Latest / Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD / 343: Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill: David Bennahum on Onix AI, Healing & Human Connection

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343: Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill: David Bennahum on Onix AI, Healing & Human Connection · Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD

• 0:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Welcome to Resiliency Radio, your go to podcast for the most cutting edge insights integrative and functional medicine.
• 0:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I'm your host, Dr. Jill, and with each episode, we dive into the heart of healing and personal transformation.
• 0:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Today is a little different.
• 0:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: As you can see, I'm here in the studio in Boulder and I'm going to be interviewing David Benaham.
• 0:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: David is the founder of Onyx, and we're going to be talking about that platform and having a deep discussion on everything else in the world related to transformation and AI and even my own personal journey.
• 0:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Stay tuned.
• 0:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You're in for a real treat today.
• 0:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Hey, everybody, it's Dr. Jill, and I am so excited to be here in person in the studio with David from Onyx.
• 0:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: We're going to dive deep today, David, into the whys behind what we do and why we do what we do.
• 0:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Because I really feel like the core of resilience is the story behind the person.
• 0:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And we know so many people out there that have these stories of resilience.
• 0:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I love to feature them on the podcast.
• 0:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And today, as I mentioned in the intro, we're doing things a little different.
• 1:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I want to talk just a bit about David to get started, and then he's going to shift and actually interview me and ask me some questions on this podcast.
• 1:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So stay tuned for a wild, fun ride today.
• 1:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I just want to start with David and I want to ask you, David, you flew in from Montreal today, and as people know in the intro, you have had an incredible experience in this world and you've created this new gem called Onyx.
• 1:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But I always feel like not just the what, but the why.
• 1:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: As we know from Simon Sinek, Tell us a little bit more about your passion and purpose behind this project.
• 1:34
  David Bennahum: Well, thank you first of all for inviting me on to be with you today, Jill.
• 1:37
  David Bennahum: It's a treat to be here and thank you for creating the space for us to have this conversation.
• 1:42
  David Bennahum: It's really lovely.
• 1:44
  David Bennahum: On a personal level, I first learned to program when I was 13 years old.
• 1:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow.
• 1:49
  David Bennahum: I was part of that first wave of kids that got the home computers.
• 1:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, yeah.
• 1:53
  David Bennahum: In like 1981, right?
• 1:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Exactly.
• 1:55
  David Bennahum: And it was a very strange time because also a of latchkey children and a lot of loneliness and alienation.
• 2:01
  David Bennahum: The divorce rate had really gone up.
• 2:02
  David Bennahum: And this became my refuge at a time when I had a lot of challenges in my life as a young boy, a teenager.
• 2:10
  David Bennahum: And it became really a passion that I mastered and I had the benefit of going to a good university and when I finished university, it coincided with the onset of the Internet as a phenomenon in the early and mid-90s.
• 2:23
  David Bennahum: And it turned out I was very good at writing.
• 2:25
  David Bennahum: So.
• 2:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Amazing.
• 2:26
  David Bennahum: I became a journalist with Wired magazine and was part of that early team at Wired covering the onset of the Internet.
• 2:33
  David Bennahum: And at the time, this all relates to Onyx, we all had a really deep optimism about what these types of information technologies could do for the world, that it would democratize access to knowledge, it would create connections between people that otherwise couldn't happen.
• 2:52
  David Bennahum: And we believe that all those things would fundamentally make the world a better place.
• 2:56
  David Bennahum: Who could be against them, as it were.
• 2:59
  David Bennahum: Right.
• 2:59
  David Bennahum: They sound terrific.
• 3:01
  David Bennahum: And then something happened along the way, and it's very heartbreaking.
• 3:05
  David Bennahum: I never anticipated it would happen.
• 3:07
  David Bennahum: It happened sometime around when social media came about in the late 2000s.
• 3:14
  David Bennahum: And what happened was we became the product.
• 3:17
  David Bennahum: Somehow our attention and our time became what was valuable.
• 3:22
  David Bennahum: And the incentives began to really change.
• 3:25
  David Bennahum: It was about, how do we get me and you and everyone else to spend an awful lot of time on these platforms so that they can make money from our attention?
• 3:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 3:34
  David Bennahum: It became very adversarial, and I think it made people very sick, ultimately.
• 3:39
  David Bennahum: And I saw that 10 years ago, I was very mindful of what was happening, and I was one of the earlier people that saw this, that the incentives had gone wrong.
• 3:48
  David Bennahum: And so when AI really emerged a couple of years ago as its own phenomenon, I was deeply concerned that it would be an accelerant of some of the really unfortunate things that we've seen.
• 4:00
  David Bennahum: If there ever were a technology that could know you, watch you, potentially manipulate you, AI would be a formidable tool for that outcome.
• 4:09
  David Bennahum: So Onyx really began with a question, which is, how do you build something that honors human integrity, human agency, and human flourishing?
• 4:18
  David Bennahum: And how do you do that in a way that by putting certain principles at the heart of it, like privacy, authorship.
• 4:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes,.
• 4:27
  David Bennahum: Right.
• 4:28
  David Bennahum: That in turn, you would make something, meaning an AI, that would perform better and create more value for the alternative, which is essentially surveillance, taking information from everywhere without permission.
• 4:42
  David Bennahum: What if by honoring people's integrity, ownership, personhood, you could build a form of AI that literally was better at whatever the job is people needed it to do?
• 4:54
  David Bennahum: Well, that would be remarkable.
• 4:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 4:56
  David Bennahum: Right.
• 4:56
  David Bennahum: Because we can all say, you know, eat your peas, so to speak, it's better for you than the processed alternative.
• 5:04
  David Bennahum: But when you're facing that.
• 5:06
  David Bennahum: That aisle of processed food, it's very hard not to grab the package.
