Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / From Joint Replacement to Proactive Longevity with Grant Zarzour, MD

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From Joint Replacement to Proactive Longevity with Grant Zarzour, MD · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:01
  This is where health care leadership comes together.
• 0:04
  Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500
• 0:07
  hospital and health system executives and nearly 800
• 0:10
  speakers to Chicago
• 0:12
  April.
• 0:14
  This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
• 0:17
  Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George
• 0:20
  w Bush. For the agenda and event details,
• 0:22
  visit beckershospitalreview.com
• 0:25
  and click on the events tab in the
• 0:26
  upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
• 0:29
  in Chicago.
• 0:31
  This is Scott Becker with the Beckers Healthcare
• 0:34
  Podcast.
• 0:35
  Thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant
• 0:37
  orthopedic surgeon, a leader in joint replacement,
• 0:41
  who also has a special interest in longevity
• 0:44
  in in how we live our lives
• 0:46
  better. We're joined today by Grant Zarzaur, doctor
• 0:49
  Zarzaur.
• 0:50
  Grant, doctor Zarzaur, can you take a moment
• 0:52
  to both introduce yourself,
• 0:54
  talk about your practice, and talk about what
• 0:57
  you've developed as this sort of a separate
• 0:59
  concept, separate business
• 1:01
  around longevity.
• 1:03
  Yeah. Thanks, Scott. Appreciate you having me. So,
• 1:05
  you know, my day job is I'm a
• 1:07
  glorified carpenter. I specialize in hips and knees.
• 1:10
  I work at the Southern Orthopedic Alliance, which
• 1:12
  is the largest orthopedic group in Alabama. I'm
• 1:15
  lucky enough to be president of that organization,
• 1:17
  and we've got 40 surgeons in the state
• 1:20
  focused on high quality care and get to
• 1:22
  perform a lot of hips and knees and
• 1:24
  fix them. I did seven earlier today. I'm
• 1:27
  also on the advisory board,
• 1:30
  for Lantern, a really cool company helping people
• 1:33
  get access to great surgeons.
• 1:35
  And then as you mentioned, I'm founder and
• 1:37
  CEO of a longevity company called Sperity
• 1:40
  Health. And I'll tell you, I just became
• 1:42
  passionate about proactive care.
• 1:44
  And it's really kind of, I guess, had
• 1:47
  a a big impact on me from my
• 1:49
  family standpoint,
• 1:50
  but also just taking care of patients and
• 1:52
  seeing them come in the clinic all the
• 1:54
  time that, I think in this country, we're
• 1:56
  very good at reactive care.
• 1:58
  But I think we've gotta start moving the
• 2:00
  needle on more proactive care. So that's why
• 2:03
  Sperity Health is a b two b solution.
• 2:05
  And in one sentence, what Sperity Health does
• 2:09
  is we lower our members' risk of cancer,
• 2:12
  cardiovascular
• 2:13
  disease, and dementia
• 2:15
  based on data and science,
• 2:17
  not snake oil and Instagram.
• 2:20
  Thank you. And and and tell us if
• 2:21
  you can, doctor Zor Zorozor. If you're comfortable,
• 2:24
  tell us a little bit the sort of
• 2:26
  the the origin story of Spirety and and
• 2:29
  and how you got so interested in this
• 2:30
  area.
• 2:31
  Well, you know, I have four kids, Scott,
• 2:34
  boy and three girls. And my boy is
• 2:36
  the oldest and, you know, first kid. And
• 2:39
  when he was two, you know, he went
• 2:41
  to school for the first time.
• 2:43
  And the school called us on day two
• 2:45
  and said,
• 2:46
  something's wrong with Wyatt, and you need to
• 2:48
  get him checked out. And my first response
• 2:51
  was nothing's wrong with my boy, and he's
• 2:53
  only been there fifteen minutes. You know? How
• 2:55
  do you know something's wrong with him? You
• 2:56
  know? He's our first kid.
• 2:58
  Well, we went to a neurologist somewhat reluctantly,
• 3:01
  and, we knew he had some issues, a
• 3:03
  little anxiety, and he wasn't he's a little
• 3:05
  delayed in his speech. But,
• 3:08
  we basically took him to the neurologist. That
• 3:10
  neurologist spent about forty five seconds in the
• 3:13
  room.
