Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, kido savage.com.
Today I've got special guest doctor Josh Levitt.
He is a naturopathic physician and we dive into all things
health. We talk about his his transition
to naturopathic medicine, his desire not to go the route of
traditional Western medicine. Talk about some of his
motivations there, kind of the origin stories to what got him
into health in the 1st place. And we just really peel the
curtain back on what is plaguing us as a species with regards to
our current health status, what he's seeing in his clinic.
What are some foundational changes that can be made to
improve the health of his patients and the population at
large? We talked about things, things
that we can do on a very acute level from a from a bone density
standpoint, from a soft tissue standpoint.
We talk about different biohacking techniques and
protocols, talk about the importance of proper nutrition,
recovery, mobility. We cover the gamut on a variety
of different topics. I throw it into the
conversation. I've got no doubt that you will
take something from this. So that further ado sit back,
relax, enjoy the conversation with Dr. Josh
and we are live, Doctor Josh, how are you Sir?
I am well, how are you? It's a pleasure to be here.
Yeah, man, it's a pleasure to have you.
I'm excited to be chatting with you today.
So I love bringing naturopathic doctors on because I feel like I
don't know from a Western medicine standpoint there
there's certainly some benefits to that.
But I think there's, you know on the other side of coin, other
side of spectrum, there's a ton of benefits that often go unsaid
from the non western medical science.
So I'd love to kind of get some back story as to what pushed you
that direction in the first place.
Absolutely. And I totally agree with you.
I'm, I'm one of the naturopathic doctors who who believes that
there's good stuff in both, you know, on either side of that
bridge. And in fact, for the last, like
25 years of my career, I feel like I exist on that bridge in
between the alternative medicine side on one side of the bridge
and the conventional or mainstream medicine.
Side on the other and and, and I'm doing what I can, doing my
part to try to bring those two sides closer together.
And yeah, if you want me to share the sort of how I got into
this so many years ago, I'm happy to do that too.
Would you like to hear that story?
Yeah, I love a good origin story, man.
Give me even the details. Absolutely, Yeah.
Mine mine's actually pretty good, if I may say so myself.
So I I went to UCLA as an undergraduate.
I always wanted to be a doctor. I was kind of a rough and tumble
kid, a surfer and a skateboarder from Southern California, always
banged up and bruised and spent much of my early childhood and
braces and splints and the like. And and so orthopedics was
always very interesting to me, mostly because because of my
personal experience, I also come from a family with lots of
doctors in it as well. So I went to UCLA in pursuit of
that. I studied neurophysiology there.
And at the time, my dad was training medical residents in
clinical psychology at UCLA at the Med Center there.
And so I kind of like, I guess you might call it, backstage
access to doctors at the time. And they were surprisingly
discouraging about pursuing a career in medicine at the time.
And the reasons for that are all the reasons why I think Western
medical healthcare, especially American healthcare, is so
troubled right now. Increasing influence of big
insurance companies, increasing influence of big pharma, etc.
And so they were discouraging me from a career in medicine.
I didn't know what to do with that.
And so instead of going the conventional route to medical
school, I took off for a year. And I traveled around the world.
This is sort of like me with a backpack, hitchhiking, sleeping
on beaches, youth hostels, that sort of thing.
I like it. And on that trip, I landed in
Switzerland. And when I arrived in
Switzerland, I was coming over from the Middle East.
At the time, I had a blister on my foot that became infected.
And it turned into this problem called Cellulitis, which you've
probably heard of before, a terrible, superficial infection
that was going deeper and and and was really.
I mean, quite honestly, limb threatening, maybe even life
threatening if nothing had been done about it.
A really serious infection that I had overseas in difficult
circumstances. Anyway, I call home and get a
prescription for antibiotics called into a pharmacy in
Switzerland and there I go hobbling off to this pharmacy
where I pick up this prescription for antibiotics.
It was Keflex Cephalosporin antibiotic.
And inside that pharmacy, there was all this natural medicine
stuff, right? Herbal medicine things,
homeopathic medicine things, nutritional things.
A whole new world that wasn't really relevant to my my
Cellulitis at the time. I needed the antibiotics, which,
by the way, cured the infection. But that experience inside that
pharmacy, seeing that medicine was a lot more than just the
pills behind the counter, really lit a spark in me.
And in the fire from that spark is it's it's still burning
strong right now. That's my that's my origin story
right there. I love it, man.
I love it. So out of curiosity, you know,
you going from a backpacking across the country kind of
phenomenon like what made you did, did do you still kind of do
some of the stuff you still do like spontaneous act like that
or do you kind of feel more settled down now?
I feel, I mean, I I think I'm probably forced to be a little
bit more settled down. At that time.
I was single and I was cruising, you know, at this point in my
life, I've been married for 23 years.
I've got three kids and a dog here in the house.
So yeah, I'm a little bit more settled down, but that's that's
by necessity, not necessarily by choice.
In fact my kids. The last one, my youngest one is
17 years old, going to be a senior in high school this year.
And so the the nest is almost empty, man.
And so when it is, I think more adventures, hopefully without
the Cellulitis, await both me and my wife.
Very cool, man. It's exciting stuff.
We got a 14 month or 14. Yeah, 14 month old now.
So we're just kind of getting in that settled state with him.
But I've been thinking a lot about like, I love travel and I
love seeing different things. And it's just kind of cool,
different chapters of your life kind of figuring out what you
want to prioritize. Absolutely, Yeah.
Yeah. I remember those, those days
well, we had three kids very, very close together and that
was, that was a whirlwind. Those were, those were beautiful
and challenging times. And I'm sure you would you would
probably agree totally. So this may be totally off on a
tangent here, but I feel like the the spectrum of health and
Wellness and and medical intervention.
You know if you look at the traditional Western medicine
then you look at more of the you know Eastern medicine, you look
at the homeopathic, you look at the natural path that you look
at all these different alternative medicines.
And I feel like the the bridge is is narrowing to the sense
that more people are becoming accept accepting of there being
a blended approach. What do you think the catalyst
for that acceptance is? Do you feel like the I feel like
just more information over time is really hope that I feel like
people are becoming more you know just tuned in on how there
are benefits to these natural remedies especially when it
comes to within the realms of nutrition.
I feel like that maybe that's my echo chamber because that's the
the area that I'm typically residing in.
But I feel like the general public is becoming more
receptive to their being a blended approach.
Do you think that the I certainly don't want to get into
a tangent about, like vaccines and COVID and what not, but I
would imagine just the the State of the Union, so to speak, over
the past few years, has opened people's eyes to the fact that
maybe just the direction that traditional Western medicine has
taken may not be all-encompassing.
So first of all, I totally agree with you.
I do think that the bridge between those two worlds used to
be a lot, you know, longer the the the two worlds were very
much further apart and I think that they are closer together.
I don't take any personal responsibility for that, but I
do think it's true. I think that people on the
alternative medicine side are starting to recognize that there
is some good stuff that comes out of Western medicine.
I think a lot of us would agree if we get hit by a truck or when
an ambulance takes you to the emergency room in a trauma
situation. For my Cellulitis situation, you
know that Western medical interventions can be great, but
I think that so there's been some movement in that direction.