• 5:09
  David Bennahum: And likewise, when you're facing that aisle of Processed intelligence, as I sometimes think of it.
• 5:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 5:14
  David Bennahum: The open AIs and the anthropics of the world.
• 5:16
  David Bennahum: It's very hard not to reach for that computer.
• 5:19
  David Bennahum: But what you're going to be getting from there doesn't really come from a named source.
• 5:23
  David Bennahum: There's no accountability.
• 5:25
  David Bennahum: So a lot of the insights we had with Onyx in the beginning was put people first.
• 5:29
  David Bennahum: Let's build a whole technology from the ground up, where people are at the heart of it.
• 5:33
  David Bennahum: And that is what has brought us here today, because you have blessed us with the privilege of working with your knowledge, which is something so precious that you cultivated over your lifetime and you've trusted us to actually bring that forward.
• 5:48
  David Bennahum: For what purpose?
• 5:49
  David Bennahum: I believe to help heal the world at an even larger scale.
• 5:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Hey guys, don't forget to check out drjillhealth.com for all kinds of products and services that may be related to whatever you're struggling with right now.
• 6:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You can search by topics such as gut health or brain health and you can get 10% off your first order.
• 6:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And if you haven't already watched Doctor Patient Movie, we talked today about the depth of that film and how it's impacted people around the world and even my guests today, you can check it out@drpatientmovie.com it's also on Amazon prime and it's streaming for free on YouTube and Tubi.
• 6:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And lastly, but not least, my clinic, Flatiron Functional Medicine in Louisville, Colorado, we are accepting new patients.
• 6:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Many people don't know that we have options for you to schedule right away and if you're not sure, you can call and get a 10 minute consult with one of our mid level providers, Fawn or Hannah.
• 6:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But we are accepting new patients and we would love to help you on your journey to personal healing.
• 6:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So give us a call.
• 6:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: 303-993-7910.
• 6:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I want to just comment on what you said because that's one of the reasons, I mean, there are a lot of groups out there trying to duplicate, create sorts of things like this.
• 7:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And one of the things that resonated with me most and actually allowed me to say yes, I want to partner with you, was the fact of the integrity and the authorship and all of those things where you actually honored the, you know, really 30 years of building intelligence of any doctor.
• 7:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: For me it's been about that long.
• 7:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But because there really is this lifetime of work and I've seen so many other authors and speakers and visionaries in our world and their work is completely pirated copyrighted, and stolen.
• 7:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And there's no authorship even given to that person.
• 7:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: No credit given.
• 7:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 7:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I see it all the time, and I'm just shocked.
• 7:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And, like, where are we going with creativity and ability to produce new things if, you know, this takes over?
• 7:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And it not only takes over, but it often kind of bastardizes the work.
• 7:54
  David Bennahum: It does, because it becomes removed from.
• 7:58
  David Bennahum: To use a fancy word, why not the terroir, the origin of the knowledge?
• 8:04
  David Bennahum: So you have a terroir.
• 8:05
  David Bennahum: You have your life.
• 8:06
  David Bennahum: Your life.
• 8:07
  David Bennahum: And your knowledge is not separable from your life.
• 8:11
  David Bennahum: And when you take someone's knowledge without their permission and strip it away from their life, you actually lose something fundamentally.
• 8:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You don't you?
• 8:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Because it's just like we stuck the story and we talked about how important that is in the intro.
• 8:24
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: That story and that energy and what that person brings is part of the transformation and the work and the healing and all that happens.
• 8:32
  David Bennahum: When I was preparing to come here, I decided to watch your documentary, which is called doctor patient, came.
• 8:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Out in.
• 8:41
  David Bennahum: 2024, And I found it with my spouse, and we sat down together a few nights ago because I wanted to understand where you come from, and I came to understand.
• 8:52
  David Bennahum: This documentary tells that story.
• 8:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 8:54
  David Bennahum: And I sat and I watched it with my spouse, Hillary.
• 8:57
  David Bennahum: And were deeply moved by the experience of your journey.
• 9:01
  David Bennahum: And one thing I was struck by is how you are a detective that was investigating, beginning with your own suffering.
• 9:09
  David Bennahum: Right.
• 9:09
  David Bennahum: And turning that suffering, really, into an opportunity for healing.
• 9:14
  David Bennahum: And I was also struck by the amount of emotional intimacy that you had with your patients when we saw them, you know, coming into your office to connect and how often you would say, I love you to these patients.
• 9:26
  David Bennahum: And I think you really mean it.
• 9:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I really mean it.
• 9:28
  David Bennahum: And I get it, you know, because that's healing.
• 9:31
  David Bennahum: And at some point you said, well, the power of healing comes from love, and it comes from connection.
• 9:39
  David Bennahum: And what we live in today is a world where people increasingly have lost connection.
• 9:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 9:44
  David Bennahum: We are so isolated.
• 9:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 9:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And so hungry.
• 9:46
  David Bennahum: And so hungry for that connection and community.
• 9:49
  David Bennahum: So part of why I am so grateful to come and be with you is that we are part of a little community that we're building.
• 9:56
  David Bennahum: And to sit here with you and speak to you, it's really a blessing.
• 9:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So much better than Zoom.
• 10:01
  David Bennahum: That is for sure.
• 10:02
  David Bennahum: That is for sure.
• 10:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 10:04
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 10:04
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So it's interesting you mentioned that.
• 10:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: First of all, I'm honored that you watched it with your wife and that it keeps on giving to communities and places.
• 10:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's interesting in making that film because there was version one that was a little bit more sterile than the version you saw.
• 10:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And we all, the producer, the director and myself were like, it's not quite right.
• 10:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: We want to really touch the hearts.