• 3:14
  And then he exclaimed,
• 3:15
  Wyatt needs to be in an antipsychotic
• 3:18
  every day for the rest of his life.
• 3:20
  He's never gonna make it at regular school.
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  And he looked at my wife and I
• 3:24
  and said, mom, dad, buckle up. It's gonna
• 3:27
  be a long, hard ride.
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  And, you know, my wife and I hooked
• 3:31
  to each other and said, we don't accept
• 3:33
  this. Whatever this is,
• 3:35
  we're gonna beat it. And so he got
• 3:37
  diagnosed with moderate severity autism, which is certainly
• 3:40
  a gut punch. And, you know, and during
• 3:43
  my time in medical school, we didn't cover
• 3:45
  a whole lot of proactive
• 3:46
  solutions and didn't cover a lot about autism
• 3:49
  and still new at this time evolving.
• 3:51
  But I dove into the research and the
• 3:53
  science on how to mitigate the symptoms,
• 3:55
  anxiety, ADHD,
• 3:58
  a 100 other symptoms. And we learned about
• 4:00
  functional medicine, which I didn't believe in. We
• 4:03
  learned about diet, exercise, and sleep.
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  I'll tell you, when the whole gluten free
• 4:08
  thing first came out, I'm embarrassed to tell
• 4:10
  you, Scott. I told people, if you don't
• 4:12
  want your gluten, I'll eat your gluten,
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  and I was wrong. Some people can't eat
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  it. Most people can, but some people can't.
• 4:19
  And it develops
• 4:20
  the gut to brain access is affected
• 4:23
  and a whole host of things. So
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  we got Wyatt on a great diet exercise,
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  sleep plan, and and speech therapy, and all
• 4:31
  sorts of great solutions,
• 4:32
  really, and supplements. We didn't put him on
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  an antipsychotic.
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  And long story short, he's ten, eight years
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  later,
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  and flourishing
• 4:41
  at regular school,
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  much smarter than me. His IQ is one
• 4:45
  forty one.
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  I'm trying to get there one day, I
• 4:48
  hope. But,
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  and, you know, the big takeaway
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  for a child who we were unsure if
• 4:54
  he would ever speak in full sentences
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  when this ordeal started.
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  And a year and a half ago,
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  we're at Christmas dinner with the six of
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  us, And the girls all say a blessing,
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  and Brie and I say a blessing. Wyatt
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  never wanted to say a blessing. Kinda too
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  much going on in his head, you know,
• 5:13
  anxiety and other things. But he had made
• 5:15
  so much improvement that he stopped us
• 5:17
  before we ate and said, I wanna say
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  a blessing.
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  And Brie and I said, okay, buddy. Absolutely.
• 5:23
  And he goes, hold hands. And so we
• 5:26
  hold hands.
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  And he goes, dear god, thank you for
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  all of our blessings and for a great
• 5:31
  day, and please remember those who don't have
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  what we have.
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  And Brie and I are crying. You know,
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  you're only as well as your sickest child.
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  And
• 5:40
  to see him kinda come full circle. And,
• 5:43
  so now he really has barely detectable
• 5:46
  autism.
• 5:48
  And it's the greatest success of my life
• 5:50
  no matter what I have done or will
• 5:51
  do.
• 5:53
  I'm really proud of that. But the reason
• 5:56
  that we've kind of extrapolated this is that
• 5:58
  proactive care
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  works.
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  It prevents
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  disease,
• 6:03
  and it can certainly mitigate disease.
• 6:05
  And there's so much data and science to
• 6:08
  support this. And so that's what Sperity Health
• 6:11
  is built on. It's attacking cancer, cardiovascular
• 6:14
  disease, and dementia,
• 6:16
  and we do it in a kinda multi
• 6:18
  pronged approach.
• 6:19
  Doctor Zarzaur, that that's an incredibly
• 6:22
  heartwarming piece. It's hard almost like to have
• 6:24
  tears come to my eyes. I hear you
• 6:26
  talk about why it's in that evolution.
• 6:28
  Give us a couple of thoughts on what
• 6:30
  you've learned there during this journey, and then
• 6:32
  a couple of thoughts on what you're doing
• 6:34
  at Sperity exactly because I've heard some of
• 6:36
  it. I know you work with companies,
• 6:39
  with organizations.
• 6:40
  Tell us a little bit a couple lessons
• 6:42
  you learned from the experience so far and
• 6:44
  then also what you're doing with companies and
• 6:46
  how Sperity works.