And then on the Western medical side, I mean, there was a time
in the early part of my career where Western medical doctors
that were in my own community. I live here in Connecticut,
right near Yale University and practiced here for many, many
years. There was a time when doctors
like me, including me myself, were just considered straight up
quacks, right? Just just charlatans.
And now that is absolutely changed, partly by by way of
personal relationships and a mutual respect that comes there
and partly by way, I think, of what of what you just suggested,
which is that increasing information, right?
In the era of my career, there's been this explosion of the
Internet and the information economy, and people have
information that was much more difficult to access before.
And are starting to question authority in every kind of way,
right, whether it's Western medical or otherwise.
And so, yeah, I think absolutely we are definitely at a place now
where people are recognizing that Western medicine may have
its benefits but also has its liabilities.
And it's not a one-size-fits-all solution.
It's not a universal solution. It's part.
Of the healthcare landscape and I think people are increasingly
understanding that. By the way, we still have a long
ways to go. But but yeah, I think the idea
that doctors and Western medicine and pharmaceuticals are
the Holy Grail and the only thing that you need for your
health is, is becoming. It's becoming more clear that
that's not true to more and more people, which is good news,
totally. I think one of the, the main,
you know, beacons of hope for me so to speak, within the the
realm of alternative medicine is that comparatively to
traditional Western medicine, there seems to be much more of
an emphasis on preventative care and proactive care as opposed
to, you know, retroactively prescribing a pill drug approach
for something which I think that is where people need to focus
on. Absolutely.
Yes, you're right. And you know I would piggyback
on that and say #1, I completely agree, right.
If we if we if we get a handle on all the foundational things
that that promote health and things like diet, things like
exercise, stress management, sleep, all the foundational
aspects, you know, we could relieve a lot of the burden,
economic and and health burden on our on our healthcare system
if we if we treated it that way. And that's good that a lot of
people are starting to move in that direction, understand that.
And then there's this sort of like there's this, I don't know,
harsh reality. You might say that in my shoes,
like in the in the world of clinical practice, as much as I
would love to say that I have a steady stream of people coming
into my practice over many, many years saying like.
I'm doing great, Doc, and I just want to help.
I want you to help me stay that way.
You know, like, Can you imagine, like, that's like the idea of a
preventative healthcare practice is that, like, people are
feeling great. They come to doctors to help
them stay that way. And and the sad reality, I
suppose, is that that's not really true.
That's not how it works, right in my office, both in my
practice and the practices of all the doctors that I work with
in my clinic. It's sick people that come in,
sadly, you know, pain, sickness, that's what motivates people.
And so we still have a long ways to go in that regard as well.
It's still sickness and pain that motivate people.
But the good news is that a lot of times it motivates them to
come to a naturopathic Dr. or look for a nutritional or herbal
or less toxic, less invasive solution.
And and that's a beautiful thing.
That is certainly a step in the right direction.
I don't view you or your field of work as a, you know in
quackery terms at all. But in in your realm, are there
certain components of alternative health that the
naturopathic realm views as somewhat quackery?
Like, are there things so far in the extreme that just like that
is totally barking up the wrong tree there?
Sure. Yeah.
I mean I think that like anything, yes, absolutely.
I mean alternative medicine can get way out there.
Woo woo is the term that a lot of times is used Western
medicine can get way out there as well.
And and you know I, I the way I think about it is, is that if
if, if a treatment or it's any kind of intervention is safe.
And is not going to delay a person getting otherwise
effective care, then I'm good with it, right.
Like if there is an intervention that a lot of people believe is
a place you know works by way of a placebo effect.
And there's lots of things both in Western medicine and an
alternative medicine that probably work that way.
The mind and the the power of belief is a very powerful thing
and so if if a person's going to use something that doesn't
really have you know, strong biologic or physiologic effects.
But. But.
Works by way of placebo. That's great as long as it's
safe, as long as it is effective and doesn't delay the person
getting definitive care for a problem that could smolder or
get worse. And so, you know, I don't really
think of of quackery that way either.
Unless, of course, people are just out there.
You know, ripping people off, selling them, you know,
high-priced or high markup. You know, items or products that
just don't meet quality standards or known to be
ineffective, that's that's a real problem.
And absolutely there's charlatans out there in every
industry, no question, totally. What is the field of study that
has really garnered your interest as of late?
What's kind of your like, what are you digging your heels into?
What's a? What's the field of study that
is not really in the limelight? That probably should be.
Well, one of the one of the things that's really defined my
practice in my career and and and I'm a very, I have a very
eclectic practice. So I see people with all sorts
of different problems, common complex, chronic problems.
But the area that has captivated me the most, where I think we
have so much education to do out there to the general public, is
in orthopedics and in musculoskeletal pain, because
that's an area where #1. Hugely problematic, right?
Massive, massive amounts of pain, arthritis, degenerative
disc disease, sports related injuries, etc.
Out there, it's just a #1. Low back pain, for example, is
the number one reason why people go to primary care doctors.
And then number two, people have this sort of really strong
belief that Western medical orthopedics, Xrays, MRI.
Guys, injections, surgeries, joint replacements are really
the only way to go. And so that's an area you talk
about digging your heels in. My heels are pretty firmly dug
in there. Well, I'm totally frustrated
with the Western medicine approach to proactively hedging
against some of that stuff. Like I I tore my LCO doing some
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu a couple months back and just simply
going through the decision tree to get any, any form of MRI scan
or any, any any help whatsoever was just a massive hurdle.
Like it was just not user friendly whatsoever.
Like I was thinking, you know you can go and you can get a
DEXA scan, you can get in body scan, you can go and get IV
drips, pretty much any walk in clinic.
Now there needs to be like some walk in Mri's with some
knowledgeable text that can show you what you're feeling, you
know, graphically lay that on the screen and then you can have
some you know, form of action with that.
But they make those barriers to entry so high through the
conventional means. They do.
You're right about that. And yeah, it's interesting.
I know you kind of have biohacking tendencies, you know,
as an elite athlete yourself. And it's, it's, it's
interesting, you know, you want to be able to get access to that
kind of imaging. And right now it's sort of
behind this big insurance paywall.
Interestingly, I had a patient actually not too long ago who
similar to you, wanted to see images, MRI images of his hips.
This guy was a runner at a pretty high level, and it was
very difficult to get insurance approvals because his problem
wasn't bad enough to justify, you know?
The, the expense of bilateral hip Mri's, which in this country
cost about 1500 bucks each. So he, it just so happens that
his wife lives in Greece, not lives in Greece is from Greece
and they were going to Greece to travel to visit her family.
And so we went to Greece and he got bilateral Mri's, one of each
hip. And it was like, I think I saw
the receipt, I think it was 300 bucks, You know, it's
unbelievable. All he had to do was have his
family translate the report back into English.
And so, yeah, part, partly what you're talking about is not
just, you know, it's not just dogma or ego doctors or can be
the only ones that have access to Mri's.
It's just that whole healthcare landscape and the shockingly
high costs of healthcare in America that's driving some of
that. It is very frustrating.
You're right. Is there any any horizon on
that? Like, is there any hope for the
future in that becoming more accessible?
Or is that just simply the landscape that we live in in
America and it's not likely in a correct course anytime soon?