• 10:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And in order to do that, the pieces that we added in were the ones I called like the ugly cry scene and the times where I was so, like vulnerable.
• 10:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: The one scene I'm talking about, I'm sure you remember, in medical school.
• 10:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And this was caught on camera, not scripted at all.
• 10:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I walk into my alma mater, it's almost 20 years after my diagnosis of cancer there, where I didn't know if I was going to live through that.
• 10:48
  David Bennahum: Yeah.
• 10:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I walked and looked at this lecture hall.
• 10:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I look up at this lecture hall where I did all my lectures, all my first and second year medical training, and you see it on camera.
• 10:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I literally lose it with emotion because I think back to that young 25 year old girl and what she went through, which was a diagnosis of aggressive breast cancer and then Crohn's disease.
• 11:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I remember back then I was brought up on a farm, raised to be strong and resilient and don't complain and pull up by the bootstraps.
• 11:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: In one way it gave me my resilience that I've had my whole entire life, and in another way it caused me to be so dissociated from the pain that I did not allow myself to take the time to heal or to be kind to myself.
• 11:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And so in that moment, 20 years later, I'm in the hall looking back at my younger self and thinking, oh, sweetheart, you were so strong, you were so brave.
• 11:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I cannot believe what you went through.
• 11:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You were raising three stepchildren, going to medical school and battling cancer and sick, so sick.
• 11:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And yet you kind of put aside all of your own pain and suffering and tried to show up in the best way that you could to finish the training and to be there for your family and to all the things that were the shoulds.
• 12:04
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And now that I've learned and done a lot of my own work, I'm like, oh, I wish I could have told her to take more time and be kind to yourself.
• 12:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And it's okay if you take a day off or if you're sick or those kinds of things.
• 12:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And so you see it in the movie and I'm sure that's one of the places where many of the viewers are touched, but it's only when we get to that depth.
• 12:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So back to the producer, director and our story.
• 12:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: We had to go to that place and share the most vulnerable points, which are also the most scary.
• 12:33
  David Bennahum: Yes.
• 12:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 12:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Because we're afraid of either being judged or looking stupid or whatever.
• 12:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It doesn't matter because those are the human connection points.
• 12:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And this is what I love about Onyx.
• 12:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And the thing is, I think you've created something that could be the opposite of human connection and you've actually tried to maintain the integrity of human connection.
• 12:51
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Because I believe that's where the healing begins.
• 12:53
  David Bennahum: If we can figure this out together, how to both maintain that human connection while making the accessibility such that potentially thousands or millions could be touched by your knowledge, we've solved something very beautiful for the world.
• 13:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 13:08
  David Bennahum: Because today, as you go to the office, I know you have a tremendous list of patients who would like to see you.
• 13:15
  David Bennahum: I think you may have thousands potentially.
• 13:18
  David Bennahum: Right.
• 13:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 13:19
  David Bennahum: And from your point of view, reaching all of them is a mission.
• 13:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It is.
• 13:23
  David Bennahum: But you're limited to how much time you have.
• 13:26
  David Bennahum: Only so many, Dr. Jills.
• 13:28
  David Bennahum: And so that's really the opportunity is to take that ability without losing the connection.
• 13:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I realized about, really A decade ago, 2016 is when my list closed to new patients.
• 13:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Now, still by referral, I'll take some.
• 13:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But then I realized, oh, my one one capacity is at the limit.
• 13:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: What do I do?
• 13:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 13:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And at that moment I realized I need to train the trainers, teach the teachers, influence the influencers, and be a voice in the world that is helping to advocate and to teach.
• 13:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And then something like Onyx comes along and there's this opportunity touch people's lives.
• 14:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Like already with the book and the movie and certain things, I put a lot of online content out.
• 14:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I'm able touch people who never actually see me.
• 14:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But this is one more way in my personal mission, which is how do I get this information out to the world?
• 14:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You mentioned love in the documentary.
• 14:17
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: That's a core theme.
• 14:18
  David Bennahum: Yes.
• 14:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And my definition of love is really creating a space for the optimal transformation of another human.
• 14:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And that can be a lover, a friend, a co worker, anyone, really a patient, for sure.
• 14:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And once again, with Onyx, if we do it right, which I think you've set that foundation, I believe it can be that kind of transformational space.
• 14:39
  David Bennahum: Transformation is really at the heart of, I believe, of a happy, joyous life.
• 14:44
  David Bennahum: Right.
• 14:45
  David Bennahum: If one gives up oneself.
• 14:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 14:47
  David Bennahum: It's confining.
• 14:50
  David Bennahum: And I think part of what is so amazing about the story you went through was your commitment to your personal transformation that the suffering and the hardships actually were invitations to transformation.
• 15:01
  David Bennahum: I've been practicing yoga for 27 years, nearly every day.
• 15:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow.
• 15:06
  David Bennahum: And meditation.
• 15:07
  David Bennahum: And about a year ago, I was in my yoga class practicing, and the teacher said, sometimes I give a little talk at the beginning.
• 15:15
  David Bennahum: And the teacher said, listen to your suffering.
• 15:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Your.
• 15:21
  David Bennahum: Suffering is your teacher.
• 15:24
  David Bennahum: And it really hit me, and I suddenly had, like, a mantra that came into my mind.
• 15:29
  David Bennahum: My suffering is my teacher.
• 15:33
  David Bennahum: And it was.
• 15:33
  David Bennahum: It was a bit of transformation in that moment, because I have suffering.
• 15:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: We all do.
• 15:37
  David Bennahum: Right?
• 15:38
  David Bennahum: We all do.
• 15:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: We're lying if we hide.
• 15:40
  David Bennahum: You're absolutely lying if we hide it.
• 15:43
  David Bennahum: So the question is, what will you do with your suffering?
