Latest / Gladden Longevity Podcast / From Reactive Care to Preventive Longevity - Episode 352

Transcript

From Reactive Care to Preventive Longevity - Episode 352 · Gladden Longevity Podcast

0:00
The problem is the healthcare system doesn't reward financially physicians
0:03
for treating healthy patients.
0:05
Like there are no actual codes in any of the countries or the continent that
0:09
I work in that will pay me as a physician if I treat a healthy patient.
0:13
What are you treating for? What what condition?
0:15
You need to be sick so that I'll be able to make money.
0:19
Hey everyone, I just finished a conversation with Hany Demian.
0:23
And ~ we go down the rabbit hole on the transition from traditional medicine into
0:28
longevity medicine, kind of what it took to get us there.
0:31
And you're gonna learn quite a bit about what we're doing,
0:33
how we're thinking about the integration of AI,
0:35
systems, biology, and then we talk a lot about joy.
0:39
We talk a lot about purpose, and you're gonna find that section of this,
0:44
you'll find all of it inspiring,
0:45
but you'll find that very inspiring.
0:46
It's a really, really nice conversation.
0:48
Hope you enjoy it.
0:49
He went from saving hearts as a cardiologist to rewriting the entire aging playbook.
0:54
Dr. Jeffrey Gladden believes 100 is the new 30,
0:58
and he's got the science to back it up.
1:00
This is the Gladden Longevity Podcast.
1:03
Hi honey,
1:04
welcome to the Gladden Longevity Podcast.
1:06
It's good to see you
1:07
Thanks a lot for having me. I really appreciate it.
1:09
Yeah. So I think you want to talk with us today a little bit about a change
1:15
in point of view that you've had around what healthcare is,
1:18
kind of moving from the reactive to the preventative side.
1:20
Why don't you just give us a little synopsis of ~ you know,
1:23
your transition through medicine?
1:24
I know you started out in surgery and then went into breast surgery,
1:28
cancer surgery. There's a number of things going on here,
1:30
but maybe you can just walk us through that because I think that'll set
1:33
us up for understanding, you know,
1:35
where you are today.
1:36
Been a long journey. So I started in breast cancer and breast surgery
1:41
and ~ reconstruction after cancer removal.
1:44
And all this started honestly when my mom got diagnosed with breast cancer.
1:49
She was diagnosed two years before I finished medical school,
1:52
and I decided I should find a cure for breast cancer.
1:56
So that's why I really get heavy into it,
1:58
dived really hard into it. But at the end I realized that.
2:02
For my mom I couldn't really understand for somebody with no family history,
2:06
no risk factors, nothing, living healthy,
2:09
doesn't even smoke or drink or or do anything outside the usual normal life,
2:15
end up with breast cancer out of all her sisters and mother,
2:19
grandmother, whatever. I couldn't really figure out.
2:21
And I realized that there's something went wrong along the way that nobody could
2:25
discover. I couldn't figure out.
2:27
Then I moved from the US to Canada.
2:30
And they asked me to start all over again.
2:31
So I I couldn't really fathom the whole idea about why healthcare is so reactive.
2:37
I jumped into emergency medicine thinking that I'm gonna make a difference.
2:42
And at the end I realized that it's only transaction.
2:46
You see the patient, you keep them alive,
2:48
like we used to say in the emergency medicine,
2:50
keep them alive till eight five.
2:51
Till you hand over to the next and they keep coming back again.
2:54
No difference has been made. So I decided,
2:57
you know what?
2:58
I'm gonna go for something a little bit more that I can make a difference.
3:01
Went into chronic pain management thinking that I can make a difference
3:04
and help patient with pain, and again realize that chronic pain management
3:08
is limited by resources, by billing codes,
3:11
by patient has got problems, but we actually can prevent it from happening.
3:16
And this will really ignite the whole desire of what if I can prevent people from
3:20
getting chronic pain in the first place?
3:22
What if I can help them don't get chronic condition,
3:26
right?
3:27
we realized at one point that chronic pain is a multi-system organ failure.
3:31
Things have to go really bad for a patient to end up with chronic pain,
3:36
right? Whether it's arthritis,
3:38
whether it's it's a bad habit,
3:40
bad choices they made along the way.
3:42
So then I jumped into longevity,
3:44
anti-aging and regenerative medicine and preventive medicine and really opened
3:49
my eye to the possibilities that what healthcare could be in the future.
3:54
Mm. Yeah. Well that's ~ you know,
3:56
sort of a typical story for us,
3:58
right? I mean, you know, you start out well intended,
4:00
realize the limitations of the system that you've been trained in,
4:03
and then for one reason or another,
4:06
step into an alternative universe of possibilities and then realize,
4:10
my gosh, there's a lot over here that we can actually do that nobody's talking
4:14
about. So what do you ~ how does that translate it for you now?
4:17
What what kind of people are you seeing?
4:19
What are you actually doing? Are you still focused on pain or cancer or
4:23
You're talking about prevention,
4:24
but I don't know, that's a kind of a broad term.
4:26
Maybe you can be a little more specific.
4:28
Yeah, I I'm I'm I'm pushing towards personalized medicine,
4:32
honestly. So what I what I say by personalized medicine,
4:35
what I learned in medical school many years ago was you don't go
4:38
to the doctor unless you are sick.
4:41
And the problem is the healthcare system doesn't reward financially physicians
4:46
for treating healthy patients.
4:47
Like there are no actual codes in any of the countries or the continent that
4:52
I work in that will pay me as a physician if I treat a healthy patient.
4:56
What are you treating for?
4:58
You know what mean? What what condition?
