Latest / Senior Pet Talk | for dogs + cats / 22. 7 Reasons I'm Wary of "Longevity Medicine" and What to Ask Instead

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22. 7 Reasons I'm Wary of "Longevity Medicine" and What to Ask Instead · Senior Pet Talk | for dogs + cats

• Amanda Steffen: You are listening to Senior Pet Talk, the show where we combine Western and Chinese medicine to give senior dog and cat parents the knowledge, the clarity, and the confidence to make sure that your pets' senior years are their best years yet. I'm Dr. Amanda Stefan. Let's get started. If someone said that they could scan your 11 year old pet, they could hand you a biological age, and that they could slow aging down in your pet, would you buy from them? Absolutely. I know that most people would. I would have for my senior dog Floyd. I would for the dogs that I have now. But here's the problem I have with that. To me, it seems like we're trying so hard to focus on the wrong thing. And there Is nothing proven that's going to do that at this point, right? There is this big new trigger word used in human medicine, and I'm seeing it trend over to veterinary medicine, and it's using longevity medicine, talking about can we make our pets live longer using different modalities? And I want to talk about seven reasons that I am a little bit weary of this term. Especially being used in veterinary medicine, and six things you can ask instead of anyone who may be using this terminology. Or if you want to help your pet live longer, there are six things that you can ask to get a better idea than just longevity medicine. Okay? Hello, welcome back to Senior Pet Talk. I am Dr. Amanda Stefan, and we are going to be talking today about longevity medicine. I am an integrative veterinarian. So I practice Western medicine and I practice Eastern medicine, mix those two things together and try to give pets a personalized plan for them to help them live their best life. I decided a few years ago to start bringing that onto social media and helping people over the world. So that is what I've been doing. And now we have this wonderful podcast where I can give you longer form content. So if you are not already a subscriber, Please subscribe so that you don't miss out on a single podcast. Whether you believe in Chinese medicine, whether you believe in Western medicine, I'm gonna give you a little bit of everything. And the best thing about it is I am not going to be biased in one way or another about these two things because I love both of them. I love science. I love medicine. I love all the things that go along with it. So we're gonna talk about it all. And today, specifically, we're gonna talk about seven reasons that I want you to be careful. About anyone using the word longevity medicine in what they're doing, and six questions that you can ask instead to really get to the bottom of what's going to be helping your pet. So if you do not know, longevity medicine is this new trend, especially in human medicine, where we may be talking about proactive testing, different types of testing, specific types of supplementation, and anything that's going to help us live longer. And we are seeing that trend over into our animals and people claiming to practice longevity, ventinating medicine. I'm not saying that is right or wrong. I'm just telling you my opinion on it and the things that I want you to be aware of if you do decide to pursue someone who is doing longevity based medicine. Reason number one that I get a little bit triggered by the wording of longevity medicine is This is talking about a longer life. What we are not focusing on when we talk about a longer life is a good life. Okay. So to me, it is very important that we focus on something called health span instead of life span. Health span is the amount of time that our pet is healthy and vibrant and happy and living a good quality of life. lifespan on the other hand is just how long they live. So the idea here is not to prolong our pets, you know, suffering with cancers that are causing them pain or suffering with severe osteoarthritis or dementia. It doesn't help if they live an extra two years, but they're wandering around the house every 15 minutes like my dog used to, or, you know, peeing and pooping all over themselves or If they are in severe debilitating pain, longer time like that is not something that I would consider a good quality of life. The wonderful thing about our pets is I believe they don't worry about the length of their life. They just think about today and how that day is going for them. And personally, I believe that our we're all a vibration and our body is. in this life right now, but our vibrations don't just disappear when we when we pass away from this body in this life. So I do think that there is some sort of something that changes in our vibrations as we pass on. But I don't see death as this in all be all thing. I think that there is something beyond that, whether you believe in Christianity and or like any types of gods or things like that, or whether you just believe in like an afterlife or an ether or whatever it may be, I do think that there's something next for all of us. And I think that media and our our brains have done this thing where we are scaring ourselves into trying to live a longer life. And I know for me personally, I want to live as long as I can that I'm healthy. But if I am