• 15:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 15:45
  David Bennahum: And when people say, you know, why me?
• 15:47
  David Bennahum: Why me?
• 15:48
  David Bennahum: There's that famous phrase, you know, why not me?
• 15:51
  David Bennahum: Who says, you don't get to.
• 15:54
  David Bennahum: Absolutely.
• 15:55
  David Bennahum: So it's there for a reason.
• 15:57
  David Bennahum: Listen to it.
• 15:58
  David Bennahum: Learn from it.
• 15:59
  David Bennahum: And I was struck by how, in the documentary, you tell us that you were, at 25 years of age, diagnosed with the most severe form of breast cancer Loyola Medical Board had ever seen.
• 16:14
  David Bennahum: Ever seen.
• 16:15
  David Bennahum: And that you really had to advocate for yourself to that board.
• 16:18
  David Bennahum: Because I think their initial feeling was basically, I don't want to say it's a hopeless case, but it sounds.
• 16:23
  David Bennahum: Reading between the lines.
• 16:24
  David Bennahum: That's what they were saying.
• 16:26
  David Bennahum: Right.
• 16:27
  David Bennahum: So you had a certain tenacity, determination.
• 16:31
  David Bennahum: And I feel that continues to fuel the work.
• 16:36
  David Bennahum: You don't accept.
• 16:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah,.
• 16:38
  David Bennahum: Right.
• 16:38
  David Bennahum: What people say, you question it.
• 16:41
  David Bennahum: And I was struck by how you act like a detective when you were talking about learning about your Crohn's disease and really investigating how to work with that illness and questioning the medication, questioning the way the dosages were given to you.
• 16:59
  David Bennahum: Yeah,.
• 16:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: That was really.
• 17:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It was probably the most important part of my medical education.
• 17:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So it was occurring simultaneously as my medical classes and my courses.
• 17:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And of course, I took about nine months off to do chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, all the treatment.
• 17:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But in that time and to your point earlier about suffering as a teacher, and what is my suffering teaching me?
• 17:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: That really should be our question to all of our patients and inviting them to go deeper.
• 17:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Because once we take difficulty, suffering, trauma and flip it on its head and give it the power to teach and to have meaning and purpose, it changes everything, because no longer does it have the power to hold us down, to hold us back.
• 17:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It actually has the power to accelerate growth, accelerate healing, and often there's this identity around.
• 17:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Like you said, woe is me.
• 17:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Why did this happen to me?
• 17:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: If we stay there, we're bound to Stay stuck.
• 17:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And if we ask those questions of why not me?
• 17:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And then what is this here to teach me?
• 17:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And then welcome these things which sounds so bizarre.
• 18:02
  David Bennahum: Yes,.
• 18:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: We welcome the suffering.
• 18:04
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: As a teacher, I'm at the point, David, where I've been through cancer and Crohn's disease and mold related illness and.
• 18:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And many other things in my life.
• 18:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Relationship difficulties, a divorce.
• 18:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And as I've learned and grown in each one, what has happened is I have had this empowerment to realize that at this point, I don't love suffering like anyone.
• 18:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I sure hope it doesn't come tomorrow or the next week or the next month or the next year.
• 18:29
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But I know now that no matter what comes, I can handle it.
• 18:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Like, it's given me the confidence to know even if something very difficult comes, I've got the tools.
• 18:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I've been through this before.
• 18:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I'm going to be okay.
• 18:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And even if I had to face death, I'm going to be okay.
• 18:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And that's a powerful way to be in the world where you're not living in fear and reactivity.
• 18:51
  David Bennahum: So you told me on the way over here that you really wanted to be here.
• 18:56
  David Bennahum: And then you gave me the news that your grandmother had passed yesterday.
• 19:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 19:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 19:01
  David Bennahum: And so my condolences.
• 19:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Thank you.
• 19:03
  David Bennahum: For.
• 19:03
  David Bennahum: Of course.
• 19:04
  David Bennahum: Sorry to hear this.
• 19:04
  David Bennahum: And also was a bit astonished that you made the time to be together today knowing this person, your grandmother, who you love dearly, has passed.
• 19:14
  David Bennahum: And I'm wondering what that says about how you look at suffering, because I know you must be suffering right now.
• 19:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Thank you, David.
• 19:22
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And thank you for your kind condolences.
• 19:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah, it was a little.
• 19:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I wouldn't say it was a difficult decision because I knew what would grandma want me to do.
• 19:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And this woman lived her life with so much love.
• 19:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Everything was about service and love for 95 years.
• 19:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
• 19:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And what I love about her, she was such an epitome.
• 19:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I think I've got so much of her genetics in me because she was so resilient.
• 19:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She went through a great depression and survived.
• 19:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And then marriage.
• 19:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Her husband died and was alone for many years.
• 19:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And in all of that, all of us, all we ever saw was this incredibly strong, resilient woman.
• 20:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I'll give you an example.
• 20:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She got the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
• 20:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: My family looked at her when she was getting the diagnosis, and later, they weren't even sure she heard.
• 20:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I said, no, Grandma heard, but she's not letting that define her.
• 20:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She's going to go forward with what she has always done, which is move forward with grace and love and not let that thing turn her into a miserable, depressed soul.
• 20:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She did none of that.
• 20:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She got back to Illinois with my family.
• 20:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She started taking her walker out in the block of the city street and walking and trying to get strong so that she could go back to Florida to visit her friends.
• 20:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Three months later, she was strong enough.
• 20:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She'd been eating well and doing all the right stuff, getting exercise.
• 20:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She flew back and got a week with her friends in the pool.
• 20:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And this is a person with an absolute terminal diagnosis that should not have been acting like that, but she did.
• 20:51
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And then she started to go downhill.
• 20:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And as she went downhill, she was in the hospital.