5:00
Like what is the condition that I can bill for?
5:02
Nothing, right? You need to be sick so that I'll be able to make money.
5:08
And that's really restricted by resources,
5:11
billing system, and old habits that's been there for hundreds of years,
5:15
right? But what if I change this narrative to let's look into your biology?
5:21
How much your biology diverted from what it was in your
5:26
In your teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, and whatever,
5:28
right? How can I optimize your biology?
5:30
I need to really be able to see you,
5:33
right? Or understand your biology where it is today,
5:37
and how I can reverse it by changing your habits.
5:41
Four things that we can do: sleep,
5:44
nutrition, and exercise, and supplements,
5:48
right? If I can help you with this,
5:50
make you aware of healthy choices,
5:53
change your habits.
5:54
I can actually prevent heart conditions,
5:56
prevent brain conditions, I can prevent chronic conditions like blood pressure
6:01
and and and diabetes and arthritis and all this.
6:04
Because we are not made to run out.
6:07
We're not made to expire. We're not made really to wear out.
6:11
Your heart and brain and joints are not made to wear out.
6:13
They wear out because of bad choices that we've made along the way,
6:18
right? Whether it's eating sugar,
6:20
chronic inflammation and whatnot.
6:22
So I shifted all my focus and the company focus now to preventive medicine.
6:27
We need to see where the patients are at now,
6:30
where's their biology, and we can optimize it through many ways that
6:35
we developed ourselves, through pathways that we've been testing for years.
6:40
Science has been really generous in the last few years,
6:43
and research has been crazy into regenerative medicine longevity.
6:47
If I can give your body, even if you have a problem,
6:49
if I can give your body
6:51
the ability or the tools to heal,
6:54
that's what we're planning to do.
6:56
It will heal itself.
6:57
Got it. Okay. Well, there is some biology around aging as well,
7:01
right? Cells divide, telomeres get short,
7:03
senescent cell burden picks up,
7:05
hormone levels drop, thyroid drops off.
7:08
I mean, there are some underlying currents of aging,
7:11
you know, the whole hallmarks of aging that kind of spin up together
7:14
and play off each other and and accelerate the aging process as we go.
7:17
So, you know, one of the things that we focus on is actually understanding where
7:22
somebody is and that
7:23
circle, if you will, of the hallmarks of aging,
7:25
the longevity drivers themselves,
7:27
the aging drivers themselves, and then working to construct therapies that
7:31
are also addressing that area of it,
7:33
as well as, you know, the usual more obvious things like,
7:37
you know, your weight, your metabolic disorders,
7:40
heart disease, things like that.
7:41
They're all built on top of each other.
7:43
So we feel like you have to kind of deconstruct across all of those things
7:46
to to figure it out.
7:48
Wouldn't that make you feel that aging should be classified as a condition,
7:52
not just a phase? If you really know if we really know,
7:55
because what what what is a condition?
7:57
If I know diabetes has got signs,
7:59
symptoms, I can diagnose it and I can treat it,
8:02
right? I consider diabetes as a condition.
8:04
If I have hallmarks that I can see for aging,
8:07
if I can test your mitochondria today or ~ test your epigenetics and
8:11
see there is some disruption in it,
8:13
that we can reverse it.
8:15
In my opinion, aging should be classified as a condition could be stopped,
8:20
could be reversed, and could be prevented as well.
8:23
Yeah. No, a h a thousand percent.
8:25
I mean it's the it's the ultimate condition,
8:28
right? It's the ultimate condition upon which all the other conditions really rest
8:33
or ride or float, whatever you want to describe it.
8:35
So yeah, I think it's definitely a condition.
8:37
I mean, as you know, the FTA doesn't classify it as one.
8:40
I think what I've been impressed with is the reductionist thinking that occurs
8:44
in medicine, right? It's very reductionist.
8:46
~ in other words, everybody gets sliced and diced up into a,
8:50
you know, a hundred different parts and now we gotta
8:53
You know, a skin specialist and a heart specialist and a brain specialist
8:56
and an eye specialist, right? So it's very reductionist.
8:58
And then it's also reductionist in terms of the kind of leaning into this very
9:02
Newtonian concept of biology, right?
9:05
Where it's just its pathways and its receptors and its molecules
9:08
and things are fitting together and not not fitting together.
9:11
I mean, it's it's actually so much more than that.
9:13
There's so much going on when you think about the mind-body interaction,
9:17
right? The way the brain, the way the nervous system is interfacing with
9:20
all of this. And then you've got
9:21
you know, quantum energy fields.
9:23
We know that biology is not Newtonian.
9:25
It's actually quantum. You know,
9:26
you see this in many different aspects of human biology as well as,
9:29
you know, plant biology, for example.
9:31
And and it gives you a much broader and deeper appreciation
9:35
of the interconnectedness of all of it.
9:37
One of the things that we're working on over here is developing
9:40
a full-on systems biology approach to the entire human being,
9:43
integrating across multiple areas,
9:46
right? Because we know that all of them are important.
9:48
And if we just focus on one, we're
9:50
you know, we're we're kind of oversimplifying,
9:53
right? And we're trying to move beyond that reductionist thought process where it's
9:56
just, well, it's just this. It's not just this.
9:59
It's this plus, you know, all the other things that feed into it.
10:01
Right. So but it it's it makes the field eternally fascinating,
10:05
quite honestly, because at the same time that it's expanding,
10:08
it's also becoming more refined to where,
10:12
you know, what we're doing here now is actually looking for what we call
10:16
the elegant solution.