not aware who who I am, if I have severe dementia, if I am suffering, I don't want to live a longer life if if it's not a good life. And I think that our pets are the same way. The second reason that I get a little triggered by this wording is there is no standard definition for what a longevity practitioner is. Okay. So This could be someone who only practices Western medicine. And I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but typically when we think longevity medicine, we're thinking more testing that we normally wouldn't get, or we're thinking more like supplementation or like, you know, ozone therapy and stem cell therapy and all these different things. But that's just what we've made up in our mind. It's not, there's no actual definition for it in a medical capacity. So we can Have someone who only does Western medicine and just gives medications and, you know, only practices that way. And they can call themselves a longevity veterinarian. They can also call themselves a holistic practitioner. That's a whole nother conversation, but holistic doesn't have any definition to it either. So having someone who says they're a longevity veterinarian doesn't always mean that they practice a different type of medicine because there's no standard definition on that, right? Or this could be someone who is only practicing Chinese medicine or any other type of alternative medicine where they are trying to focus on selling specific like bundles, packages, biomarkers, things like that and supplementation. And the question with that is, do these things have any information behind them to actually be efficacious in especially pets and the pet that we are treating at this time, right? So think it's really important to understand that there's no actual definition for this. And anyone who uses this wording is just kind of using a trigger word. And I I am concerned about that a little bit. Reason number three is the marketing is way ahead of a lot of the evidence, right? So we may have studies that come out about specific supplements or things like that. And these studies Will get twisted into a way where they say, ⁓ well, this drug showed improvement or this supplement showed improvement. Well, the question I want to know on the other side of that is how we actually looked at the studies. Were they controlled studies? Were they blinded studies? Did the studies look over 30 days? Did they look over 90 days? Did they look over a year? And what was the real information about that? Because if something showed improvement, that can mean a lot of things. There are certain studies where We may see improvement at the three month mark using this supplement, but we don't see any change at the six-month mark with this supplement. And that, you know, for things like dementia may actually be okay if there's no worsening at the six-month mark. That's actually a good signal for us. But if we're dealing with something like an arthritis medication or an arthritis supplement, and we say, ⁓ well, the placebo group or the controlled group show no change at six months compared to the the group that got the actual medication or the supplement, then is spending, you know, a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars on that supplement worth it if in six months they're in the same exact place as a patient who did not get that that medication or that supplement. So I think it's really important for us to not get so caught up in these little snippets of things and to be able to look at the overall, the overall studies. And That is not fair as pet parents to ask you to do that. I understand that. Unfortunately, we just live in a world where sometimes people fib the truth a little bit. And I always think that people are doing the best that they can with the information that they have and they're not trying to do wrong by anyone. But I do know that I have seen people do some interesting things to care for themselves and to care for their families. And sometimes people are. going to lengthen the truth a little bit in order to make sure that they are taking care of what they need to take care of. And I can't fault people for that. However, it is going to be our responsibility still to be able to look deeper into this information and make sure that we're doing things that that we're we're offering things and that we're reading up on studies to know what's going on behind that study and behind what maybe the trigger words being put on something are. I know there's this AI generated Instagram platform that I've been targeted by recently on my feed. And every time I see their information, it triggers me a little bit because they are taking studies and they are saying, neuroscientists said XYZ, you won't believe what this study said about, you know, dogs, and nobody will tell you anytime you see things that That say things like that, it's probably not true, or it's probably one of those like, I took a kernel of the truth and I'm I'm extending it. Because I've looked into the studies that this AI generated platform has. And typically it's that they they found a little kernel of something inside of a study and they're pulling that out and extracting it and hyper focusing on it. And they're making it out to be something that it's not, right? I'm gonna interrupt this a little bit to say that if you hear some background noise, my daughter is home today and she is watching