Gosh man, you know that's a great question and I'm probably
not even the right person to answer that.
You're now talking about healthcare policy and politics
and you know and things like you know the the influence of third
party insurance companies versus a singlepayer type of system and
and that's that's a rabbit hole. I'm not sure we want to go down
right now. We could but that isn't we'll be
sure. All right.
So let's let's talk about what we can control then.
So like for you and your practice and your, you know,
your clinical studies and you're in working with patients and
clientele, like what does your typical avatar look like?
Like what? Who's coming into your office?
What are they typically wanting to do?
Sure. Yeah.
So like I said, as much as I wish it was a bunch of healthy
people coming in looking for assistance to keep it that way,
what really what what it truly is, is people who are suffering
in some way. And so I would divide those
people into two main categories in a nature pathic practice.
Number one, the first category would be people who are looking
for a natural approach first, right?
So a doctor like me is the first person that they see when their
knee hurts, when they have a GI problem, when they when
something is amiss, right. They're feeling something, They
have a symptom, something's new, something's painful, something's
problematic. And they don't want to go the
Western medical route first because they have some sense of
what that's going to look like. And so they come to me first.
So. You might call that primary
care, which is a kind of what a lot of people like to call it,
right? So that's category one.
And those problems can be across the spectrum of of Health and
Human illness. Someone found a lump.
Someone has a new pain. Someone you know, whatever the
case may be, isn't feeling well. And then the other category is
people who are almost the opposite of that.
These are people who are sick and they've been sick for a
while and they've seen lots of doctors, often starting with a
primary care doctor or an internist and then working their
way through the western medical specialists of which there are,
you know, all shapes and sizes for every different body part
and body system you have a different specialist.
Many of these folks have chronic complex multi system illnesses
and they work their way through that system.
And they're still suffering, right?
They're still sick. They still don't feel good.
And they're looking for somebody who, you know, they usually come
to me or my colleagues by way of referral.
Because we have a knack for looking at a complex case like
that in a holistic way, right? It looking at the whole person,
body, mind, spirit and the environment in which they live,
which often can yield insights that you lose when you see
someone who's just looking at your thyroid or just looking at
your elbow or like a like a specialist does.
So so yeah, those are the two main groups.
And how long have you been doing this now again?
I have been doing this for over 20 years now, 23 years.
If you were to map that out on a timeline, would you say that
you're seeing an influx of patients coming in with these
ailments or is that declined over the years?
I think that there is increasing public interest in naturopathic
medicine. I just to give you an example,
we have a new Doctor in my clinic.
And her practice filled up faster than I've ever seen a
practice fill up. So if that tells us something
about maybe what people in, at least in my community, think
about our practice, that's one thing.
But I think it also says something about the state of
affairs, people's dissatisfaction with Western
medicine and their interest in naturopathic primary care.
So yeah, I think interest is rising.
And I also think that the status of health of a lot of Americans
of all these. Various type of problems,
autoimmunity, allergies, all the things GI problems that bring
people into naturopathic doctors offices, orthopedic and
musculoskeletal pain are getting worse and worse, right?
We have a we have an ailing population and they they need
help and they're coming to us, which I'm grateful for.
Yeah, that's what I kind of want to dive into, cuz like if you
look at things on a population level, there's more information
than ever. And it seems as though kind of
similar to generating wealth. Like the the wealthiest 1% keep
getting richer and the poor keep getting poor, those margins keep
separating. The same seems to be true when
you look at individual health. The people that are attuned to
digging in the research, you know, doing all the spinal
hacking and just diving deeper and deeper seem to be getting
healthier and healthier in the the average population, the
general population seems to be on the decline.
Do you, I mean is there any common denominators you're
seeing there? Like, do you think it's
predominantly lack of movement? Sitting at a desk looking at
screens for dietary choices? Like what do you think the
driving force is? It's probably.
I mean it's definitely a summation of multiple things,
but like if you were to get the low hanging fruit first, what
would that be? Yeah, I get that.
And before we even start picking that low hanging fruit, I want
to just like applaud you for recognizing that that 1% thing I
think is a really good insight by you because you're you're,
you know, and me too, I think are in that 1%, right, Like
recognizing and understanding nuances of diet and even playing
around with things. Like, you know, Genesis, like
you're like you do and a lot of biohacker types do and
experimenting with ourselves and you know, optimizing.
And I think it's easy for people who are into that sort of stuff
to feel like, you know, like that is the reality out there in
the in the world, right? Like we and have it our own
little reality and we have our little, our little concentric
circles around us. And a lot of times it's easy to
believe that, like the world that we live in, that you or I
are experiencing on the daily, is like the real world.
And the reality is that it's simply not right.
Like that represents only a small fraction of the people who
are interested in things like regenerative agriculture and
eating a ketogenic diet or taking things like turmeric or
Boswellia. You know where the average
American and you know is, is is drinking Mountain Dew and you
know eating double bacon cheeseburgers from fast food
restaurants and Donuts and you know putting 16 sugars in their
coffee and. And it's so far from what you or
I kind of even consider normal, you know, like the fried Oreos
at the County Fair. I mean, people are eating those
every day and and and that's so, So at a distance from the world
that you or I inhabit, but that sadly really is there is the
real world. And, yeah, increasing, you know,
prevalence of obesity, increasing prevalence of heart
disease, increasing prevalence of diabetes, including when I
was in medical school, diabetes was a type 2 diabetes happened
to people that were 40 and older.
That's what it said in the textbooks.
Now it happens to kids and. And so, yeah, it's a very sad
state of affairs. And then, yeah, absolutely, like
we can go down the list of bullet points of the things that
we're doing wrong that that caused that.
I'm happy to go there with you. Yeah, it was interesting, man.
We were at, I was speaking on a low carb cruise about a month
ago. And it's like a normal cruise
ship, but it's like a Petri dish of the population because you've
got this, you know, very small group of I think 300 people in
the entire cruise ship that were part of this low carb community
that that are in the biohacking space.
Everybody else is not like that. It's like all you can eat buffet
at all times. Everybody's waking up at 1:00 in
the morning and getting ice cream and Donuts and pizza.
Everybody's overweight. Like, it's it's more an oddity
now to see somebody that looks healthy, much less fit, but just
simply healthy. It's it's much more common to
see someone that is classified as morbidly obese walking out of
a grocery store than someone that just seems to look like
they're in some degree of health.
And it's a sad reality. But I think it it's important
for us to, you know, be mindful of that reality.
We can't become trapped in our own echo chamber and assume that
the whole population is living on Cloud 9 and get everything in
check. Absolutely.
Yeah. You're you're right.
And yeah a cruise ship is is absolutely a little microcosm
right of the of of the world and that that little slice is pretty
pretty eye opening if you're not used to seeing what the typical
American looks like. And it's interesting, I was, I
was, I saw something recently which was a book of of the old
style and I'm putting this in quotes freak shows where they
had people with like you know medical abnormalities and
whatnot that would put on display, you know this the the
original circus acts so, so to speak.
And often they would have people that had, that had obesity, you
know, that were on display as like, you know, the £400 man,
that kind of thing. People would pay a ticket and,
you know, pay a nickel and come and come and see people on
display. And it was really interesting
because there was a picture of of the obese man that was on
display at one of these circuses that just to me looked like a
normal person that I see, you know, every day around here.