10:18
once you actually leverage AI and other pieces that we're putting in place
10:22
to to find out where what you know what what's at the root,
10:25
not only the root cause, not what's the symptom,
10:27
what's the root cause, but what's the root cause of the root cause.
10:29
And then what's actually sits maybe even below that to where we
10:33
can actually start to move things from a a very fundamental foundational level
10:37
and adjust the entire system, right?
10:39
As opposed to treating on the surface.
10:41
I mean, traditional medicine is classic for you got a symptom,
10:44
well we'll throw a sal on that.
10:45
We'll, you know, we'll
10:46
We'll take it out, we'll we'll put it in,
10:49
we'll you know, whatever. That's right.
10:50
But it's it's a very ~ superficial,
10:53
unsophisticated construct of thinking.
10:55
And so what we're trying to do is to move into a more systematic biology,
11:01
systems biology approach. And it's been very rewarding so far.
11:05
So sounds like that's a path that you're kind of leaning into as well.
11:09
We are. We are. We we're trying to ~ to bring the human biology and help
11:14
the body really restore its function as a as a holistic approach,
11:19
right? If we're able to do this and put some standards,
11:24
because right now, as you know,
11:26
the longevity field is ~ just a cowboy field.
11:29
Everybody's jumping in, everybody's is talking about those wanna push peptides,
11:35
those wanna push hormone replacement,
11:36
those wanna push
11:38
some sort of supplement or a new treatment,
11:40
right? What should it be? I think I think serious providers,
11:45
serious healthcare should take this in their hand away from influencers
11:49
and really should be science based.
11:51
What is your mitochondria telling us and what should be done to fix it back?
11:57
And with less is more approach that I really use in my clinics,
12:02
not pounding the patient with the hundreds of supplements and
12:06
expensive treatment, just less is more,
12:08
what could really treat your your or bring your biology back,
12:12
give your body healthy factors.
12:14
And as you know, the body has got everything that it needs.
12:17
It just needs a little push, right?
12:19
To be able to heal itself. Which actually the most inspiring thing that I've seen
12:25
in the last few years that a lot of people are inspired to really wear away from
12:30
the chronic healthcare condition medication,
12:34
pharmaceutical
12:35
They've been treating the patient for a long time and they're really looking
12:37
to heal themselves from within,
12:39
which like you said, you know,
12:41
I mean it goes system by system and a lot of people are seeking that now,
12:44
which is quite impressive to see that this is not becoming a trend.
12:48
I think this is the new wave and I think a lot of people believe in it.
12:52
A lot of people are standing behind it.
12:54
And ~ we couldn't be lucky enough just to live at this time to
12:58
see everybody's just pushing for that.
13:00
Yeah.
13:00
Agree that. It is inspiring. I think people are kind of reverting back
13:04
to something that's intuitively true for them,
13:06
right? And which is a systems approach.
13:08
I also think that it's interesting to see that the thought process that's kind
13:15
of been instilled in us in Western medicine has kind of been picked
13:19
up by the biohacking community and now by the longevity community,
13:22
which is that, there's a problem.
13:24
Well, you should take this.
13:26
Where there's a problem, you should do this.
13:28
And nobody's actually really doing the deconstruction of that individual
13:32
to actually understand what's actually going on for them.
13:35
And that's why you have so many,
13:36
you know, therapies that seemingly don't work,
13:38
not because they're a bad therapy,
13:40
but they were misapplied, right?
13:41
They weren't applied or they weren't applied in the right sequence or with
13:44
the right timing or with the right adjuncts.
13:46
And so just if you're listening to this,
13:48
you have to understand that it's really through deep,
13:50
deep, deep understanding of the individual.
13:53
The deconstruction process is
13:55
actually even more important than the therapeutic process because once
13:59
you deconstruct and you fully understand somebody,
14:02
then you actually know which therapies to choose,
14:04
how to use them, when to use them,
14:05
and what sequence and combination.
14:07
And that's how you get to the where you actually want to go.
14:09
So yeah. Yeah.
14:11
Like I I I tell them in my clinic,
14:13
it's all about patient selection.
14:15
You know what mean? And and it's not only understanding the condition,
14:18
understanding the patient needs,
14:19
right? Because a lot of people don't understand that what will benefit
14:23
you might not really what I'm looking for.
14:25
You know what I mean? You're leading an active life.
14:28
I'm in the clinic and in the office most of the days and I just need
14:31
to get through my day and go to the gym and see my young kids.
14:34
So there's no not even a single individual that age
14:39
the same way, even if we live like almost identical lives.
14:43
Nobody aged the same way. Everybody's got different needs.
14:46
Right. And that's why I I I usually get involved in
14:50
the patient intake significantly.
14:52
I understand what they want, what the needs.
14:54
What's the biggest win to get them into the program,
14:57
to get them to see actual results fast.
15:00
And then after that you build the trust,
15:03
you build the credibility and then we don't push any treatments.
15:06
We don't we don't
15:07
sell or oversell. Patient actually has to qualify for what we're doing
15:11
so that we can get them to the next stage or next level.
15:14
Not if you have the money that you can join and have the membership.
15:18
Not at all. You have to really qualify and we need to understand for
15:22
the first three months what is going on and if you're gonna be committed
15:25
or not to what we're doing. And this is how we work together,
15:28
right? But it really has to be two ways.
15:32
What's really exciting that patients now are partners in their health.
15:37
Right? It's not like I used to see patients all my life and I usually
15:41
do medication review in the first time when I was a surgeon or ER or
15:45
or a pain specialist, I ask, Why are you taking this medication?
