall health. Again, I'd mentioned Dr. Moha Khera, he created this called sex span. Basically, this idea of your lifespan, health span, I believe in muscle span. Muscle is the length of time you live with healthy skeleton muscle, which, by the way, I think trumps all of it. He created this idea of sex span and that for men, it is the ultimate barometer for cardiovascular health, for vascular health, for metabolic health. For women, it's this funny thing because women's sex drive seems to change as they age and the tissue can atrophy. We talk about hormone replacement. We didn't talk about women. I believe very strongly in hormone replacement for women to maintain sex drive and also protect the tissue. The vaginal tissue, the vaginal tissue. It'll atrophy. Interesting. Basically, if you want to live to 100, have a lot of sex. It can be in the laundry room, sleep, eat your dietary protein, get Sean's gummies. There we go. Did I miss anything?

How much sex would we be having?

There is no number, but I'll give you my personal opinion. Personally, it's probably close to every day, which seems like a lot of sex because we're animals. Doesn't it seem like a lot?

Sounds good to me.

It seems like a lot, but I think that a healthy relationship would be at least a couple of times a week. We are We're very domesticated, but we are animals. I think that it has overall effect on mood, oxytocin production, which is that connection hormone.

Oxyetocin? Yeah.

Connection hormone. Yeah. When you breastfeed and there's that milk let down. We talked about colostrum, that mother's milk, it is released. One way it's released is through oxytocin. Oxyetocin is a neurochemical that is released when you feel close and when you hug. It's what they call the love hormone, the happy hormone.

Interesting.

You can also intranasially take it, by the way. We prescribe that in our practice for mothers that are lactating.

I think I'd rather just have sex.

Yeah, probably. But having sex while you're pregnant or breastfeeding is not as fun, potentially, but fair.

I got another question. Kind of uncomfortable, but Whatever. I'm going to ask it. What about... Is there a difference between masturbation and sex when it comes to longevity?

I don't know. Okay. I don't know that answer, but I do think that there is something in relationship with the other person But also, and I'm just taking a stab at this, probably the flora, the mucosa of two partners. Okay. Again, I'm not an expert in this sexual flora area, but if I was a betting I would say that as natural as we can get will help optimize our life. The other thing with living to 100 is community, is meaningful relationships. There's a lot of data coming out that the quality of your relationships can help with the longevity of your life, which is surprising.

What studies? How long have you been tracking that?

I'm always interested in what's going to make people better. There's all kinds of data that comes out. We just see it increasing over time. It's difficult to study. One of the challenges with not just nutrition, but also influences from communities, things like the blue zones, is this all epidemiology. It's not a randomized control trial. Randomized control trial would be high-quality evidence. The idea where it's epidemiology is where we look at groups of people. The data on that is considered low-quality evidence, weak or low-quality evidence. Very difficult to do randomized control trials over decades. It's been near impossible.

There's got to be something to it, though, right? If there's zones, it doesn't sound like it's just sporadic that all these people are living to 100 and all these different. It seems to be concentrated in these zones, correct?

Well, they're also notoriously very bad at record keeping. We don't know the validity of the birth certificates.

Well, it isn't Okinawa, Japan, one of them?

Now, if my memory serves me correct, there's various areas within Okinawa, or I can say China. There was various areas of China that are considered blue zones, but they compare it to the area in China where everyone is outdoors and doing a lot of physical labor versus areas in China where they are be like living in New York City. The things aren't comparable. But what I think that we can learn from the blue zones are lifestyle modification factors. Physical activity is critical. Now, one would say, I'm out, I'm doing all these things, and I'm walking and I'm exercising. The reality of how we live doesn't necessarily make it conducive to live like the blue zone. I don't think it's enough. In the blue zone, you don't hear about people lifting weights. You don't hear about people purposely going through stressful experiences. We, as Americans, we live here. We live in a sedentary type of culture. We are up against various other environmental factors. For us, we do need to train hard. We do need to do various things that if you lived in an island somewhere where it was fresh water and flowers, you might be fine.

But I think that it can guide us, but it's not translatable.

Why do you think nature plays such a big part? It sounds like that's what you're saying.

Yeah, we're just designed. That's how we're designed. We're not designed to be under fluorescent lights. We evolved with a 24 hours circadian rhythm, and we are very removed from that. I do believe that we are going to move from this idea of sleep biology to circadian biology. We think about it as sleep. I think that sleep is going to fall under the umbrella of circadian biology, meaning how we eat in terms of the time frames, how we eat breakfast Are we eating at the same time? Are we eating when the light is out? Do we stop eating at five o'clock in Texas when the sun goes down? Our body is designed to not be out of alignment with its natural rhythms. I think the further that we move away from those natural rhythms, the more dysregulated, the more inflammation that we create, regardless of doing all of the things.