• 6:47
  You know, it kinda correlated from my day
• 6:50
  job in orthopedics.
• 6:51
  People say, oh, I'm you know, sometimes patient,
• 6:54
  I'm too old to have surgery.
• 6:55
  I don't care what your chronological
• 6:57
  age is. Is. I really don't care what
• 6:59
  year you were born. I tell people I
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  care how hard you've been ridden and if
• 7:04
  you were put up wet.
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  And that's how you treat your body. And
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  so biological age
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  is what we measure at Sperity Health on
• 7:11
  all of our members, and it's basically 10
• 7:14
  different lab values looking at the health of
• 7:16
  your organs.
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  And
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  that we extrapolate that out from, oh, this
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  patient's not a surgical candidate even though they're
• 7:22
  55 years old. Or at 90, they look
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  great and don't take any medicines. They're gonna
• 7:27
  live twenty more years. So maybe they do
• 7:29
  need a knee replacement or hip replacement so
• 7:31
  they can have a quality of life. So
• 7:33
  these lessons I've learned from actively practicing,
• 7:36
  in orthopedics has helped us evolve towards Sperity
• 7:39
  Health, which now we're growing across the Southeast
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  and across the country.
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  It is allowing those kind of things I've
• 7:46
  learned in clinic to adapt and and kinda
• 7:49
  expand everyone's horizon and hit them, hit our
• 7:52
  members with
• 7:53
  more details of their own health. I had
• 7:55
  a patient in clinic on Monday ask me
• 7:58
  the difference between a protein and a carb.
• 8:01
  I mean, we we've got a big challenge
• 8:03
  on education. And and if you look at
• 8:05
  health insurance issues in this country, the trend
• 8:08
  is double digit health insurance premium increases for
• 8:11
  businesses.
• 8:12
  It's unsustainable.
• 8:14
  These businesses cannot afford for this trend to
• 8:16
  continue,
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  but their current strategy
• 8:19
  is hope.
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  And and I really feel we've gotta change
• 8:22
  it more toward being proactive. I understand we're
• 8:25
  trying to look for the best, treatments for
• 8:27
  cancer
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  and best treatments for cardiovascular disease and any
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  other ailment, and we should continue to do
• 8:32
  that.
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  But what if we could prevent the number
• 8:35
  of people that were getting cancer and having
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  all these cardiovascular
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  disease issues and all these other complications?
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  And, you know, there's great studies that show
• 8:44
  people who get breast cancer, they'll you're in
• 8:47
  way longer remission if you exercise regularly versus
• 8:50
  not exercise.
• 8:51
  So what we do is we'll put wearables.
• 8:54
  I love a a Whoop band,
• 8:56
  all sorts of other good wearables to to
• 8:58
  measure your sleep quality.
• 9:00
  We have we help help with nutritionists for
• 9:02
  diet education.
• 9:04
  And I'll tell you the single greatest weight
• 9:06
  loss tool on the planet, Scott. It's not
• 9:09
  a GLP one.
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  It is a CGM
• 9:13
  or continuous glucose monitor.
• 9:16
  And one month of that a year and
• 9:18
  our members go,
• 9:19
  wow. Look how sugar
• 9:21
  affects my body and how can I try
• 9:23
  to mitigate sugar? I mean, sugar is the
• 9:25
  devil. I mean, I tell my patients that
• 9:28
  caramel frappa mocha choco latte they're having for
• 9:31
  breakfast is a killer. A thousand calories,
• 9:34
  a 100 grams of sugar, you have no
• 9:36
  chance of losing weight for the week when
• 9:38
  you put that in your body. But people
• 9:40
  think, oh, I got the diet version or
• 9:42
  whatever else. So we partner all of our
• 9:45
  members with the nutritionist.
• 9:46
  They get an exercise physiologist to do a
• 9:49
  v o two max treadmill test
• 9:51
  because that's a twelve minute test on the
• 9:53
  treadmill measuring your oxygen carrying capacity of your
• 9:57
  lungs.
• 9:58
  And it's not an easy test, but it's
• 10:01
  the single greatest predictor in all cause mortality.
• 10:04
  If someone wanted to know how much longer
• 10:06
  do I have, doc,
• 10:08
  the if I only can have one piece
• 10:09
  of knowledge about you, I wanna know your
• 10:11
  score on that twelve minute treadmill test.