• 20:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And this whole series of miracles allowed her to get flown back to Illinois with the family and be with them.
• 21:01
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And she hit her 95th birthday, she got to see her friends, and then after her 95th birthday, she got back to Illinois to be with the family, which is all my big family, which is literally five children, 10 grandchildren, of which I'm one of them.
• 21:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: 60 Great grandchildren.
• 21:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And get this, 10 great grandchildren.
• 21:22
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: That's a legacy.
• 21:24
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: A matriarch of over 80 progeny.
• 21:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Unbelievable.
• 21:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So she got back to being near all of them.
• 21:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Two days later, she passed away in her sleep.
• 21:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I just know her soul was like, I'm gonna get to Florida, I'm gonna do this.
• 21:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She's stubborn, she's strong willed, she's resilient.
• 21:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And then get back and then I'm done and I'm ready to go.
• 21:43
  David Bennahum: Yeah.
• 21:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And it was such a beautiful testimony.
• 21:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And last weekend I was teaching at two different conferences.
• 21:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And the last minute before I go on stage, I was like, I gotta talk about grandma.
• 21:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I went on and I said, nine o' clock yesterday morning, my mom calls me, says, my grandma needs a ride from Florida to Illinois.
• 21:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: How are we going to get her back?
• 21:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I make some calls and we get this angel network of a flight to get her back.
• 22:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: All this miracle happened.
• 22:04
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I called my grandma and I said, grandma, how are you doing?
• 22:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She said, oh, sweetheart, how are you doing?
• 22:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: What's new in your life?
• 22:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I love you.
• 22:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I'm fine.
• 22:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I'm ready to go.
• 22:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I'm at peace.
• 22:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I thought, what a woman.
• 22:17
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I want to be like her when I'm 95.
• 22:19
  David Bennahum: And it's a choice, you know, how are you going to relate to that transition?
• 22:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah, exactly.
• 22:24
  David Bennahum: And if you can make it a choice.
• 22:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah,.
• 22:26
  David Bennahum: It's a beautiful thing.
• 22:27
  David Bennahum: I had two people in my Life pass where they made that choice.
• 22:30
  David Bennahum: The first was my father, who passed at 58, metastatic cancer.
• 22:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So you know that well.
• 22:37
  David Bennahum: And he was diagnosed and passed in six months from start to finish, living in New York City.
• 22:43
  David Bennahum: And he made a choice very early.
• 22:45
  David Bennahum: He grieved about that his fate would be what it is.
• 22:49
  David Bennahum: And then he said, I'm gonna get complete with everybody in my life.
• 22:53
  David Bennahum: I'm gonna give them the space to say goodbye to me and leave them in a good place because there was so much sorrow.
• 23:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:00
  David Bennahum: He had many friends and like a wave of people from all over the world would come to New York for many months and almost he was holding court, you know.
• 23:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow, that is so beautiful.
• 23:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It reminds me of my grandma too.
• 23:15
  David Bennahum: And then when it came time for him to pass, he actually was at home and he was given the ability to choose when he would leave.
• 23:24
  David Bennahum: And he chose, and were all holding his hand and he chose intentionally.
• 23:29
  David Bennahum: And it was a beautiful thing to see.
• 23:31
  David Bennahum: Too short.
• 23:31
  David Bennahum: But.
• 23:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: The.
• 23:32
  David Bennahum: Lesson.
• 23:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Exactly, that we have resilience and autonomy and choice and that even death does not have to be feared if we frame it right.
• 23:42
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: People's greatest fear does not have to be that way.
• 23:45
  David Bennahum: What if it's a moment of gratitude for one's life, Whatever that was.
• 23:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: An.
• 23:49
  David Bennahum: Appreciation.
• 23:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow, that's an incredible story.
• 23:53
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So similar,.
• 23:54
  David Bennahum: I find, for you.
• 23:55
  David Bennahum: Illinois is really your roots.
• 23:57
  David Bennahum: Yes.
• 23:58
  David Bennahum: Your family emigrated there in the late 19th century.
• 24:01
  David Bennahum: They were farmers from Germany.
• 24:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 24:03
  David Bennahum: And it's also the source of some of perhaps your illness.
• 24:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 24:07
  David Bennahum: Right.
• 24:08
  David Bennahum: Yes.
• 24:08
  David Bennahum: It's a bit of a paradox or a contradiction.
• 24:11
  David Bennahum: The source of family and love and life is also the source of possibly the breast cancer because you are exposed to so many chemicals and toxins unbeknownst, Right?
• 24:22
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 24:22
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: David, I always say I had this, like, Norman Rockwell esque life with on the farm.
• 24:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I was one of five children.
• 24:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: My mother was a retired Knurler.
• 24:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: We had an acre garden and really lovely upbringing.
• 24:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And then when I got the cancer at 25, I suddenly had to be like, huh?
• 24:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And you started to go towards this quality that I love in humans.
• 24:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You have it as a journalist.
• 24:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I know.
• 24:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I have it too, as a detective.
• 24:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And that is curiosity, right?
• 24:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 24:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's my greatest gift, I think, is remaining curious.
• 24:49
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And everyone that I bring on the show, I always love because most people are very curious.
• 24:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And in that curiosity, I said, why?
• 24:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Why did this.
• 24:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Not why, like, why God, did this happen?
• 24:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Just what led to this?
• 24:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And is there something that I could learn from this?
• 25:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And so I did the investigation, realized that atrazine was still being used on the corn and bean fields of central Illinois in high doses.
• 25:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And that was a known endocrine disruptor, which means it causes estrogen related dysfunction, which could be breast cancer, prostate cancer, other things, and then many other chemicals.