Okay, that makes sense. I wanted to ask you, this is totally side rabbit hole here, but psychedelics. We brought up dementia, Alzheimer's a couple of different times. That's a fear of mine as well. I think a lot of people worry about that. I've heard, read, I don't remember where I saw it, but it's popped up several different times. Is psychedelics, does that help with Alzheimer's dementia?

I can't say for sure, but what I can tell you is there seems to be a lot of promising information. When we say psychedelics, are we talking about Ibogaine? Nmda, are we talking about ayahuasca? There are various modalities, I think, that affect the brain. What we do see is that it seems to improve mood relationships, difficult depression to treat. There are our definite benefits to psychedelic therapy. Again, we definitely see it in the military population. I just see it all the time from patients that go and do some psychedelic therapy, come back, and they definitely seem transformed, and their relationships seem transformed, and their depression and anxiety.

Have you done them?

I have done ayahuasca in Ecuador.

Did you get any benefits from it?

Threw up a lot. Threw up a lot. I don't know if I did.

Why did you do it?

My father, who is an expat, is very interested in plant medicine. He's been down there for over a decade, and he went through some really significant struggles, and he found that plant medicine really helped him and really transformed his life. I'm very open-minded I'm very interested in how can we become the best version of ourselves. If there's something that I am doing or have subconsciously that's holding me back, I want to address it. I was very open to trying it.

I mean, your husband's a team guy.

Not interested at all.

Not interested at all? At all.

He's afraid.

What do you think he's afraid of?

Of the things that it might bring up.

Fair enough.

The things I would say military members, particularly Special Operations Community. I mean, again, I can only speak from my experience, seem to be very good at compartmentalizing. But the one thing that I know for sure is that you can't escape these things. It comes out. It has to be addressed. We were talking before, I've been seeing patients for almost two decades, and not quite two decades, but maybe close to 50 15 years or a little over. There are through lines that you see of individuals that are able to become very successful, not just from a business perspective, but as humans. A physician's job is to recognize patterns, typically patterns of diseases. But there are very particular attributes or patterns of individuals that I think allow for them to become the version of themselves. I have just seen similarity after similarity. One, which may be surprising, is a level of neutrality. They're neutral. Things are going great, things are going terrible, they're even. They never get too high, they never get too low, they're very neutral. The individuals that are able to maintain a neutral mind mind seem to be the ones that have the most success.

Are you like that?

I definitely have a level of neutrality. Absolutely. Because I know what happens if you get too excited or too pumped up. Basically, what I see over time, and I've obviously seen within myself, and you've probably experienced That let's say you had a big event. As high as you go for that big event, as amped up as you're going to be, you're going to go give a talk, you're going to get out there, will be as low as you fall. It's this dopamine swing. You see individuals that will release a book or that will make millions of dollars because of a deal that they closed, or they'll have a major event in Las whatever it is. These people get ready for the high and they're chasing the high, and they're getting so excited. Again, I see this in my patients. They get so amped up that at the pinnacle of being amped up right before the event, right before the book release, right before the major show that comes off or comes out. Whatever that is, is a point of vulnerability. They will continue to chase the high, make bad decisions, increase risk-taking behavior. Let's say you're someone who likes to buy a car.

Right at that pinnacle, you're going to go out to purchase. You'll do something to continue to drive that high. But what's so fascinating is at that point of vulnerability when people are at their peak. You never think about doing this amazing thing, and right at that peak is where you're vulnerable. But as high as you go in emotion and success, as as you allow yourself to go is as low as you fall.

Makes sense.

People after... I had this one patient, this one guy, he would put on this big event in Vegas. Every year, he would call me. I knew it. I'm feeling depressed. I don't I'm going to work out. I don't know, maybe I should buy a new car. He just made millions of dollars. Like clockwork, the human mind is predictable. As high as he would go would be as low as he would go. That second point of vulnerability is where it takes people months to recover if they're unaware. If they don't allow for this dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter thought to be responsible for drive and motivation, if that doesn't recover, and the best way to help with recovery. I mean, you can train it. But if you do not allow yourself to get amped up, celebrate all those wins, you really modify what the meaning is, then you never get too high, then you never fall so low. The people listening can probably appreciate that because I'm sure your team here has had major events or major things that you've had to do. Following that accomplishment is where people surprisingly feel depressed. At that moment is a level of vulnerability.