15:50
And I can tell you that probably eighty percent of the patient don't even know
15:54
the name of the medication. That I don't know what they were given
15:58
the medication for. Right? And I always tell the patient,
16:01
if I give you a sandwich, you're gonna ask me what is in this sandwich?
16:05
How come when your physician
16:07
give you a medication or tell you to do something,
16:09
you didn't even ask. Right? Why are you taking this?
16:12
So now we see the patient mindset change to actually asking and becoming
16:19
a partner and coming with questions and going on AI and the platform
16:23
and asking why we're doing this.
16:25
I need to understand this. And it's really,
16:27
really an aspiring both ways from healthcare providers and systems
16:32
and from the patient getting really involved and they become more committed.
16:37
You get the buy in and you know that the patient compliance will really
16:41
be significant when they when we both agree on a on a plan.
16:45
Yeah, I th I think that's exactly right.
16:47
I mean, you really want people that are that are bought into the into the process.
16:52
In order f for that to happen though,
16:53
they have to be empowered, right?
16:56
People won't do that if they're disempowered.
16:58
And I think what happened in the old paradigm was they were very disempowered.
17:02
The doctor knows everything, the doctor's gonna give you this,
17:04
you're just supposed to take it,
17:05
you know. And they were very disempowered,
17:07
right? And I think one of the beauties of you know,
17:10
when Google came around twenty years ago or twenty five years ago,
17:13
and then AI has come around now in the last couple of years.
17:15
people are are more empowered to actually understand,
17:18
to question, to criticize, to to want an explanation.
17:22
And I think I think that's actually really,
17:24
really wonderful because now you have people that are empowered and they they they
17:29
want they want the result, right?
17:31
And we want the result for them.
17:32
Well let's work together to get it.
17:34
Right. And so now you to your point,
17:36
you're collaborating and building trust and relationship as you move forward
17:40
as opposed to this very
17:42
~ I don't know, kind of archaic power dynamic,
17:44
right? The doctor's up here in the white coat and you're down there
17:47
and you don't know anything and he's gonna tell you I mean or she so it
17:50
I think it's very refreshing, quite honestly.
17:52
It is. It is. I remember one of my mentors years ago when the patient asked
17:56
a question, he asked, Are you a doctor?
17:57
No, okay. Take the medication and I'll see you in a month.
18:00
Yeah. That was the answer. You know,
18:02
it was just disheartening to see that.
18:04
Right. When the patient asks a question,
18:05
or you have an elderly patient coming with their grandkids that to ask questions,
18:10
understand, you know what I mean?
18:11
And you don't even give give them five minutes to answer now.
18:14
The patient comes with a lot of questions.
18:16
And you know that the treatment will work.
18:19
Those are
18:21
responsibilities, it's a partnership,
18:23
like I said, it's a collaboration and the patient will take the responsibility
18:26
to do what exactly need to be done.
18:28
Yeah, I know it's a great thing.
18:29
So what are the things that that you're kind of leaning into in your clinic?
18:33
Obviously you've added different diagnostic and therapeutic technologies.
18:37
What are what are some of the things that you're focusing on or utilizing
18:41
or systems you're developing? Tell us a little bit about what goes on for you.
18:45
So we adopt that longevity is really about adding ~ life to your years.
18:51
It's not about adding years to your life.
18:53
It's about adding life to your years.
18:57
And doing that, it doesn't need to be tiring.
19:00
It doesn't to be it doesn't need to be overwhelming.
19:02
As I always say, it's not really only for the rich and wealthy and celebrities.
19:07
Most of what you need is actually free.
19:10
You need to get good sleep, nutrition,
19:13
exercise.
19:14
And supplement all this, right?
19:17
We know the whole marks of aging,
19:19
like you said. We know that the epigenetics and the DNA breaks down
19:22
and that could be fixed now. So we're using stem cells for that,
19:26
we're using MSCs for that. And we know that the mitochondria breaks down,
19:31
so we're using various peptides,
19:33
we're using using exosomes for that.
19:35
And we know that a lot of cells accumulate that release some toxins and whatnot.
19:40
And those usually we we
19:43
treat them with therapeutic plasma exchange.
19:45
But we go beyond that through using AI.
19:47
So we're building our own AI right now to monitor patient through their wearable
19:52
247. So the patient comes in, we do genetic testing.
19:56
And again, we do the genetic testing to know if there is any any cancers,
20:01
what's going on and what's the risk for pushing the patient beyond their boundaries,
20:06
right? I need to understand how far I can push.
20:09
And we work with really motivated individuals.
20:12
That being said, I we classify them into two major categories.
20:16
The the optimizers, the people that really involved in their health,
20:21
and they come with a lot of questions,
20:23
like you said, and they come with a lot of research that they've done,
20:26
or seekers. Our seekers are they have a problem.
20:29
They're fed up with with the traditional health care,
20:33
fed up with the cortisona injection in the back or the spine or or
20:37
or the surgery that they needed to do or
20:40
Or we have patients that we work together,
20:42
we work ~ in brain health recently and we're trying a few things and
20:46
we have a protocol for that that really getting close to advanced dementia
20:51
and they wanna reverse that or stabilize or whatnot.
20:54
So we're looking into brain health,
20:56
heart health, and MSK. Through monitoring them twenty-four-seven,
21:00
we we collect this data, we combine it with all the diagnostic that we've done,
21:04
and we look at the patient twenty-four seven,
21:07
right?
21:08
We have we we're developing our metrics now to what's normal,
21:11
what's not. And every patient that we add,
21:13
AI gets a little bit smarter this way.
21:15
And we develop our own pathways and we monitor them.
21:19
And then we get a pattern for what is the health,
21:22
what's normal for this patient.