• 25:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I realized that probably as early as even in utero in my mother's womb, I was getting exposed to those chemicals, which led to a very young diagnosis of cancer.
• 25:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Now, evidence to that point is my sister, who is seven years younger than me, I was 25, got diagnosed with breast cancer.
• 25:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She, at 28, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
• 25:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So two endocrine cancers, sisters, same environment.
• 25:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: To me, that makes a story that's interesting, that tells us there's something in the environment, certainly genetics too, because both of us probably didn't detoxify as well as we could have.
• 25:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But it was fascinating to learn that and then to understand that information to help patients.
• 25:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Which brings us back to Onyx, because this is the place where I can share some of this depth of knowledge that has come not only from the science and the literature, but from decades of personal experience.
• 26:06
  David Bennahum: Yes.
• 26:07
  David Bennahum: And I think because we live in a world now where the environment is so complex and a source potentially of illness, that the solutions to it are also complex and a lot of them are very personal.
• 26:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes,.
• 26:19
  David Bennahum: Right.
• 26:20
  David Bennahum: It's unfortunately true that it's on us to some degree.
• 26:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: To try to.
• 26:24
  David Bennahum: Remediate these things.
• 26:25
  David Bennahum: And that's where having the point of view of someone who can really be a native guide.
• 26:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: To.
• 26:30
  David Bennahum: Help you sort out is so important.
• 26:31
  David Bennahum: Because otherwise I would imagine it's overwhelming to think through.
• 26:34
  David Bennahum: Well, what could the source of this be?
• 26:36
  David Bennahum: Is it my food?
• 26:37
  David Bennahum: Is.
• 26:37
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It.
• 26:37
  David Bennahum: My air?
• 26:38
  David Bennahum: Is it the land?
• 26:39
  David Bennahum: Is it my house?
• 26:40
  David Bennahum: Is it something else?
• 26:43
  David Bennahum: It's overwhelming.
• 26:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It is.
• 26:44
  David Bennahum: But unfortunately it is a source of illness for many of us.
• 26:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, the environmental toxic load, which is really my specialty is environmental toxicity in medicine, is profound.
• 26:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's like the elephant in the room where people are like, why are there so many people getting viruses, getting sick, getting shingles, getting cancer?
• 27:01
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And it's really epidemically increased even since like the pre Covid era.
• 27:06
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I see a lot of that due to this toxic load.
• 27:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I always share that.
• 27:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's almost like we have a bucket ability to detox.
• 27:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And we're all born with that bucket.
• 27:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Mine was kind of small when I was born, so it didn't take long to fill and overflow.
• 27:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: If you can imagine your bucket.
• 27:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And if that water level starts to reach the top and overflow.
• 27:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: The things that we see frequently are autoimmunity of different types, cancers, and also neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, ALS, Ms. And we're seeing huge increases in all three of those.
• 27:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And then for me, the cancer and the autoimmunity with Crohn's, and I had Hashimoto's, I had multiple autoimmune diseases.
• 27:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Made perfect sense in that context.
• 27:43
  David Bennahum: You said something interesting in the documentary that struck with me about the bucket that think of it like a bucket, and your bucket gets full in a way of toxins, and there's this initial intervention where you just gotta bring the level down, not all the way, but sufficiently down that your body could potentially take over and handle the rest of the.
• 28:01
  David Bennahum: But then you pointed out the next thing, which is it's really important to ingest things, possibly eat things, breathe things that are going to help your body.
• 28:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 28:08
  David Bennahum: Kind of like you use the metaphor, maybe like glue, it'll pull out those toxins.
• 28:14
  David Bennahum: And I believe this is core to a lot of your work as a doctor, and I think it's core to this notion of what people call functional medicine.
• 28:21
  David Bennahum: And I'm wondering if you can just explain for a moment what that functional medicine philosophy is, and that you practice.
• 28:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes, yes.
• 28:29
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So two things come to mind.
• 28:30
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: One is what you've just said, which is what do we need to eliminate in order?
• 28:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So let's start with the framework.
• 28:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Our body will detox as a detox machine, and it has the ability to heal and turn cells over.
• 28:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Every day we're turning these over, we're autophagizing or getting rid of programmed cell death of the wrong guys or the ones that are getting old and decrepit and we're getting new cells.
• 28:51
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So our bone and our muscles and our skin and our tissues turns over constantly.
• 28:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Some takes a year or two and some takes months.
• 28:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Like, our gut lining is very rapid turnover.
• 29:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Our ovaries and testicles are very rapid turnover.
• 29:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Brain can be more slow.
• 29:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So all this is happening, but in that we have an opportunity to really, like, remake ourselves.
• 29:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: We can completely have a new body in 10 years if we do the right things.
• 29:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And so in that algorithm that you mentioned, it's what do we get rid of that's causing illness?
• 29:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Is that wrong medication?
• 29:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Is it a toxic load like the air that we breathe?
• 29:24
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: A lot of people don't realize 80% of our toxic load comes from the air that we breathe.
• 29:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So one of my passions is clean air, clean water, clean food.
• 29:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And that air is number one for a reason.
• 29:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And so we could be eating the wrong foods and we could be drinking unclean water or water that has contaminants.
• 29:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And nowadays, even in the state of Colorado, which is where I live, most of the water supplies that have been tested have already been contaminated with levels that are higher than allowed for.
• 29:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: PFAs, which are polyfluorinated compounds.
• 29:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Teflon, Gore Tex, those are forever chemicals, David, which means we don't even know.
• 29:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: We can't even calculate how long they stay there, let alone we don't even know what to do to get rid of them.
• 30:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And we can filter them, which is why I advocate everyone drinking filtered water.
• 30:06
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: If I'm at a hotel, I don't drink tap water.
• 30:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I only drink filtered.