• 10:15
  So it it really, one of the things
• 10:17
  we love doing is activating
• 10:19
  your amygdala,
• 10:20
  which is this small structure deep in your
• 10:22
  brain that's in charge of fear
• 10:25
  and emotions.
• 10:26
  And when we can connect your emotions to
• 10:29
  your health status,
• 10:30
  you will improve it. When you see your
• 10:33
  data on the WHOOP band, when you see
• 10:35
  your data on the CGM, when you get
• 10:37
  a coronary angiogram to look at your cardiovascular
• 10:40
  status,
• 10:41
  when you see your VO two max score
• 10:44
  and go, man the first time I took
• 10:46
  it, Scott, there's six categories.
• 10:48
  I got the very top
• 10:50
  of the very poor category.
• 10:52
  I cut it out. It's on my bathroom
• 10:54
  mirror right now. So let me ask you
• 10:56
  a question. Let me ask you a question
• 10:57
  because people can't see you, but you look
• 10:59
  up, like, about the most fit orthopedic surgeon
• 11:02
  in the world. So so talk about that
• 11:04
  need to measure things because people look at
• 11:06
  you think, like, how could that be, the
• 11:08
  the top of the bottom quartile? But but
• 11:11
  and what have you done? How how have
• 11:12
  you made that work? And I agree with
• 11:14
  you on sugar 100%.
• 11:16
  It it's like it causes you to wanna
• 11:18
  eat more, so it could reverses everything else
• 11:20
  you're trying to do. And and it's so
• 11:21
  much negativity, and I and I love the
• 11:24
  frappuccinos and all that stuff, but I just
• 11:25
  can't do them. But but tell us a
• 11:27
  little bit about, you know, the the need
• 11:29
  for data and and how you work at
• 11:31
  Sperity. I know we've got a few minutes
• 11:33
  left, so tell us sort of Yeah. The
• 11:34
  the, you know, your own fitness,
• 11:38
  the need for data, and and how you
• 11:40
  work with customers.
• 11:42
  Well, I'll tell you. First of all, you
• 11:44
  know, the worst patients are on the planet?
• 11:46
  Doctors.
• 11:47
  Okay? We're really good at caring for other
• 11:49
  people, but we put ourself dead last on
• 11:52
  the list of who we need to be
• 11:53
  worried about. We worry about our family, our
• 11:55
  patients,
• 11:56
  everybody else. We give out our cell phone
• 11:58
  numbers. We're checking the EMR 25 times a
• 12:00
  day to help people. We've gotta start putting
• 12:03
  ourselves more in first place so that we
• 12:05
  can continue to provide care, and burnout's a
• 12:08
  big problem. Over eighty percent of physicians are
• 12:10
  experiencing burnout.
• 12:11
  And so for me,
• 12:13
  you know, I have to focus on diet
• 12:15
  is my a number one deal because I
• 12:18
  don't have enough time in the day to
• 12:19
  do as much exercise as I would like.
• 12:21
  But what you put in your body matters,
• 12:23
  and
• 12:24
  your microbiome
• 12:25
  has to be retrained.
• 12:27
  That's your kinda gut bacteria, and it determines
• 12:30
  your urges.
• 12:31
  And the way to plant a healthy microbiome
• 12:35
  is 25
• 12:36
  different fruits and vegetables a week. Some can
• 12:39
  be the same. But if you can do
• 12:40
  25 fruits and three a day or just
• 12:43
  over you know,
• 12:44
  that helps train your body to go after
• 12:46
  the healthier foods than the healthier foods than
• 12:48
  the French fries and the the sugar. So
• 12:51
  you that's why GLP one's two thirds or
• 12:54
  more of the weight comes back immediately when
• 12:56
  you stop. We didn't do anything to retrain
• 12:59
  your microbiome.
• 13:01
  So real big on diet.
• 13:03
  Sleep,
• 13:04
  you know, you can't hide from the need
• 13:07
  for sleep, and poor sleep equals dementia.
• 13:10
  So, I love a wearable to track it
• 13:12
  because people say, oh, my sleep's fine. Let's
• 13:14
  see what the data says. So we have
• 13:16
  all sorts of wearables we connect with. And
• 13:19
  the biggest differentiator people
• 13:21
  you know, we Southern Company is a big
• 13:23
  big client for us. Southeastern Conference is a
• 13:25
  big client. We've got a number of others
• 13:27
  that are coming on board very soon.