And it was shocking to me that think back this book was, you
know, this was many, many decades ago.
And it was like, wow, you know, we've come a long way And and
that that's a sad state of affairs that we're in right now,
for sure. And it's sad because like, I
don't, I don't ever want to put myself in this.
You put myself on a pet store. Think of myself as an elitist.
That's certainly not the case. But what's sad is that so many
people in the population are well beyond that £400 mark and
they just simply don't even leave their home.
And people don't even see them in public.
They don't see them going to the grocery store.
They don't see them in daytoday life.
They're just so overweight that they lack the selfconfidence or
physical capability that even leave their home.
And that demographic of people is growing quite rapidly as
well. So we, we most certainly are
living in a problematic time when it comes to general
populations health. So.
So what? What's the cure to this man,
this is like a loaded question that nobody seems to have the
answer to. Yeah, what?
What do we do? It's a very challenging thing
and and and I think again, I'm gonna put 2 buckets out here in
front of us and and and those two buckets are our personal
health, right, the care of the individual.
And then the other bucket is the care of population, something
that, you know, medical researchers call public health,
right. There's private health, the,
the, the care of the individual one-on-one like what I would do
in my clinic or what you might do if you're coaching a client
one-on-one kind of health care. And then there's public health,
which is the taking care of entire populations.
And it turns out that sometimes. What is good for the individual
is not the same as what is good for the population and and vice
versa. So you know, to look at your
question, you know what are we going to do about the all the
problems that come with, you know, the chronic disease type
of problems, the heart disease, the obesity, the diabetes, the
increasing rates of cancer, the autoimmunity.
And I would argue that all of it comes down to 1 central tenant,
right and we can break it up, but that central tenant is that
we are living. Out of sync with our natural
evolutionary biology, right? We are living in a world with
which is full of calories, full of opportunities for inactivity
with a body you know that's just mismatched for that.
And because of that mismatch, depending on where your own
genetic or familial or other vulnerabilities are, you might
start to express symptoms. And so you might start to pack
on weight. You might start to have insulin.
Resistance. You might have cardiovascular
problems, you might have orthopedic problems or
arthritis. Your body's going to degenerate
in some way or another. But I would say the single
common denominator here is that we in many ways not just diet
but also lifestyle and also stress and also movement and
physical activity, are living out of sync with.
The way our bodies are supposed to work.
And so what's the fix? Well, the fix is to get, I
guess, back into sync, right? To get back to to to restore
balance. And there's a bunch of different
areas that we can discuss about how one might go about doing
that. And what's sad to like, you
know, piggyback off of that statement, is that there's this
epigenetic effect that's taking place that is resulting in this
exponential decline in health. Like people's dietary decisions,
lifestyle decisions now impact and they're you know following
generations like the next three or four generations.
Like the people that are born, you know that they're even they
have, they have less of a foundational starting point at
right at the gates. So it's just like this
exponential decline that we're experiencing and I don't know
that people realize that. Like I think people just assume
if they're unhealthy, it's only affecting them.
A lot of people are ignorant to what they're doing is even
unhealth in the 1st place. But to know that it's negatively
affecting downstream from them for the next 3 generations is is
pretty pretty eye opening. It's eye opening and hopefully
if people can help, if we can help people understand that you
know that a baby girl already has eggs in her ovaries that
already carry those genetics and then those epigenetic signals
which will then be passed on to her children.
And so, yeah, absolutely the epigenetics, the conditions.
In in the parents not not just the mom but the dad as well you
know do have influences over their offspring and their
offsprings offspring and you know we've seen this in research
for many, many years. But to taking taking what we
know and turning it into what we do has been a challenge for well
for millennia. It's a it's a thing that humans
have a notoriously difficult time with is turning what we
know into what we do. Totally.
So let's try to turn this, this doom and gloom conversation
around. Just.
Yeah, right. We're getting pretty dark.
Let's lighten it up, yeah? So if you were to be able to,
you know, snap your fingers, flip the script, and have people
live more in line to their evolutionary past, more in line
with what we are structured to do as a species, what would that
look like on the day today for the average individual?
That's a great question. And and and absolutely there is
room for light. There is room for hope and
optimism here. I really, I really do believe
that it's really impossible for me to walk through the world
just feeling doom and gloom like that.
And I really think because I've seen it in my career, people can
turn this around no matter what the problem is.
I've seen remarkable. Improvements across the board
and everybody system and every type of disease.
Things that aren't really even supposed to be able to happen in
Western medicine when people pay attention to these sorts of
things. So the first thing is what we're
doing right now which is just open your eyes to it.
Recognize that the problem exists that we are out of that
you we are out of sync and then identify what is the the first
step that we can take. My my job is to always just meet
a patient where they are right. It's it's impossible to get
somebody to make a dietary change if they're not.
Ready to make a dietary change if they don't want to, if
they're unwilling or in other ways unable.
So I'm always looking to find where can I move the needle the
most, and often it's a dietary change where I might it might be
as simple as having them. Eliminate or decrease the amount
of soda that they drink. You know, let's go from six a
day to two a day. Let's start there.
For some people that's a change, you know.
For others it might be something a lot further down the line
where we're looking to improve the quality of the oils in their
diet and minimizing the highly processed oils that they're
cooking with or eating in fast food and switching that out for
something that has, you know, more antiinflammatory benefits.
So I'm meeting somebody where they are usually starting with
the. Diet or the diet always being a
cornerstone. And for me, the simplest way to
describe the dietary approach that I advocate is what I call
down to earth eating. You know, eating foods that come
from the earth in a minimally processed form.
And that could be from the farm, that could be from the field,
that could be from the fishery. But foods that like are in as
close to the form that they were in when they came up and out of
the earth. And that might look like the the
perimeter of the grocery store for a lot of people.
That's one way to describe it as well.
Yeah, it's interesting for me being the ketogenic space.
You know there is certainly a push towards regenerative
agriculture, eating things that are as wholesome and you know,
nutrient dense and single origin as possible.
And I know the ketogenic diet as of late, you know the past three
or four years has been in the limelight and that from a Google
trend standpoint probably peaked back in 2018, I would say 1819.
But I feel like when you take the wild popularity of it out of
the equation, just simply look at what it is at its core it
seems to make a pretty good degree of common sense like
you're eating wholesome single ingredient nutrient dent sources
that are ideally sustainably sourced in line with the
environmental well-being. And people tend to function
much, much better once you remove the noise from the diet
with all the processed hyper palatable foods.
So from a strict common sense and biological and nutrient
availability standpoint affect the keygenic diet, you got a lot
of things going for it. I totally agree with you there.
You know, and and it's amazing to think and this is another
area where I think we can be very much positive about the way
the human body works is, is the metabolic flexibility that
allows us, you know, our bodies are like hybrid cars.
And it's like it's unbelievable that we can burn glucose as a
fuel, we can burn ketones as a fuel and we have metabolic
flexibility and that's built into the system, that
evolutionary system that I was referring to, you know, there
were times. Back in the day, you know going
back many thousands of years where you know there was only
the kill that the that the tribe had to eat, you know and those
were ketogenic times, no question about it.