me do my podcast. And I'm gonna be honest, part of my goal on this earth is to take the best care of them that I can. So if she is going to make a couple noises while she's watching me do something that I love to do and she is getting to witness that, then that's okay. And that's just part of being a mom, if you know. That's just part of life and trying to make a wonderful next generation. So you may hear some extra noises. Reason number four, there is currently no FDA-approved drug or supplement that has been proven to extend lifespan of our pets. There are a couple of medications that are in trials right now and they are exciting, but I Have seen, unfortunately, some people and some veterinarians even who are starting to prescribe these things without having the trials behind them and having the knowns behind them. And I do just want to tell people to be weary of that. I know at this point, you know, we're gonna do anything we can to keep our pets living longer, healthier lives. And it's not fair. that there may be something that can help your pet in two years and they may not get to experience that because it's not at this time frame of life. I am a firm believer that life is set up the exact way it's supposed to be and we're not supposed to play butterfly effect. I would have loved for a lot of the options that I have now to have been available when I had Floyd. If I could go back and be able to give him a lot of these things that we have available now to be able to give him Chinese medicine options and to be able to help him in that way, I would love to be able to do that. But it was not the time where I was able to do that for him. And I, you know, in some way have to be okay with that and know that things were set out the way they were supposed to be. So That being said, I have had people ask me already, would you prescribe rapamycin for my dog? Rapomycin, if you guys don't know, there are quite a few drugs that are in trials to help longevity of life for dogs. One of those is by an institution called the Dog Aging Project. This is a multi-year thing that they have been doing at different facilities where they are testing specifically rapamycin, which is a drug on seeing if it can help lengthen lifespan in pets. That drug is still in trials. There are no proven effects for it yet. The trials are looking promising, but just like anything, we want to be very aware of what the side effects are for that. And we don't know that without these trials happening. So I am not willing to prescribe medications that we don't know the side effects for yet. Right. A lot of the reason that I do a lot of the Chinese medicine that I do is because there's not A lot of bad that can happen with many Chinese modalities. Acupuncture, for the most part, worst thing that can happen there is that it doesn't work. We waste some money and we waste some time. In general, you're not going to do anything substantial otherwise with that. You know, so when we're talking about drugs and administration of things like that, it does get a little muddy for me because we don't know what could happen on the other side of that. And I really want to be cautious about prescribing things before they have appropriate data behind them. There's another drug called loyal. They have a couple of variations of this, and they're basically looking at like, can we help with insulin resistance that happens in pets as they get older and can we link them lifespan? And they are having some promising studies too. They have different options for different sizes of pet and things like that and what they're targeting each one. But even the one that is hopefully going to be coming out later this year in twenty twenty-six is only talking, and I had to say only, but it's talking about potentially adding a year to our pet's life. Potentially. And a year is a lot of time. But we also have to make sure these are animals that we are lengthening their life in an appropriate way. Again, healthy. animals that we are lengthening their life, not animals that are sick or have some illness that is not fair to lengthen their lifespan with. So we're not talking about medications that are going to give our pets five years or, you know, make make our cats live to 30, our dogs live to 25, whatever it may be. We are talking about medications that may give us an extra couple of months to maybe a year. So It's not something that I think we should be reaching for right now until we have more data on it. There is also another medication called telomere, which right now is being targeted more towards like cancer. And there are some promising studies about it actually reversing certain types of cancers. But again, we're still in the study formation of these things, right? Reason number five is that whenever we start treating age as a disease, we are often overdiagnosing and potentially over-supplementing or over-treating things. So when we do tests on pets, and I am a huge advocate for appropriate testing, but when we're doing tests on pets, we really have to look and say, is this going to change the course of what we're doing? And is there something we're going to do if we start this treatment? And that comes into play in a lot of ways for me because Typically these tests are going to involve needle pokes, going to vet visits, going into facilities, taking your pet different places. So they're not completely benign. Yes, a