• 13:29
  The key is in person
• 13:32
  physician engagement. So we have a team of
• 13:34
  primary care longevity experts that meet with all
• 13:36
  of our members
• 13:37
  in person.
• 13:39
  I know that's hard. It's logistically challenging, but
• 13:41
  it doesn't activate the amygdala if we're just
• 13:43
  doing telehealth.
• 13:44
  So you meet in the person with the
• 13:46
  physician, the nutritionist,
• 13:47
  the exercise physiologist for that b o two
• 13:49
  max, and we have a phlebotomist who's gonna
• 13:51
  draw your labs. And then we engage throughout
• 13:54
  the year with your data, plugging into our
• 13:56
  app, giving you a score.
• 13:59
  It's we call it a severity score. It's
• 14:00
  like a credit score
• 14:02
  for your health. And so it's a health
• 14:04
  KPI. What are we making this money for
• 14:07
  if we're not gonna have the health to
• 14:09
  spend it?
• 14:10
  And so we kinda allow people to find
• 14:12
  their path. And listen, you don't have to
• 14:14
  be perfect seven days a week, Scott. Give
• 14:17
  me five days a week. The other two
• 14:19
  days, down here in Alabama, we say roll
• 14:21
  tide. Okay? You gotta still have fun. You
• 14:23
  gotta go you know, I play golf and
• 14:25
  a whiskey front will come through every now
• 14:27
  and again. I'm not here to tell you
• 14:28
  I'm perfect nor do I wanna be. Life's
• 14:30
  not worth living.
• 14:32
  But, hey, let's do five out of seven
• 14:33
  days and and really focus on that. And
• 14:36
  we're trying to beat yesterday, not be perfect.
• 14:40
  No. And I and I love that perspective,
• 14:42
  doctor Zarzaur, and I and I love what
• 14:44
  you're doing. We we'd want to get you
• 14:46
  back on the podcast as you keep on
• 14:48
  evolving with this. Be before we do so,
• 14:50
  where does the name Sperity come from? Can
• 14:52
  you give us the name, Sperity, the the
• 14:55
  derivation of that?
• 14:57
  You know, I I kinda thought about prosperity,
• 14:59
  and we made it a little shorter. But,
• 15:01
  you know, prosperity is focused on your wealth.
• 15:03
  And so we wanted to make a new
• 15:05
  term that kinda was focused on your health.
• 15:08
  Easy to spell and kinda memorable,
• 15:10
  but I think that, everybody's focused on their
• 15:13
  how much can we save for retirement, but
• 15:15
  I see patients every day that would trade
• 15:18
  everything in their bank account
• 15:20
  to be healthy and 45 or 50 or
• 15:23
  55 years old again.
• 15:25
  They they really wish they could go back
• 15:27
  and and do anything
• 15:29
  to get that great health. And what Sperity
• 15:31
  Health is about is you're helping you live
• 15:33
  to be a great grandfather
• 15:35
  running around chasing great grandkids
• 15:37
  or traveling the world,
• 15:39
  being able to put a bag in overhead
• 15:41
  bin. We want you active and productive.
• 15:45
  No. I think it's just fantastic. I absolutely
• 15:47
  love it. Like, you're exactly right. People would
• 15:49
  trade almost anything to lose a few pounds,
• 15:52
  be a little bit healthier,
• 15:53
  drop a few points off their index. It
• 15:55
  is what it is, but you're absolutely right.
• 15:57
  We totally agree. And I know you're not
• 15:58
  working on the golf index or handicap index,
• 16:01
  but you are working on people's health, which
• 16:03
  is more important, I think. No. I know
• 16:05
  it's more important.
• 16:06
  That's right. That's right. Doctor Zazaert, thank you
• 16:09
  so much for joining us. We'd love to
• 16:10
  have you back on in three or six
• 16:12
  months to talk about the Sperity story.
• 16:14
  We think this concept of aging well, living
• 16:17
  well, and and taking care of it is
• 16:19
  about as important as anything that anybody could
• 16:21
  do, both taking care of their physical and
• 16:22
  mental health. So we admire what you're doing.
• 16:24
  We love it and look forward to having
• 16:26
  you back on, Grant.
• 16:27
  Thanks so much, Scott. I'll see you in
• 16:29
  June. Looking forward. Thank you so much.