21:24
Like if they're good to function through like five or six hours of sleep,
21:28
okay. We need to get them back in three months and we test the mitochondria again.
21:32
We need to look into this and see if their sleep pattern was in six six five
21:36
or six hours is enough.
21:37
Or you don't feel enough. If the patient is tired,
21:40
how can we manage this? And we tried things and we manage it in real time,
21:45
right? So if I give the patient melatonin today or I give them a peptide today,
21:49
I can monitor them for the next week and see what is the side effects,
21:52
what is the benefit, and I can in real time change it,
21:57
call the patient, change it, ask the patient to come to the clinic or to
22:01
go to the nearest center that we deal with.
22:04
And have an infusion, have a discussion with an analyst,
22:07
have a discussion with a a nutritionist,
22:09
a naturopath, or they need a longevity doctor to discuss with them what's
22:13
the next step. What's their diet looks like?
22:15
What's the calories intake? What's calories in,
22:18
calories out, steps, all this through AI monitoring.
22:21
I I'm really quite nosy that I couldn't wait long enough to see the patient
22:26
in three months. So we developed this AI so I'd be able to really sneak peek
22:31
on my patient twenty four seven.
22:33
Right. And give them the advice that need to be done right away.
22:38
The patient will get an advice on a daily basis.
22:41
Sometimes if there's something that we're really doesn't fit within this patient,
22:47
say their heart rate is going fast,
22:48
their sleep is really erratic,
22:50
or their oxygen, or if they're having pain and the blood pressure or
22:54
or whatever is not working, right?
22:56
We can intervene right away. And this is really a win that we're looking forward
23:00
to launch very shortly.
23:02
Right. It will be a phase one for us.
23:04
It will be it will be the phase two for the patient.
23:07
And think about it like this. I always tell my staff,
23:09
think about it like Jarvis and Iron Man,
23:11
right? And I want to wake up and say,
23:13
Okay, how's this patient doing today?
23:15
And I get a full report right away in front of me.
23:17
This patient didn't sleep well,
23:19
this patient didn't eat well, this patient was stressed yesterday,
23:22
he had meetings, he Yeah, you know what I mean?
23:24
We'll send them advice in real time what to do and what not to do.
23:28
Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, that's perfect.
23:30
I think one of the things that we learned from continuous glucose monitors
23:34
was that there's no better feedback than real time feedback,
23:36
right? Yep. So the idea of having to wait in between visits.
23:40
Yeah, using the wearable data.
23:42
Yeah. We're big fans of this as well.
23:44
So
23:45
But but imagine imagine in in a year from now I will have three hundred
23:50
and sixty five days worth of data,
23:52
right? I will not I I'll know this patient health better than anybody else,
23:57
better than the regular physician,
23:59
specialist, better than the patient himself,
24:01
right? And we'll understand what's going on.
24:04
So we're hoping with AI to predict if the patient continues as on this pattern what
24:11
his or her health will be five years from now,
24:14
ten years from now.
24:15
Fifteen years from now. You know what I mean?
24:17
I will be able to show this to the patient right away.
24:19
If you continue on this path, you will end up with a heart attack.
24:25
Right? If you're not following those instructions,
24:28
twenty years from now, I think you'll need a hip replacement,
24:30
knee replacement, or spine surgery.
24:32
Or if you don't s slow down on smoking or drinking,
24:35
your liver is gonna have a problem.
24:37
You you're gonna end up aging faster than you should be,
24:40
and so forth, right? So with this data,
24:43
we're able now with the AI.
24:45
to lit literally analyse this data and predict years ahead where this patient health
24:50
is going.
24:51
I think that's right. It's powerful when people can see that in a visual.
24:55
We're working on a very similar thing here that's integrated into our
24:58
EMR and has the ability to to do that as well,
25:01
right? All HIPAA compliant. I think that's it's really powerful.
25:05
I think, you know, one of the other things that we really focus on here
25:08
is realizing that it's the nervous system that controls everything,
25:11
right? Because people age so much more quickly when they're stressed all the time,
25:15
when they have unresolved traumas,
25:17
when they're
25:18
you know, living in reaction to things around them when they don't have
25:21
a sense of equanimity or transcendence or peace,
25:24
right? Relationships aren't good.
25:26
You know, a lot of self-talk that,
25:28
you know, takes people down negative highways and pathways.
25:31
And so we're we spend time also really working on what I would call
25:35
the psycho-spiritual space because we think that that really encapsulates
25:41
all of the health pieces. And so you know,
25:43
the book I wrote, A hundred is a new thirty,
25:45
one of the
25:46
Targets for us is that when we're a hundred is we want to have a thirty year
25:49
old body, maintain the thirty year old body,
25:51
but we want to have a three hundred or three thousand year old mind,
25:53
right? With all the wisdom, transcendence,
25:56
insight, perspective, right? Because then what we've seen is that you
25:59
you take so much pressure off of the hallmarks of aging,
26:03
so much pressure off the biology when the nervous system is really dialed
26:08
in and people can live from that place.
26:10
So we feel like this is also super important and people are also intrigued
26:14
by that as well. So
26:16
It is. It's been neglected for a long time.
26:18
And it is now we can measure the oxidative stress.
26:22
What's the negative effect on the mitochondria?
26:25
What's the negative effect on the chron low grade inflammation that cause
26:29
a lot of chronic conditions? So you're absolutely right.
26:31
It's actually now I was reading over the weekend research into inflammation
26:37
and how oxidative stress like significantly affect inflammation and
26:42
and then just that the whole system
26:45
get disrupted just by stress. You know what I mean?