Maybe when they go on vacation, just something simple. When you get back from vacation, people feel depressed. They've been high all week, and then as high as they go, it's as low. Back to the statement that I was making is that there are predictable behaviors and ways in which we can modulate our human experience. When you recognize that human beings are totally predictable, tactical things to improve neutrality. I don't know, don't celebrate every win. You want some nicotine? Look at It? Don't have it. Put it back. Heads or tails, you get to eat that gummy bear. Tails, you get to eat it. Heads, you don't. You practice this purposeful restriction.

Interesting.

Yeah.

What are some other attributes of successful people?

They set standards. There's this idea of goals, that we should have the goal and work towards the goal. The goal allows for failure. You set standards by how you execute, what you believe in, and you do those things over time, then you always rely on your standards. You're not setting the 10-pound goal of weight loss. You are the type of person that wakes up in trains. You are the type of person that executes these key components because that's your standard. I mean, that's critical. Then the third one is managing distraction. Distraction, I think, kills more people than, I don't know, heart disease.

Literally?

Yeah. I don't know, but it seems like people say that...

Kills success or kills people?

Kills dreams, kills people. I mean, distraction allows you to do things that are unimportant in place of things that are very meaningful. I I really started thinking deeply about this. I don't even want to tell a story. We live in Texas, and I have two very little children. My husband was going to San Diego to present this urology paper that he wrote, some study. We go to the pool every summer. Well, every summer, we've been there, two summers, every day during the summer. I have a three-year-old boy. He cannot swim. My daughter is able to swim amazing. She's good at everything. Life is going to be hard for her. But there were eight lifeguards there. They all know my son. We go every day. There were two children in the pool. I'm a helicopter parent, especially around a pool. I look up, there are eight fucking lifeguards, and there are two kids in the pool, and no one is there. I'm like, You know what? Aries, my daughter's name is Aries after the God of War. We were going to FaceTime Shane, who was leaving, to say goodbye. We FaceTime him. I look up and I didn't see my son.

He was drowning at the deep end to the pool. What do you think those eight lifeguards were doing?

On their phone.

They were on their phone. Thank God, I looked up, ran in, jumped in, got him out. He was okay. Had I not looked up, that little boy would not be here. Damn. We are in a culture of complete distraction. That would have changed our lives forever.

Wow. Mom.

When you think about what allows people to fulfill their life, their life's purpose, those are the ones that are undistracted and unencumbered by distraction.

How's your son?

My son is good.

Good deal. Yeah. It can be tough to keep the distractions away. We were chatting about that, too, before the interview about my road to podcasting and all the distractions. And it wasn't until I really zeroed in and I was like, look, we do one thing here and we do it really good. That's when we really saw the curves start steepening All of that makes a lot of sense.

It's discernment. You're able to discern the right thing to do at the right time. What was so important? I'm like, there's no way something's going to happen to my son. There were eight fucking lifeguards. No one was in the pool. When we think about this global idea of health and wellness, there are things that distract and minimize our ability to discern the things that are most important from the things that aren't. We talk about sleep and supplements, but ultimately, this level of neutrality, I think even at the top of that is the ability to discern. Is this thought a relevant thought? Is this action a relevant action? Is this nutrition plan, whatever it is, this is what I've committed to, this is my standard? You wrap it all up in discernment. The better you are discerning, the more capable you are going to be in all aspects of health, wellness, business.

It's a damn good point. Well, doctor, I think that's a good place to end it. But I just want to say thank you. Thank you for making the trip here to Franklin. I'm just so thankful we met. And wish you the best of luck with your... You got more books coming out?

I have two more books coming out. One, it comes out in a year, and then in the following year.

What are those going to be about?

The next book is going to be a manual. It'll go with Forever Strong. You want to look up how to sleep, how to lose fat, whatever it is, it'll be there. Oh, wow. You don't have to think about the science. It's a protocol-based book. Very cool. And the book after that is one for women. Good. Forever Strong for Women.

Good.

Forever strong for women.

Good deal. Well, I wish you the best luck with your books, your practice, your podcast, and whatever else you can be at a mother. Thank you again.

Thank you so much for having me. I joke that I've never probably talked this much on a podcast. You are a spectacular host. Truly, this has been one of my most favorite podcast podcast. I'm so grateful. Thank you for having me. Yeah.

Thank you. Cheers.

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