Then there were times where the berries you know we're we're
fruiting on the on the bushes around the camp and those were
times where the the diet was a little bit lighter in calories
and probably more carbohydrate heavy.
But that was very shortlived amount of time because berries
don't bloom on bushes for very long and so when we tap in to
nature in that. Way and think about, you know,
our genetic past for most of us as hunter gatherers, even a
little bit of both of those, and then stick with nature as our
guide. It's hard to go wrong there.
Yeah, totally agree. And if you couple that with the
fact that people are just simply much less active now they've
ever been before with the dawn of the Internets, people sitting
in an office all day long developing skeletal miss
misformations in that regard. Like there's just a lot of
things that are out of sync, as you were saying, with what
we've, you know, been genetically raised to do over a
Millennium. So I don't know how to correct
course there than just simply enlightening people in the
insignificance of eating right and moving more because it it
does go beyond that for sure. Like you can go down the rabbit
hole of all these different tangents and nuances.
But just simply eating right and moving more I think would
correct course tremendously. I completely agree with you.
Those are the two main things and you know a lot of people
call them diet and lifestyle. But yes, eating right that
minimally processed, avoiding those hyper palatable foods and
keeping to a nutrient dense, you know, the type of diet really
goes a long way. And then yeah, moving more and
and and really what it comes down to for a lot of people is
just finding that sometimes it's a metaphor, sometimes it's a
story, something that relates to them.
And I think about it this way sometimes.
I've educated a lot of people in this way where if you think
about the the what we. Might call the normal activity
pattern for a human would be that we would be on the move
almost all the time right. Like really constantly active.
If you think of a of a of a person who's out in you know in
a in a more you know and I'm I'm putting this in quotes but in a
more primitive kind of kind of living situation there's like
basically constant activity looking for shelter you know you
know processing food hunting for food.
Humans are supposed to be constantly on the move.
And if you think about a. A wild animal, even something
around your house, like a squirrel for example, and you
took that squirrel and you contained it into a cage, so it
only did like less than 10% of its normal runnings around.
What do you think would happen? You know, any Organism that's
supposed to be constantly moving around that gets put into a cage
and restricted its activity to. To 10% of what it's normally
supposed to do. It's going to get sick and it's
going to die. That's what's going to happen
you know ultimately and that's basically what's happened to us.
We have to move. Movement is imperative and it
you know and and we're just simply not doing it and you and
I are doing it but like we said that the the the public is not
and and and hopefully we can inspire them to move a bit more.
Yeah. And I feel like the the people
are so fixated on weights and it's very easy to move less
maintain weight if you're not eating the right foods.
I mean I said it to an extent a lot of people gain weight in
that context but you can certainly maintain your weight
by not moving as much but the composition of that weight is
going to change drastically. You're going to lose lean tissue
especially as you age. Your metabolism is going to down
regulate your hormone function is going to become out of whack
like everything declines in a in an environment of significantly
reduced movement. And I see this all the time and
and older folks, I'm sure you do as well with your practice, like
people coming in and you know, older, older men, older women
especially, they just simply cannot maintain lean tissue.
And that is becoming, I mean like when you start becoming
psychopenic and you lose lean tissue, like you just lose
honest the joy to live because you can't do the things you love
doing. Absolutely, Yeah.
It's we call it frailty and it's a it's extremely common and it's
extremely dangerous, right. You know the and and it's
shocking for people to learn that.
Humans lose lean muscle mass at a rate of 1% per year, you know,
and that's that's just normal, right?
Like after about age, 35 or 40 or so, that number will just
start to go down and down and down South you need to be.
Actively pursuing, increasing that lean muscle mass, or even
just to maintain stability. And when that number starts to
go down, that lean muscle mass decreases, people get frail, and
then all hell breaks loose. Physiologically, it's all sorts
of problems and it leads to, yeah, absolutely.
Sickness, lack of joy and all sorts of medical problems will
ensue, no question about it 100%.
So from like a classic 82 analysis standpoint, you know,
if people are eating rights, avoiding processed
carbohydrates, sugars moving more, increasing their
resistance in some form or fashion through ideally some
form of progressive overload and that's going to hedge against
that decline over time. What are some, you know, cool
biohacks so to speak, because everybody wants to know the the
the quick fixes. Like what are some things that
people can incorporate that are trying to get to the next level
or just simply find some shorter term success that hopefully gets
them motivated to do the long game approach to putting in the
work. Like what are some things that
people can incorporate and see a pretty significant benefit from
relatively quickly? For sure.
That's it's a great question. I would add one other thing on
there too before I get to the meat of that question, which is,
which is we are exposed to so many toxins, right?
Like there's just so many chemical exposures not just in
our diet, but in, you know, in our personal care product.
In our homes, in our workspaces and things like that.
And I think that's another big driver.
So when we relieve ourselves of those burdens and which is
difficult to do completely, but we try to clean up our homes,
clean up our personal care product routines and minimize
our exposures to toxin. So our liver, our kidneys, all
of our organs of detoxification can sort of maximally function.
That's another way to just like you know move the needle in your
in your favor. And I think that kind of goes
along with, you know, diet and nutrition and physical.
Activity is like, you know, I would add a third pillar there,
which is that trying to minimize toxic exposures to whatever
extent possible goes a long way as well in today's modern,
highly toxic world. I didn't even realize this until
recently. Listen to a podcast maybe in a
Rogan podcast or something, but they're talking about
glyphosate. Now that's on almost all, you
know, monocropped, you know, crops these days, but wheat
specifically, they've been using glyphosate to dry out the wheat
prior to harvesting it. So like with a lot of the crops
they'll they'll spray with life, say preemptively that, you know,
make it resistant to certain pesticides or pests rather.
But then they've been putting it on the wheat directly prior to
harvesting to dry it out So it doesn't become, you know,
mildewy and rotten and whatnot. So like the amount of toxins
that people are getting in their diets just because of the the
process and I don't think people are realizing that.
People aren't realizing that. And it's shocking.
It's absolutely so disturbing that they fit.
You know, it was one thing when you're spraying weed killers on
the soil to discourage the growth of the weeds you don't
want and and then allow the corn or the wheat to crop to come up
through that. But now because farmers figured
out that glyphosate works really well to just dry out the wheat,
that means you can harvest it when the weather's dry.
It never gets rained on. And then you save your crops
from getting moldy and mildew and and this is this, this, this
started maybe 15 years ago I think or so where now the, the
Roundup glyphosate is being sprayed directly on our food.
Right. And that's horrifying.
You know, that's just a horrifying proposition And
you're absolutely right that a lot of people don't know that.
And so you know, to your question, what can people do?
Well, yeah, learn about stuff like that and don't eat
glyphosate ridden, real laden wheat in your diet.
That's that that's that's a huge action step that people can
take. And then there are there are
there are many, many more we can get into it.
What what are some things like I know one of the things that are
really popular right now is this push towards TRTHRT hormone
replacement therapy in those that are kind of cresting that
40 year mark. What what's your take on that?
I know that's that's really where a lot of people's interest
is residing right now. Yeah, absolutely.
Certainly in in your community, in the bodybuilding community,
in the biohacking community, people are looking to optimize
and and listen like there's a place for it, right?