26:48
And we all heard it years ago from our grandparents,
26:52
you know what I mean? Don't stress or you're gonna kill yourself.
26:54
Don't stress or you're gonna die.
26:56
Don't stress or you're gonna get a heart attack.
26:58
And we we brushed it off, right?
27:00
Now the science confirms that.
27:01
It's actually confirmed that all this will affect you and will kill you
27:05
at one point if you don't stop.
27:07
Yeah, that's right. And it's not just your health,
27:08
it's actually the aging process itself that is literally slowed down when when we,
27:14
you know, de stress the system,
27:15
so to speak. Which is really exciting to see because it's a big leverage.
27:19
So what do you do for that now?
27:21
Do you do do you do ~ vagin maneuvers?
27:23
Wha what's the brain do now in oxidative stress and minimize?
27:27
The idea I mean oxidative stress is multifactorial.
27:30
As you know, oxidative stress is the common denominator around inflammation.
27:35
Right. So the reason inflammation is bad is because it causes oxidative stress.
27:39
So then you look at all the different genetics around how people are able
27:42
to manage or not manage it, and then you actually help them in that regard.
27:46
Then you actually try to decrease the oxidative stress that's being generated.
27:50
And part of that is of course looking at the psychological stress that's going on.
27:54
And so that has a big impact also on brain function,
27:57
memory and cognition and movement and balance and all these other things,
28:00
right? So we tend to focus on training the nervous system.
28:04
Like the whole thing comes down to training the nervous system,
28:07
quite honestly, how you move, how you think,
28:09
what you believe. And so in that,
28:12
one of the common denominators,
28:13
of course, is the balance between parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system.
28:17
When somebody's in more of a zen state,
28:19
we know that their their whole system is more relaxed,
28:22
right? And so we teach people how to access a parasympathetic nervous system state,
28:27
whether it's through meditation or using different devices that can put them into
28:31
a theta state.
28:32
You know, a deep meditative theta state or alpha state.
28:34
We teach them how to live life from a flow state as opposed to a stress state.
28:38
The idea is not to meditate for 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes
28:42
in the evening and then stress about your day.
28:44
It's actually to go through life in a state of flow where,
28:47
you know, you you understand that everything is working in your favor.
28:51
You know, I think most stress comes from people being attached to an outcome.
28:54
Once you get attached to an outcome and it's not happening exactly
28:58
the way you wanted it to, now you're stressed,
29:00
right? But if you if you let go of
29:02
If you set the same intention,
29:03
but you don't attach yourself to the outcome,
29:05
now you kind of open up your system for,
29:08
you know, God, the universe, life itself to bring in other solutions,
29:12
other things you didn't know that were gonna happen,
29:14
that actually ended up making it better,
29:16
that that shifted you ten or fifteen degrees away from where you thought
29:20
you were gonna end up, but it's actually better.
29:22
There's a sense of kind of living in partnering with life rather than trying
29:25
to overpower life, right? We spend a lot of time
29:28
Trying to overpower life by being attached to an outcome and blosh.
29:31
We're gonna work hard and we're gonna we're gonna struggle.
29:34
We're gonna make it happen. And we we generate so much stress and what really closes
29:38
us off to the gift that life has to bring us every single day,
29:41
simply by being in a state of equanimity and peace,
29:45
right? And so we teach people this and we've had people make,
29:48
you know, dramatic changes, right?
29:50
A lot of us probably like people coming stressed.
29:52
Yeah. So that's that's a big piece of it,
29:54
yeah.
29:54
Yeah, that that's a that's incredible.
29:56
That's really incredible. And you do that through books or sessions?
30:00
We do it however they connect,
30:01
right? So sometimes it's in conversation,
30:03
talking with a therapist, sometimes it's ~ using devices that can put people into
30:08
a meditative state, as I said,
30:09
theta, you know, delta for sleep,
30:11
alpha, gamma for flow. We've even had some people,
30:14
you know, do some deep healing with psychedelic assisted therapies.
30:17
We don't do that ourselves, but we can refer people for that.
30:20
You know, there's a lot of people suffering with trauma,
30:23
right? And getting the trauma healed and then ~ being able to transcend it.
30:27
To where you become grateful for everything that happened as opposed
30:31
to living in reaction to it. my gosh,
30:33
takes so much stress out of out of your life.
30:35
So it's super cool. Yeah.
30:38
It is, it is. Yeah.
30:40
So
30:40
that's a piece of it too. I think one of the other things I'll just mention
30:43
for the audience too is the idea of forgiveness,
30:45
right? We we can carry a lot of stress by not having either forgiven ourselves
30:51
or other people in our lives. And,
30:52
you know, right now, honey, you and I have unconditional positive regard
30:56
for each other, right? So that's fine.
30:58
But if something were to violate trust between us,
31:00
then what would happen is we would raise this sort of psychic barrier.
31:03
We would actually pull it up. It's an energetic
31:06
almost feel like a feel to protect ourselves from the other person,
31:09
right? And we no longer allow unconditional positive regard to flow between us.
31:14
And that hap that can happen in the moment,
31:17
but it can also happen historic historically.
31:19
It's something you can you can hold that up,
31:21
you know, vis-a-vis your brother,
31:22
your mother, your teacher, a bully at school,
31:25
you know, whatever happened, a coach or whatever.
31:27
And your your psyche is being forced to hold up that that barrier,
31:32
right? And it's it's a psychic strain.
31:34
And forgiveness
31:35
I've come to understand is when you decide after you've deeply understood
31:39
the situation, what did I do? What did they do?