needle poke to get a blood sample is typically a benign procedure, but all the stress leading up to that is not always a benign type of thing. So we do really have to think about why we are doing what we're doing. And what are the tests and are they decent tests or not? So a conversation that I often have with my hostess and palliative care patients is patients that have like chronic kidney disease. For instance, yes, theoretically we should monitor those values every three months. And if we do, will we change what we do? Maybe. Maybe we talk about giving succu fluids more frequently. Maybe we talk about adding on different supplements or things like that. if we're able to. But if we're in this hospice and palliative care era and we know that Callie gets really stressed out every time she goes into the vet clinic, then are we really going to want to stress her out every month or every three months or whatever it may be for that? Are we just hoping to get as much time as we can with what's going on and understanding we may miss things if not? There's also lot of questions with this are what is the data that's backing these tests? So just because a test exists doesn't mean that it's got a really good rate of catching things, right? So there are some tests that check for certain types of cancers. These are blood tests, urine tests, things like that. And they can be really helpful as screening tests, but a lot of times they can ha only have like a 50% rate of catching things, or they can have a false positive rate, which means that they will tell you that something is something that it's actually not and then stress people out and make them get more testing done big for something that may not actually be there. So I think in this regard, you also have to look at the type of person that you are and is it worth having that information? Is it going to stress you out more or is it going to help you? Right. With my kids when they were little, there was this little sock that we would use on their feet. And it gave us some information about their oxygen levels when they were sleeping. Because if you don't know, sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS in babies happens often before the six month age range. And this may be a trigger warning for some people. So I want to preface that. But I got this little sock and it helped. We put it on our children's feet every night and it helped us know what their oxygen levels were. And the concern my pediatrician had with this, my pediatrician didn't really love this. And I think their main concern with this sock was that it would cause us to stress more. And I know me and we took a step back and said, well, my pediatrician's not recommended this. What do we think? And for me, it helped me because I would rather it alert me when nothing is wrong and me get up and check. than for it to not alert me and something have happened. So we also have to look at what is best for us and what we are most comfortable with and things like that. So I think that's important. There's allergy testing. Allergy testing is one of those things in veterinary medicine where we don't have there there is a good allergy test, but it has to be done with giving injections of allergens. And testing to see how our pets react to them. There are plenty of blood test allergy tests. There are different like oral swab allergy tests and things like that. And I will tell you, those have such a high rate of false positives and and saying that something is reactive when it's not, it's just not a good test. It's the same thing in people. We don't do like a lot of blood tests for allergies. Because they're just not going to give us good information. Our body may just react to things because we're in a reactive state at this point. And it has nothing to do with what we're truly allergic to. With all of these medications, too, there is just they're definitely more dog heavy than cat. There's not a lot of tests in cats. I often say cats are the women of veterinary medicine. We are. As women, just more quote unquote complicated to run trials and tests on. So it doesn't happen. So most studies done on any medications or supplements or anything like that are done on healthy men because they're easier, because they don't have menstrual cycles and things like that to keep in mind with it, right? So there are not a lot of studies on women, women's brains, women's version of Alzheimer's, how women's body age, that type of thing. We're extrapolating To men, and we know very well that they are not the same, right? Same thing with dogs and cats. We're using a lot of studies on dogs, and we're kind of extrapolating cats from that. And that's just not the same. So cats are very different than dogs. And we can't always just look at a drug or look at something of a study. And say, well, if it worked in rats and dogs, then it's the same in cats because it's just not going to be. And we know that very well. So cat parents, unfortunately, there's a lot of stuff here where we're just not getting there with the longevity drugs. There is something for chronic kidney disease on the horizon that may help reverse that disease. And there is something for HCM or heart disease in cats too that can help with that on the horizon. But It is just something to be aware of. Reason number six is the proven things are not glamorous. They are simple tactics that we can