• 30:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So these things that getting rid of what's toxic and then putting in the core nutrients.
• 30:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And what I find is it'd be a perfect world if we all lived in the Garden of Eden and had beautiful organic plants and that's all we ate.
• 30:22
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And there was no toxicity because we'd probably get our nutrients and our guts worked, right?
• 30:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But in our world with the toxic load, with our really vitamin deficient diets, even in the best cases, like a little case of raspberries flown in from California, two hours on a truck that's organic, the nutrient value is pretty low.
• 30:41
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So because of that, I believe that we do need to augment with nutraceuticals.
• 30:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I'm not.
• 30:48
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I mean, I try to do the least that we can, but I feel like adding in those nutrients.
• 30:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I'm giving people programs that actually have those essential nutrients as part of their work because that is essential for that tissue to regrow and the autophagy to happen.
• 31:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So get rid of the bad, put in the good.
• 31:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And again, that's where this can get complex because people are like, where do we start?
• 31:06
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: What do we do?
• 31:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And you can give very simple protocols.
• 31:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I always say, start with clean air, clean water, clean food.
• 31:14
  David Bennahum: Yeah.
• 31:15
  David Bennahum: I first really deeply understood the power of Nutrition about 15 years ago when I went to see my doctor for my annual checkup.
• 31:24
  David Bennahum: Dr. Brodsky, who was a bit like a small town doctor,.
• 31:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right?
• 31:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Very.
• 31:27
  David Bennahum: Kind, very loving man.
• 31:28
  David Bennahum: And he looked at me and he said, David, you weigh 220 pounds, you're 6, 6 foot 2, your blood work is becoming pre diabetic.
• 31:38
  David Bennahum: I've seen this story before, if you keep going the way you are, you're going to become diabetic.
• 31:44
  David Bennahum: And I said, I hear you.
• 31:46
  David Bennahum: What should I do.
• 31:46
  David Bennahum: And he said, well, typically there's pills that you could take to help control your cholesterol and so on, but I think you're young enough to change your diet, and if you're willing to change your diet, I think you could change the whole thing by changing how you eat.
• 32:01
  David Bennahum: And I said, well, Dr. Brodsky, that people say that all the time and it's really hard, and I don't think I can do it.
• 32:07
  David Bennahum: Well, my wife is a nutritionist.
• 32:09
  David Bennahum: She's down the hall.
• 32:11
  David Bennahum: Mindy, why don't you go see Mindy?
• 32:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, I love it.
• 32:14
  David Bennahum: And she'll teach you how.
• 32:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: To.
• 32:15
  David Bennahum: Eat.
• 32:15
  David Bennahum: Right.
• 32:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I love this.
• 32:17
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: For a small.
• 32:18
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I love this.
• 32:20
  David Bennahum: It's like a full service.
• 32:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right, right.
• 32:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So.
• 32:21
  David Bennahum: I go down the hall to Mindy's office, who's a small, little grandma like figure, lovely human being.
• 32:28
  David Bennahum: And she put me on basically a low carbohydrate, high vegetable, lean protein diet.
• 32:32
  David Bennahum: And I followed it assiduously, and I wound up losing 55 pounds in about five months.
• 32:39
  David Bennahum: Like,.
• 32:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It.
• 32:40
  David Bennahum: Was fast.
• 32:40
  David Bennahum: I think that was just how it went.
• 32:41
  David Bennahum: And here we are 15 years later, and I managed to maintain the diet.
• 32:46
  David Bennahum: I had my blood test recently, and it was really moving.
• 32:51
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Amazing.
• 32:52
  David Bennahum: The numbers were like a person in their 30s.
• 32:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow.
• 32:55
  David Bennahum: And completely transformed.
• 32:56
  David Bennahum: And without any medication.
• 32:57
  David Bennahum: Right.
• 32:58
  David Bennahum: It was just purely through diet.
• 33:00
  David Bennahum: The power to heal.
• 33:01
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Exactly.
• 33:01
  David Bennahum: Because after all, we are what we eat.
• 33:03
  David Bennahum: Among other.
• 33:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Things.
• 33:04
  David Bennahum: Right.
• 33:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: People forget that power.
• 33:06
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And physicians in medical school.
• 33:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I love that this guy was very adamant about, you can do it.
• 33:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Because we're taught, oh, people won't change.
• 33:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Don't even bother.
• 33:15
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Like, how ridiculous is that?
• 33:17
  David Bennahum: But there's a little twist, which is it's hard to do it by herself.
• 33:20
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes, you're right.
• 33:21
  David Bennahum: And Mindy was a very loving and kind person who had me come in every week for.
• 33:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: A.
• 33:26
  David Bennahum: Weigh in and a check in.
• 33:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, that's accountability.
• 33:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right,.
• 33:28
  David Bennahum: Accountability.
• 33:30
  David Bennahum: My wife, very loving and kind, changed the whole way she cooked.
• 33:34
  David Bennahum: Actually, she was delighted to do.
• 33:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It.
• 33:36
  David Bennahum: She had been a fruitarian for some years before, so.
• 33:38
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She.
• 33:38
  David Bennahum: Was thrilled.
• 33:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Sure, I can do this.
• 33:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: To.
• 33:40
  David Bennahum: Do this.
• 33:41
  David Bennahum: And so I had a lot of support.
• 33:42
  David Bennahum: And I think that's the other thing that, by the way, came up in your documentary as well, that healing is a.
• 33:47
  David Bennahum: Is a community sport.
• 33:49
  David Bennahum: It's very hard to do alone.
• 33:51
  David Bennahum: And we live in a world, as we've been talking about, where it's easy to become alone.
• 33:55
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 33:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Wow, that's a great word and a great transition, because I feel like that the future so we have AI over here and people are kind of in there.