31:41
What happened? Who were they? Blah,
31:43
blah, blah. And you get to a point where it's like,
31:45
okay, I get it now. You know, coach,
31:47
whatever's ~ you he you know, he grew up in some family that,
31:50
you know, he was and he was just doing what he thought was the right thing,
31:53
and I happened to get the brunt of it.
31:55
Okay, I get that. So but forgiveness is when you take that barrier down.
32:00
Like if you're thinking, if you're listening to this,
32:01
you're thinking about somebody that you have some conflict with.
32:04
It could be an ex, it could be a w whatever.
32:06
And all of a sudden, you're gonna just take that barrier down and say,
32:10
I'm just gonna let unconditional positive regard flow from me to that person
32:14
and back. It's maybe I'm not gonna call them up for lunch,
32:16
but if there's any positive regard,
32:18
I'm gonna let it flow. I'm not gonna put any barrier there.
32:21
You can just feel how much more peace there is in your system,
32:23
right? It's just yeah, yeah, it just takes all that energy away from.
32:27
be diverted into something that's not helping you.
32:30
So it's it's really quite beautiful.
32:32
People make massive breakthrough here.
32:34
you know, people break down, some of them end up in tears for the first time.
32:38
They feel like, my gosh, I'm getting I I'm actually able to love myself,
32:41
right? I didn't think I was worthy of that.
32:43
There's so much of this going on.
32:45
We love it because it's just has such a massive impact on their ability
32:50
to respond to regenerative therapies.
32:52
There's data now that shows that when people are in a parasympathetic nervous system
32:56
state,
32:56
they will respond and heal much faster from a regenerative procedure than
33:00
if they're stressed. And so we know that this is really a root cause
33:04
of the root cause of the root cause,
33:05
right? So it's like this is really who we are.
33:08
That's really nice. That's that's a perspective that I hope a lot
33:12
of providers can share and not just,
33:15
you know what I mean, focus on supplementation or or or the clinical side,
33:19
but yeah, but the psychological side is really strong.
33:22
Yeah, yeah, we think so too. We think so too.
33:25
Yeah, it's a it's a piece that we're integrating into our systems biology because
33:28
it all it's all part of it. Right.
33:29
Well it sounds like it sounds like you've made a lot of progress in your
33:33
in your field. It also sounds like that you're very happy doing what
33:36
you are now relative to what you were doing before.
33:38
I can tell you're excited. You you're it is
33:41
It's a
33:42
passion project. And I was telling somebody ~ earlier this morning that
33:47
a few years back I really was thinking,
33:49
Okay, I'm I'm I'm doing good, I'm successful,
33:51
I'm doing chronic pain, I own my own practice,
33:53
I own few practices, you know what I mean?
33:55
But I really need to do more. I need to find a purpose.
33:58
Right. And my purpose was really and I I I had to think about it a lot.
34:03
And it took me quite a bit of time until I figured out I really need
34:07
to make a difference. Right. Yeah.
34:09
And
34:10
I really came to the regenerative medicine longevity anti-aging and I think
34:15
I can make a huge difference. You know what I mean?
34:17
Little tweaks, little changes,
34:19
helping people to make the right decision,
34:21
right? It will make a huge difference.
34:24
And instead of just being reactive,
34:27
why can we be proactive? Right?
34:30
And I I hope really people will be will will will really get aspired
34:34
and that like adopt that.
34:35
Mm-hmm. I think it's a wonderful thing that you're talking about.
34:38
If you're listening to this, Hany,
34:40
myself for that matter, you know,
34:42
we were physicians that were trained,
34:43
well trained to do certain things,
34:45
right? And when we decided to leave those fields,
34:48
it took a big act of courage, right?
34:50
It does. A big act of courage,
34:53
right? And I think all of life is built on courage.
34:55
So many decisions are made by people for safety.
34:59
I'm gonna do this because it's gonna it's gonna create a sense of safety for me or
35:04
That kind of thing, right? Whether it's career decisions,
35:06
marriage decisions, whatever. And yet I think all growth really comes from courage.
35:11
And so when you when you think about that,
35:13
and maybe you're at some point in your life,
35:16
maybe you're a a practitioner listening to this,
35:18
maybe you're ~ a client listening to it,
35:20
but you're in a job that you don't really love.
35:22
What he's talking about is transitioning away from doing something he
35:27
was good at and well and trained in into something he was passionate about
35:30
and found purpose in. And I think that
35:33
Is really critical as well. Because when you're living from a sense
35:36
of purpose and not just to make money or feed your family or that sort of thing.
35:40
And I sort of of course, you know,
35:41
if you're if you're living at a level where that's all that really matters,
35:45
then go for that. But if you have the luxury of actually thinking about,
35:48
I could do something that would matter,
35:50
I could do something that would actually help more people,
35:53
that would not only help them,
35:55
but
35:56
it would help me in terms of helping them,
35:58
right? I would feel better about myself and everything else.
36:00
Then when you take those courageous decisions and you move away from your livelihood
36:05
into your purpose and your passion,
36:07
it's very life giving. It's very life giving.
36:10
Yeah.
36:11
It
36:11
is. And I was asked this question before.
36:13
There's a huge difference between success and fulfillment.
36:17
Right? Success
36:18
totally.
36:19
we can we can measure success by all right,
36:21
what's your bank account? How many clinics?
36:23
What what what's what's your net worth and whatnot,
36:25
you know what I mean? But it's very easy to measure,
36:29
but is it fulfilling?
36:31
Yeah, it's yeah, I don't think that's the measure of success,
36:33
quite honestly. I think I think it's a it's and one metric that people use,
36:38
but it's like yeah saying how healthy are you by you know,
36:41
what's foot what's shoe size do you have?