do. They often save us money instead of cost us money. And it's just easy things that take effort. Like, for example, a lean body weight. We know that dogs who were fed a 25% less calories than their litter mates and were kept at more of a lean body weight, had an average of two-year longer survival time than their overweight counterparts. So that's a very simple thing that we can do that is going to longevity and make their life longer, right? It's unglamorous. It's not a I fix it supplement. It's not a ⁓ crazy test or anything like that or a medication. It's just simply diet, which we know in human medicine too, is extremely important and making sure we're staying in an ideal body condition. And we know things like weight loss help arthritis, right? So keeping our pets at an ideal weight had a substantial improvement on the amount of osteoarthritis pain that they were in. Something that simple can help something that becomes really complicated. We also know things like dental pain. Dental disease is related to Dementia, it's directly linked to heart disease, to kidney disease, to a bad gut microbiome and oral microbiome issues. Oral pain is the second most common cause of pain in senior pets. So keeping their teeth cleaned and keeping their pain under control. All of these things are the unglamorous things. Rehabilitation, physical therapy, walking, all these things. Are quote unquote the real version of longevity medicine, right? Keeping them healthy is the real version of longevity medicine that doesn't make anyone a lot of money. So it's not always the thing that people are going to try and monitor and, you know, sell you. But that's the real stuff that matters here. And that's what I want you to know is. Yes, there are a lot of supplements we can talk about. There's a lot of other things we can talk about. But truly just like going on a sniff walk, knowing some simple rehabilitation therapies to implement into their day-to-day, keeping them in an ideal body condition, keeping them healthy and focusing on preventative care is really going to be the thing that improves their quality of life and their overall health span better, right? Reason number seven, and I think one of the ones that triggers me the most, is it makes people feel guilty. And it can add guilt and it can add cost to something that is already a really stressful part of life and taking care of our senior pets. This caregiver burden is a huge thing that I feel like longevity medicine preys on. And a lot of these things prey on is the fact that you are so Scared of not doing something that could help that you they know pet parents will just invest in a lot of these things without having a lot of information behind it because they really want to do anything they can do to help their senior pets. And I think it's really important to try and not get caught up in those things and make sure that we are focusing on our mental health too, and talking about, like, you know, yes, we may miss something by. doing it a certain way, but we have to also make sure that we're not burdening ourselves too much and and making our mental health poor to make sure we're not missing things. I get a lot of times people come to me as like their seventh opinion. And I'm not opposed to that. But here's what I often tell people is like, you are doing enough. You are doing a fantastic job. And it is okay if you don't have every little nugget of information or every single thing that's going on where just there's just no way. Like I focus on this all day, every day, and I still have 10 different certifications I want to go through in the next five years. You know, there's just so many things that we still have to learn. And I think it's important for us to know that just because we're not doing all of it doesn't mean that we're not doing the best by our pet. So now I have six questions for you that I want you to ask any claiming longevity clinic or anything like that. If somebody is focusing on those types of trigger words, this is what I really want you to ask them. Okay. So what specifically is it that you are going to do? And what evidence do we have that this is based on? What of that information is actually proven in pets versus what has just been proven in human medicine or in laboratory animal medicine or in a petri dish, even, which is a lot of things, haven't even made it past that stage. I think something like 95% of studies that are started in a petri dish never actually make it to market. And that's because something goes wrong from the dish to transferring it over to a live animal that makes it not safe or not suitable to pursue. So Basing evidence off of things that come from a petri dish study, just because there's a study that we need to know what that study is on and what it says, because 95% of those guys are not going to transfer over. So I think it's important for us to focus on those things too. And then if we're going to do a lot of tests, what is going to change in what we do with these test results? So what are we actually going to implement on the other side of this and and change if we were to do this additional testing? I think that's really important to consider because if it's not really gonna change anything, then why are we doing it as just an additional modality? Data is data. I'm a data fiend. I love to have the information, I'd love to have the test results, but it doesn't