Like there is, you know, I think if people have, we have to, I'd
said earlier, people I like to meet patients where they are
right. And so some people are looking
to maintain their normal health. Some people are looking to
recover their health, which is ailing.
Other people are looking to optimize performance.
And those are all different goals and the treatment plans
that go with those, you know, might look different.
So in in the world of a person who's looking for optimal
performance, whether it is like athletic performance or
maintenance of athletic performance and decreasing
injury prevention or achieving a certain physique for a
bodybuilding competition, etc. Yeah, that's a different set of
goals that a person who's looking to, you know, recover
from their inflammatory bowel disease or treat their
arthritis, right. And so for optimization
purposes, I think that there is absolutely a place for hormone
optimization in, in, in, in both males and females and there's
all sorts of different things, peptides, amino acids is not my
expertise and and genuine bioidentical hormone
replacements that are that are part of that picture for for
optimization. That said, for for people who
aren't looking for elite performance and they're just
looking for genuine good health kind of through the years, in
most cases I don't think it's necessary, right.
Like the body does have a somewhat of a biological clock.
One would expect male testosterone levels to decline
over time. Obviously, female estrogen
progesterone levels decline over time.
There's going to be experiences, physical experiences that are
associated with that, that aren't necessarily disease
states, right? They may.
They're like transitions and I think it's easy for us to to
medicalize transitions. I I use an example a lot of
times that is that's that's like puberty, right?
Puberty is a transition, right? We go from one state of being to
another over this few year period and no one thinks that
it's a medical problem. And yet when when people go
through menopause or when people have a baby, you had that not
too long ago. These are all natural processes
that are just part and parcel of being a human, and we like to
medicalize them. And so I don't think that we
immediately need to jump to home and replacement just because
someone's going through a transition.
But I'm not down on hormone replacement at all.
If a person needs it, or if a person is looking to optimize
their function in a certain way to perform at a certain level
for, you know, for whatever it is that moves them so that
that's where I'm at with it. Yeah, I really like the way you
stated that because I've had many guests on the podcast and
I've, I've asked them that same question.
And you may have just given the best answer because I feel like
there is definitely this demographic of people that looks
at that transitionary period and doesn't want anything to do with
it and tries everything that they can through exodus hormones
to hedge against it. And I totally respect one's
desire to optimize. That's kind of.
What my, you know, Forte is like I I love pursuing human
optimization. But at the same time you have to
realize that you are still in fact a human.
And I think to try to, you know, mitigate these transitionary
periods in their entirety is subhuman to an extent.
And at some point we have to recognize that we are going to
all die. Like that's just reality of
life. And you just need to embrace
each of those phases as they come and not try to.
Hedge against the hedge against him to the point of you know
changing what you are biologically going to to turn
into over time. And I think that is a a
tightrope that we haven't quite figured out because to some
extent this hormone replacement is is kind of Wild West like
anybody can walk into a clinic these days, get a test done and
get prescribed XY or Z hormone. But there's not been a whole lot
of research to the downstream effects of that over ample
period of time. Yes, I totally agree with you.
I think, yeah, I don't think people should be trying to fight
getting older, right. I don't think.
And I think maybe I can sum it up by saying that aging is not a
disease. You know, it's, it's, it's it's
a natural biological process. It's supposed to happen.
You know, it's just it's it's going to happen to all of us
with the inevitable death at the end, whenever that may come.
And I what I think at least from a from a medical perspective and
again this is different from the perspective of elite athletic
performance, those are two very different things.
And actually you know what, I want to even go back for a
second and say that like in the sports medicine world there was
a early in the early parts of my career, I thought that being a
sports medicine doctor, you know working for a professional team
would be would be a great kind of career.
And then I quickly realized that professional doctors for
professional athletes, the goal is not the maintenance of
longterm health, The goal is performance, right.
Get them back out on the field. Even if it means injecting that
joint with steroids, even if it means taping up that ankle and
putting in the Mac out there and that's those are two very
different things. I'm not down on it, but like,
when you tape up that ankle that's not ready to go back and
play, that ankle is going to is going to pay you back later and
it's going to be ugly, and that is just bound to happen.
And so the care of the elite performer at the peak of their
performance career is one thing. And the care of a more typical
kind of general human who's just looking to live a long, healthy,
hopefully productive life and then die quickly at the end is
something very different. And I'm much more interested in
the latter, it turns out. Yeah, no, I'm as well.
I don't think human optimization performance has to be.
Exclusive to longevity, but there is certainly a tipping
point at which you know performing optimally by way of
measuring, you know the the most weight lifted or the leanest you
can get, or you know the the most basketball games played in
the season. Like there.
There's a point which you can push that to the point where
it's not going to be beneficial to overall longterm health and I
feel like. That is not optimal like when
you when you define what optimal is.
I would not define that as optimal.
Like I I think doing the best you can as naturally as you can,
it's most in line with what your species, what you're capable of
as a species in a way that is also conducive to longterm
health and well-being. Is, is the goal, at least for
me. Yeah.
Well, we're cut from the same cloth there, too.
And, you know, and we all love, I think, to watch people who are
outliers, right. The biggest bodybuilders, the
fastest runners, the highest jumpers, the fastest swimmers,
the people who can do these crazy long Iron Man's.
But I think and and those are those are feats of human
performance and they're they're remarkable and miraculous.
And I love to watch it. I love to watch people serve
huge waves and skateboard down huge hills.
But no one's saying that that's like a good idea for the general
population, certainly not me. It's fun to watch and it's like
a, you know, it's amazing to see people push those absolute
limits, but to suggest that that is consistent with, like, long
term optimal health. Absolutely not.
And so again, meet a patient where they are and decide on
goals based on where they are and where they want to go is how
I approach health and medicine. I like it.
I like it a lot. What's your take on a
chiropractic work? Chiropractic work.
So I do a lot of soft tissue and Bony manipulation and I I think
it absolutely has its place. I think that it becomes like
many fields, both Western and alternative medicine, it can
become, people can become very dogmatic about it.
There's many people in that field who think that the right
chiropractic adjustment, you know, can fix anything.
You know, and I've I've heard stories of people being told by
chiropractors that they adjust the right area at the you know,
that they can improve blood sugar control or improve blood
pressure. And you know all sorts of other
things where. And that's an example of I think
a field that has its utility that certainly has its place in
medicine being overdeveloped or overused or over relied upon for
other problems that that are that it's less appropriate for.
So yeah, I think Bony adjustments have their their
role. I think they're they can be very
dramatic and you know and and provide an experience to a
patient that really feels like something kind of dramatic
happened when often the real work is in the soft tissues
surrounding where that Bony adjustment happened.
And so I think it's it's, it's got its place, it's got a
limited scope and and it's certainly a useful therapy in
certain situations. And your Forte is most in the
soft tissue. You said, right.
You know, like I say, I do Bony adjustments.
So when a person comes in to see knee who has musculoskeletal
pain, let's just say pain in their knee, they're gonna get
the whole gamut, right? They're gonna hear that.
I want them to improve their nutrition.