36:43
It's like, Well, I guess, but that's not that relevant,
36:45
you know.
36:46
Yeah, being fulfilled is totally different.
36:48
It's it's when you're actually doing something good that will align with your
36:53
ideology, with that's right. With really with your your your mindset,
36:57
right? And really doing that and helping others,
37:01
this is when you really feel fulfilled.
37:02
And you you feel it honestly in in all walks of life that I've met,
37:07
everybody that I met, conference,
37:09
CEOs, whatever, just giving back is the single most fulfilling thing.
37:16
That you will ever do in your life.
37:17
Just giving back. You know what I mean?
37:19
And you you you can see it. You you can see it on social media,
37:22
you can see it. People will would see how much fulfilling it was to give
37:26
a stranger something back. That's right.
37:29
You know what mean? It's it's it's great.
37:31
And looking at that, it just it just I said,
37:34
okay, I think I think I lived ~ a good part of my life being successful,
37:38
but really didn't feel fulfilled.
37:40
Now it's time to feel fulfilled.
37:42
That's right. Right. Just by giving back,
37:44
helping, inspiring.
37:46
Right. It just it just it feels different and it's much more a bigger life than what
37:52
you lead just being trying to be successful or like you said,
37:55
measuring l your life one way or another.
37:57
~ through success metrics.
38:00
Yeah, I agree with that.
38:01
Completely. I think, you know,
38:02
if you're listening to this, one of the questions that I've learned to
38:06
ask myself to help me identify purpose and things like that.
38:10
If you're sitting there thinking,
38:11
you know, I'm doing this, but I don't really like it that much,
38:13
one thing you can ask yourself is what it what is it that I could
38:16
do that would bring me and others the most joy?
38:19
Right? What would bring me and others the most joy?
38:22
And if and then if you have the courage to say,
38:25
okay, there it is. I'm gonna go do that.
38:27
I'm gonna, you know, buy lunch for a stranger or I'm gonna build
38:31
a a a village for a people or you know whatever it is,
38:34
but what would bring me the most joy and what would wake me up that I could
38:38
go to work and experience the most joy and then see other people around
38:42
me experience joy. I think for me that's been a very centering kind of question.
38:47
~ maybe other people would find that helpful too.
38:49
I don't know.
38:50
It is. It is. And I get the privilege of mentoring a lot of young entrepreneurs,
38:56
right? And they like the business idea.
38:58
They like what they're doing. You know what I mean?
39:00
But they don't love it. And it's not really fulfilling.
39:02
But they found themselves in this opportunity.
39:05
So I tell them this, you know what I mean,
39:07
for the next week or two weeks,
39:09
do a small thing for a stranger every day.
39:12
You know what I mean? The guy who opens the door for you or or the cleaner
39:17
in the clinic or whatever. And just give them
39:19
A coffee card, right? I'll be in a I'll be in a coffee shop in the morning and say,
39:23
you know what? This is this is yours,
39:26
this this sandwich, this coffee or whatever.
39:28
I'll be at the airport and I'll buy a Starbucks coffee card and I'll give
39:33
it to the first guy that I meet today at Customs,
39:36
at at the at the border, whatever.
39:38
And then after a week tell me if that's not fulfilling what will be in your life.
39:43
And honestly, nine out of the ten,
39:46
do you come back and feel happy and said.
39:48
I think I'm on track to find something fulfilling to do.
39:54
Yeah, no, I think that's right.
39:55
It's really in you know, it's in helping others that we find joy ultimately,
39:59
right? Whether it's raising kids or taking care of a spouse or,
40:03
you know, a family or a practice or or other people we don't know.
40:06
Yeah, that's really beautiful.
40:07
It is. And honestly, for anybody listening,
40:10
you know what I mean? If if you haven't figured out what makes you happy,
40:14
if you haven't figured out what fulfills you,
40:16
just do this simple exercise. Every day do something small to a stranger,
40:21
right? Whether at the grocery store,
40:23
whether you're traveling at the airport,
40:24
at work, something that you absolutely don't know.
40:27
You know what I mean? And sometimes just at Starbucks,
40:30
I buy a few really small gift cards from Starbucks or whatever,
40:34
right? And I said, Okay, I'm gonna give those three.
40:37
to the first three that I'm gonna meet today.
40:39
Starbucks gift cards, right? It just so fulfilling and it helped me a
40:44
lot along my career to feel good about myself,
40:47
to understand myself more and what makes me happy.
40:51
Yeah, I love that. I love that,
40:53
honey. Well, it's been a pleasure chatting with you.
40:55
Where can people find you? How do people learn more about what you're doing?
40:58
It's been really a pleasure and I really enjoyed our conversation.
41:01
But I'm always on social media:
41:03
Instagram, Dr. Hany Damien, Facebook,
41:06
Dr. Hany Damien, LinkedIn. You can get me on my website,
41:09
drdamien.com. Keep in mind that drdamien drm I ~ n dot com.
41:16
And if you have any questions,
41:17
if anybody listening has questions,
41:19
but be prepared that I'm gonna answer questions back.
41:22
I will drill deep into habits,
41:25
into stress, into longevity.
41:28
And if anybody of the listeners would like to join this journey
41:32
and feel that they're disciplined,
41:35
they're committed to the to the goal,
41:37
I'd be very happy to ~ help in any any which way.
41:41
Sure, appreciate that. Okay. Well thanks again.
41:44
Thanks a lot. Thank you. How do we live young for a lifetime?
41:47
How do we make 100 the new 30?
41:50
The answers are out there, and we're bringing them to you every episode.
41:54
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42:02
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