always mean that it's gonna change what we do. Right. I have a client right now who has a dog with a mouse and she's already said, I'm not doing surgery and I'm not doing chemo. which is respected a hundred percent. But then the question comes in of, okay, what how much testing are we really gonna do to find out what type of cancer this is? Because if we're not gonna pursue these treatment modalities for it, there are other things we can talk about, ozone therapy, mistletoe therapy, you know, these other types of herbs and things like that. But are we going to change a lot of that based on what type of cancer it is. So I think that's important to consider as well. Have you ever left the vet with more questions than answers? And then you drive home and you go straight on to Google. Yeah, I hear that a lot. And honestly, it's exactly why I created my senior pet virtual consultations. Imagine we have 45 minutes where we go through everything, your pet's full history, their specific challenges, their daily life, no rushing. We're gonna cover nutrition, integrative options, whole modifications, and quality of life. And I send you a personalized plan after so that nothing slips through the cracks here. But don't just take my word for it. Chelsea called it a senior pup therapy session and said she felt so much better afterwards. Adiba got recommendations her own vet had never thought to suggest, and Denise said that the consult was incredibly informative and helpful, giving her many options to help her dog Loki feel better. This is the conversation that your senior pet deserves. And honestly, The one you deserve too. The link is in the description. I'd love to help you. How much does it cost? And how are we going to know over time? Are we going to test it over a month? Are we going to test it over two months? When are we going to stop and reevaluate whether this is worth continuing or not? And then how are we actually going to measure if it's working? Is there a test that we can do? Is there some sort of a monitoring sheet that we can fill out to know and over time, is this actually improving or not? Because Something like 40% of pet parents in a placebo group said that they noticed an improvement in their pet. Placebo means they got a sugar pill, basically. So 40% of people are kind of falsely hopeful on something that actually their pet wasn't being given. So we need to have a defined test that we can look at and some data to look at to make sure that we're actually seeing improvements. And for me, One of the biggest things is does this plan cover the really basic, unglamorous stuff first? Are we covering dental pain? Are we covering arthritis pain? Are we covering weight control? Are we covering rehabilitation techniques? Are we covering these things first and then adding in these other modalities? I want to conclude this by just saying, like, I don't mean to yuck on anyone's yum. I am not. anti- longevity by any means. And I don't think that anyone who says they are longevity focused is trying to take advantage of people or is doing wrong by anyone. I just want people to be aware of the questions we should be asking and these trigger words that are coming up and knowing what they're getting into if they're focusing on longevity and making sure that we're focusing on the right thing. I am very much Pro your pet having a long, happy, wonderful life. And I would love to give them more time, as long as that is good time. I just think that from a especially from a veterinary medicine standpoint, focusing on a longer life is not not the thing. That's not the answer for me. I don't want them to have a only just a longer life. I want them to have a good life and I want them to have the options of things that may not have as many devoted studies behind them because a lot of Chinese medicine is just not going to because it's not going to make a lot of money. But having things that are gonna do no harm and not going to cause problems and having things that we can actually check and see is it working and to what caliber. I think it's very important for those types of things to make sure that we are focusing on on the right information. It's in a very exciting time in veterinary medicine and in human medicine. There's so many drugs that are being tested and there's so many new modalities being tested. And there's so much more, I feel like open-mindedness to alternative therapies that we're really getting to a place where we're going to improve some of these diseases that have no cures. My personal opinion is that when we can bring Chinese and Western medicine or alternative therapies together in a very responsible way, that that is the place we are going to change lives. That is the place we are going to have these substantial improvements in these diseases that don't have other options or treatments and things like that. I think that's really where we're going to make change in medicine and in order medicine. But I also think that we have to maintain certain questions. And I think that we have to make sure that we are really looking at each patient as an individual and getting that plan set forth to them. I see so many times where we say, ⁓ well, the blood work shows this, so I should treat the pet like this. And I push back on that a lot because, okay, if this patient is Is has something now that's going to need a lot of testing and gonna need a lot of