They're gonna hear that. I want them to improve their
mobility, their stretching and their strengthening of the
muscles that act upon the knee. They're going to hear about
herbal and nutritional supports for in, you know, inflammatory
changes and muscle tension and fibrosis in that knee.
They're going to get somebody work, right, handson therapy,
trying to liberate or loosen, you know, trigger points in or
around the area. They might get a Bony
adjustment, you know, in their lumbar spine or in their hip or
their sacroiliac joint. So yeah, as a as a naturopathic
Dr. I'm looking at that person that that that knee, and I'm
looking below it at the foot and seeing what the mechanics of the
foot are. I'm looking above it at the hip
and the spine, and then I'm looking at the human in whom
that knee resides and trying to put a treatment plant together.
That just makes sense for that person and what their goals are.
So yeah, they're gonna get the Full Monty for me, man.
Like and that's that's it's all symbiotic and H you can't like
look at any one acute thing, OK, this is the standalone prom.
You got to fix this one thing and everything else gets better.
I think taking a holistic approach is absolutely the way
to go. I sometimes say to that, like I,
you know, to this day, I've been practicing for close 25 years.
Like I've never seen a knee come into my office.
I've never seen a heart or a lung or a colon come into my
office so far. It's always been inside of a
person, you know. And so that person is who gets
treated, Yeah, that joint, not that body part.
Speaking of knee, knee health, man, I've been doing that.
You're probably familiar with it.
Ben Patrick's ATG program. You probably.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Mr. Knees over Toes, Yeah.
So I've been doing that for the past 13 weeks or so and that's
made it. Yeah, you walking backwards.
You pulling a sled backwards these days?
Yeah, yeah, I'm doing that and I'm just get like a basic, you
know, 15 minute, 20 minute workout, you know, prior to the
actual workout, just doing knee mobility stuff.
And prior to that I never did any type of mobility stretching.
I just that was never my thing and I've never really needed to.
But as of late, man, I'm getting old, I don't know 31 years old.
They I just noticed more knee pain especially like doing
squats and things like that. And I started doing, you know,
that mobility work and that has literally made a dramatic effect
in a relatively short period of time.
It's awesome. Yeah.
He's very popular for a reason.
And I like, I like how he approaches, you know, it's so
contrarian, right. Like the whole knees over toes
thing. Right.
Was just like that was like a directive that we got, you know,
from that was coming down from not unclear sources, just never
knees over toes, don't ever have your knees over toes.
And I love how he just flipped that whole thing on its head and
did you know, some remarkable work on himself and has educated
a lot of people about, you know, bio mechanics and and and how
our bodies are supposed to work. It's it's and here we are again,
right, talking about this mismatch idea, even even think
about it and he talks something about this too.
I know he's a big fan of like barefoot shoe technology,
letting your feet splay out. And again, it goes back to that
mismatch. We walk around all day on hard,
flat surfaces, right? Whether it's the flooring in our
house, the pavement outside and our bodies, including our feet
and our knees, and the whole biomechanical chain are designed
to move around on soft and uneven surfaces.
And so if you walk around on hard flat ground, especially if
you do things like play basketball or lift heavy stuff
on hard flat ground all the time, you're going to pay for
that. That's not the way your body was
designed to work. It's supposed to work on soft
and uneven terrain, like you find out in nature, and if you
do that for a long enough time, you're going to get bit, which
is what happened to him. It's probably what was happening
to your knees as well. So you know, it's good to flip
that script. Yeah.
I don't have any desire to be a country and for the sake of
being a country. But I've come to a point in my
life where I'm almost like anything that I hear from the
top down, I pretty much just do the opposite of and.
And it pays dividends. Yeah.
Yeah, I know. Yes, skepticism is becoming the
new the new trend, isn't it. Yeah, for sure.
With with your expertise in soft tissue mobility, all that, what
what's your take on? It's like I've got the like the
Theragun for instance, that's super popular, the Hyper Volt
and Theragun, like everybody's got one of those it seems.
What's your take on those compression boots that is I
believe are designed to stimulate more blood flow?
I think they just simply constrict and then not really
honestly. Sure.
The mechanics have never used them before, but have you played
around with those much? Yep, played around with those.
And there there is data about those for recovery from injury.
And really what what you're getting there is you're getting
most of the ones. And I think that you're talking
about these big long boots that in many cases go all the way up
to the thigh that put some pressure on the leg, you know,
compressing it completely and then relaxing, compressing and
relaxing. And what's happening there
basically is the stimulation, not just a blood flow and venous
return, but also of lymphatic flow.
So like a little Physiology lesson for everybody out there
is that, like your heart pumps the blood through arteries,
right? And it goes all the way all
through your body, up to your brain, down to your tips of your
toes, and then it comes back. You know, those arteries get
progressively smaller and become capillaries, at which point the
fluid in the blood, the liquid portion, the serum, leaks out of
the capillaries through little windows.
They're called fenestrated capillaries, and then gets taken
back up through the lymphatic channels and the tiny little
venules on net, which are now under very low pressure to bring
that blood and the serum within it back up to your heart.
And it's kind of an amazing thing to think about, right?
Like if there's blood that gets pumped down to your foot and
you're standing up and you're, you know, however tall you are,
that blood in your foot needs to get all the way back up to your
heart. And and draining something
upstream like that is really hard especially when there's no
pressure in the system. And So what happens is your
veins and your lymphatic channels have valves, they're
one way valves and those valves allow the blood and and
lymphatic fluid to go up and then stop at the valve because
the valve only allows the the liquids to go upward and the
force, the pressure is generated by muscle activity.
So that's why they want you to move your feet and move your
legs on an airplane and flex your calves and move your body
around so that those little muscular movements squeeze those
channels, those veins and those lymphatic channels, allowing the
blood to get pushed back upwards towards your heart, going
through the valve, stopping at the valve, then going through
the next one and the next one and so on.
And those compression boots that you're talking about basically
do that externally, right, like school, compress and then relax,
compress and relax and promote both Venus and lymphatic
circulation and that improves recovery.
Interesting because this is totally a selfless question on
my part because I've got several bodybuilding competitions coming
up in the in the in the following months here, and I've
got a lot of traveling for those events.
I've also got like a 50 mile March a week prior to.
My first competition. And as it's true with many
bodybuilders, like if you're traveling, you, you tend to hold
a lot of fluid around your ankles.
You just have some edema if you're traveling for a show.
That's why people typically get to the venue well in advance,
allow their body to kind of stabilize.
You got to make sure electrolytes are in check.
Everything's in equilibrium there.
But I thought about investing in a pair of these compression
boots to just aid in that recovery in the days leading it
to the show, to make sure that I'm not holding the excess fluid
in my lower limbs. Yeah, I would support it.
You know, you could probably do something similar even just with
compression stockings, you know, that's a sort of a lower tech
version of that. And the reason why that sort of
stuff works, by the way, is that those channels are situated
throughout your lower extremities.
And the superficial ones, the ones that are closer to the
surface, tend to be the ones that get compromised more
easily. And the deeper channels that are
deep within the structure of your of your limbs, they
maintain their integrity a little bit better.
And that's why when a person has edema, whether it's for
traveling reasons or otherwise, when you compress the leg even
than just the calf or the foot with a compression sock, that
forces that fluid into those deeper channels which tend to be
that you know, hold their integrity in the the valve.