rechecks and things like that. But they take five days to calm down from coming home from the vet. That's not, that's not gonna work. There's gonna have to be something else. And maybe that's finding a home vet, maybe that's another option. But we need to make sure that we are looking at the patient in front of us and all the information that we have on their health. And we are getting personalized information together for them. That's one of the things that I focus on in my in-home practice. That's one of the things that I focus on when I talk to virtual consultation clients because we really have to understand the pets standing in front of us and what they need. Right. My integrative practitioner does that with me. And that's what I hope to always do with my patients and my virtual clients and everything. So longevity, is going to talk about lifespan. We want health span. We want a healthy life because at the end of this, we all pass on. And in whatever way you want to think about that, that's okay. I think coming to terms with it is really important. I believe that we we are such a vibration that we are not going to just completely cease to exist. I think there is some some place that our vibrations continue on. But we do have to come to terms with these things. And I worry that longevity medicine is focusing a lot on the fear of end of life and the unknowns associated with that. So I want you to take a really deep look at how you look at those things. This is going to be a deep, deep conversation that you have with yourself, not just about longevity medicine, but about like why am I so focused on that? And am I afraid of death and am I afraid of those types of things for me or for my pet? Or do I find peace in that? These are important questions to ask. I know that's getting really deep, but I think it's an important thing for everyone to work out on their own so that we don't get so caught up in a lot of these fear tactics that are associated with certain types of things. I want you to go away from this knowing that there are a lot of things on the horizon. There are a lot of tactics that we can look into as far as helping our pets. And there's also still a lot of questions that haven't been answered yet. And honestly, the most unglamorous things are the things that are going to probably do the most. We know that in human medicine too. A good diet and exercise just cannot be beat by probably any medication that you can get your hands on, right? So It can fix so many things. My husband fixed his high blood pressure by exercising and eating appropriately. He started taking blood pressure medications. They made him actually pretty sick. and he stopped them and then he was able to fix himself just with appropriate diet and working out and things like that. So there's definitely something to be said about just taking care of our bodies. And taking care of our pets' bodies in a good old fashioned weight control, pain control, exercise rehab diet regimen. Okay. All right. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope that helped. If you have any questions or if you have any input on this, I would love your opinion, even if you're like, you're absolutely wrong, Dr. Amanda. I don't agree with you at all. I think longevity medicine is the future, and this is why. Sure, tell me. Like I always want to have a good conversation about what's going on and why and why you feel the way that you do. And a lot of times it can change my opinion. I am not dedicated to have the same opinion that I do in five minutes that I have right now. That can always change. I was definitely a person who did not believe in Chinese medicine. And here I am, five years after starting my own in a practice, seeing patients that are. 20-year-old cats, I see 15-year-old golden retrievers, I see 12-year-old Labradors, I see 19-year-old Dotsons, I see all of these patients who are super, super seniors and they have good quality of lives because I'm able to give them a lot of these other modalities that I maybe didn't believe in five or six years ago. But that's the the wonderfulness of being interested and being open-minded. And I think that's a wonderful thing for us all to be. It's just a little bit more. Questionable as opposed to judgmental. If somebody says something we don't agree with, just ask yourself where they're coming from as opposed to just thinking they're wrong, because that's not what I know. Okay. All right. I hope you had a beautiful time here. I hope that this helped you. And if you're not already following along, please follow along. You can find me on socials, Instagram most commonly. And I would love, love, love if you would send me a DM or a comment. And let me know what you think about this or what you want me to talk about next. Thank you. You are doing a fantastic job with the information that you have, and I am so proud of you as a pet parent. Have a good day. That's it for today. If this episode helped you, please leave a review or rate this podcast so we can get the word out to more pet parents who need to hear that they are doing a good job. And if you're interested in working more with me, you can find me on social media or at seniorpetconnection.com because we all need to stay connected. Remember that you are doing a great job with the information that you have in this moment. And I am just here to give you more of it. See you next week.