Other structure stays a little bit more intact and so you can
just push the fluid and deep into the leg and then let those
deeper channels carry it back upwards.
That might work as well. That'll be an interesting thing
to see how that goes for you. I would imagine that's probably
more effective than just simply elevating the leg, right?
Yeah. I mean, it's it's it when when a
person has bad edema for, which can happen for all kinds of
reasons, a combination of, you know, all elevating the legs,
just gravity, right? All that's gonna happen is that
fluid just gonna drip back down, you know, because it'll just be
gravity guided and compression socks definitely level up the
the the, the power of gravity. Absolutely.
Yeah. They're they're really a core
part of treatment plans for people with vascular disorders
that that that yield edema in the lower extremity.
Very interesting. All right.
So that's a little bit of time to get here.
I'd love to kind of just pick your brain as to what it is that
you're most excited about within your field of study or just
outside of your field of study. Like what are you doubling down
on at the moment? What's got you excited?
Well one of the main things I'm really focused on right now is
is in the management of musculoskeletal pain through
herbal and nutritional therapies and and and what I'm the reason
why I'm excited about that is because I've been doing a lot of
this lately. You know I'm I'm the the
cofounder and the medical director of a company called Up
Wellness. We make a whole bunch of
different nutritional supplements and and there's one
in particular that I've, you know, I've, I've, I've been in
this game for a long time now but I made this product called
Golden Revived Plus that's marketing towards people who
have musculoskeletal pain. And I'm just hearing and I've
sold, I don't want to brag here but the hundreds of thousands of
bottles of this stuff over the last bunch of years and and
that's great and I'm grateful for that.
But what I'm seeing and hearing from customers is that they are.
Not getting surgeries that they were scheduled for.
They're avoiding, you know, joint injections.
They are, you know, improving in with conditions that their
orthopedist and their other doctors thought couldn't
improve. And so leaning into, you know,
why is that happening? It's really, it's gratifying to
kind of create, you know, that kind of an effect in a person
and then doubling down on that by providing information and,
you know, and an additional content for people who are in
that situation is really what's got me all riled up right now.
So from a supplemental standpoint, what what is it
that's in that blend that that is the active comp and like how
is that working mechanistically. So I'll break it down for you
and I'll be as quick as I can. I know we're running out of
time, but like, the idea is that when person has musculoskeletal
pain, whether it's a knee, shoulder, hip, wherever their
back or neck, very often they'll be led to believe that whatever
they saw on the MRI, the disc herniation, the meniscus tear.
Especially in chronic cases, the bulging disc is responsible for
their pain. And in many cases, and there's a
lot of research about this, that's just simply not true.
There are other factors, and those main other factors that
lead so many people in the the the pain that they experience.
Our #1 excessive inflammation, #2 muscular tension and #3
fibrosis, which is the accumulation of scar tissue
either on a microscopic or a larger scale.
And those 3 problems, inflammation or excessive
inflammation, muscular tension and fibrosis are are are the
targets. And so how do I address those
targets? I'll give you kind of a quick
list #1 Curcumin high potency Turmeric extract.
I use something called BCM 95 curcumin, which is a really high
potency. Turmeric extract #2, and that's
for the inflammation piece is is buzzwellia which is frankincense
and herbal medicine. The resin from a tree that also
is a powerful anti-inflammatory and has some properties that
allow it to help almost resurface.
I don't want to say resurface cuz that's a little dramatic,
but smooth out some of the pits and cracks in damaged cartilage.
So that's Boswellia. I use bromaline which is an anti
fibrotic. It's a digestive enzyme which
breaks up that scar tissue. It's actually meat tenderizer,
believe it or not. Bromaline is the ingredient that
helps break up that fibrin magnesium because so many people
are deficient in magnesium helping address that muscle
tension. And then a bio flavonoid
compound called quercetin, which is a powerful antioxidant.
And then this black pepper extract called piperine to help
absorb all of those things. And it's that combination, It's
like a secret sauce, man. It's like a secret recipe that's
really, really helping people. And yeah, that's, I'm super
proud of that and I'm really excited in the future to just
sort of lean into that even further.
And this is like a like a powder people put in a shake or just
drink with water. No, it's a capsule actually is
it makes it easier to take. Those things are pretty
especially the buzz. Well you are pretty powerful
tasting. So it's a it's a capsule with
all those extracts inside of it. That's called Golden Revive
Plus. Nice.
Very cool.
Yeah, well, I'll definitely have to link that to that.
What is the website link for that site?
My company's called upwellness and it's upwellness.com.
Upwellness.com And is that also where people need to go to find
out more about you? Absolutely.
Yeah. You can go there and read all
about me and the other products that we've created up.
Wellness. And then I also, I never would
have thought I was going to be doing this in medical school.
But I'm on Instagram, I'm on TikTok.
I even made a Threads account that new, that new platform.
So yeah, just out there in every possible way to try to give
people information about natural approaches to healthcare and
alternatives to the conventional approach.
Hey, I think that's freaking awesome.
And I feel like the traditional Western medicine since they
probably there was definitely a time at which.
They turn their nose up to social media, Like, hey, if
you've got a social media account, you're woo, woo.
But, like, if you peel the curtain back, like you want to
make an impact and you go where people's attention spans are,
and their attention span is on social, on podcast, on these
platforms. Not so much on mainstream
television or NPR anymore. You're absolutely right.
You know, I was actually talking to a doctor friend of mine, too,
who writes articles and blogs and and at a very kind of high
academic sort of level. And it was interesting in the
conversation because I was saying, like, the conversations
are happening on on social. That's where the conversations
are happening. And so we can't, as physicians,
sit up in our ivory tower and and hope that the conversations
come to us. I think we need to go into those
platforms. That's why.
That's why I'm there on Instagram, on TikTok, on
threads, because that's where the conversations are happening
and that's where we need to be if we want to educate the people
that are engaged in those conversations.
So yeah, absolutely. There's nothing woo, woo or
quackery about it. That's that's that's where the
people are. So that's where we have to be.
100% Man Threat Threads is the the new Twitter competition from
Facebook, right? That's right, Yeah, that's
right. Got like 100 million users in
the 1st 24 hours or something ridiculous like that.
Is it pretty user friendly or not so much Oh gosh I've only
put a few things on there and and just sort of tested out the
platform it's you know I'm I'm approaching 50 years old here so
just stand on top of all these social media things is quite a
is quite an effort but yeah I think it's it's it's it seems to
me very Twitter like although I would say that it seems so far
anyway a little bit more positive right.
Twitter is kind of a cesspool and rapidly devolves into
political and all sorts of other kind of conversations and
threads. So far seems to be a little bit
cleaner, a little bit more positive.
So that's encouraging. I'll check that one out.
There's so many of them, man. Like, I'm not really doing the
whole tick tock thing with just so many of them.
But yeah, I guess I'll have to check out threads now too.
Awesome with Dr. Johns. I can't think enough the time.
I certainly appreciate the insight.
Good Sir. I will link out to your social
platforms and the website. Make it easy for people to find
you. And if there's ever anything I
can do for you, by all means just let me know.
Well, I really appreciate that. Thank you for having me today.
You bet. Take care.