• 34:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And you started out our conversation with the whole dilemma, social dilemma.
• 34:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: We could say yes,.
• 34:10
  David Bennahum: If.
• 34:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: You know that reference, right?
• 34:11
  David Bennahum: I saw the film.
• 34:12
  David Bennahum: Yes.
• 34:12
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And so a friend of mine edited, so I know it well.
• 34:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And in that, we saw the deliberate attempt to manipulate our dopamine circuits with technology.
• 34:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Children, adults, everyone.
• 34:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And we've all been susceptible, all of us, no matter what we think about social media, we are all in that loop because it's inevitable.
• 34:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's so powerful.
• 34:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So in that, there's also this disconnect that's happening.
• 34:39
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And what you see, I'm sure with AI, I'd actually love your opinion on this, but what I see at least is these silos and.
• 34:44
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And each silo now has their own voice, their own AI telling them exactly what they want to hear.
• 34:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So it's diversifying, it's keeping people apart, it's creating dichotomies, it's creating division more than ever before.
• 34:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And I believe the future of.
• 35:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Part of what I want to do and teach and be is creating community, creating connection, creating this place where we feel like we are together in community or that people feel held, just like Mindy, you know, kind of metaphorically held your hand.
• 35:14
  David Bennahum: One of the things we built early on with Onyx is the idea that you can have a group chat with the Dr. Jill Onyx, meaning like the individual coming in there, maybe with their spouse or their parent or their child, who's deeply invested in their healing journey, can participate in that conversation together.
• 35:33
  David Bennahum: So again, it isn't necessarily a solitary.
• 35:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Of.
• 35:36
  David Bennahum: Course, you could talk one one, but you can have a group conversation.
• 35:39
  David Bennahum: And what we discovered with a lot of folks is they'll often be one person who's using the AI to kind of get insights around what to do and then sending that back through screenshots and notes to the rest of the family to get them to agree.
• 35:53
  David Bennahum: And it's a lot of work to do this, like education,.
• 35:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right?
• 35:57
  David Bennahum: Why not just bring everyone into the conversation?
• 35:59
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Oh, I love that.
• 36:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And what I love is it's really different because if you're using the Onix created for my content, you're not going to just get what you want to hear.
• 36:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I'm not, you know, my.
• 36:10
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: My knee.
• 36:11
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's going to be all the work, the body of work, but it's very different because you're not going to be hearing parroted words that are like, oh, should I break up with myself?
• 36:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes, of course.
• 36:19
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: She's treating, you know, like I think a lot of you out there are hearing these things that are just telling them exactly what they want to hear.
• 36:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Very narcissistic, like.
• 36:26
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right.
• 36:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And so this is different.
• 36:29
  David Bennahum: It really is.
• 36:30
  David Bennahum: It's been trained to say, no,.
• 36:31
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I love it.
• 36:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 36:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Which is appropriate.
• 36:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Right?
• 36:34
  David Bennahum: If it doesn't know about something.
• 36:36
  David Bennahum: Yes.
• 36:36
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It'll say, I don't know.
• 36:38
  David Bennahum: And part of what I think, philosophically, you alluded to social media, dopamine loops, and AI as it's emerged in the world.
• 36:47
  David Bennahum: It's very much an extension of some of that, unfortunately.
• 36:51
  David Bennahum: And I've come to this realization came a little bit from reading things like Silent Spring and books around food and ecology a few months ago.
• 37:00
  David Bennahum: I really came to this consciousness that this is processed intelligence.
• 37:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 37:05
  David Bennahum: What we think of.
• 37:06
  David Bennahum: That's.
• 37:07
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: A great way to think of it.
• 37:08
  David Bennahum: Processed intelligence.
• 37:09
  David Bennahum: And what does that actually mean?
• 37:10
  David Bennahum: It means it's this mining machine that goes on the Internet.
• 37:14
  David Bennahum: It takes all this knowledge from wherever it can find it.
• 37:17
  David Bennahum: A bit of Dr. Jill, a bit of Albert Einstein, a bit of Reddit, a bit of everything.
• 37:24
  David Bennahum: And it puts it into this giant fantasy factory and it grinds it up into a paste of words, and it's just a statistical engine.
• 37:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: That.
• 37:33
  David Bennahum: Has the probability of what word should follow the next, and it doesn't really know where the words came from.
• 37:39
  David Bennahum: Does it make any sense to mix Dr. Jill's words with stuff on Reddit that Dr. Jill might not agree with whatsoever?
• 37:48
  David Bennahum: The answer is probably not.
• 37:50
  David Bennahum: But the machine is indifferent.
• 37:51
  David Bennahum: It has no ability to discern that.
• 37:53
  David Bennahum: It just produces a kind of paste of words, and then people us read that paste of words and it makes you sick.
• 38:02
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: In.
• 38:02
  David Bennahum: The brain.
• 38:03
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And it's articulate enough to be very convincing, even if it's hallucinating.
• 38:08
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So I think that's so.
• 38:09
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And we've seen that over and over with stories all over the place of, like, these.
• 38:13
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Absolutely false.
• 38:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I just heard Arthur Brooks, who is an author I love, and among many, but he was talking just a couple days ago about the psychopathy of AI, and I'm like, oh.
• 38:23
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Because what he's seen is in relationships and stuff, someone will go and be like, oh, this happened in my movie.
• 38:27
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And.
• 38:28
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And this advice that they're giving is really from a cold machine.
• 38:32
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It's not empathetic.
• 38:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And it's not.
• 38:34
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It may say, oh, your husband's a narcissist, or this or that, or you should, you know, this idea of people in relationships getting bad advice.
• 38:40
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And it might not be just relationships, it could be work it could be leaving a job, it could be your, you know, environment.
• 38:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But the.
• 38:46
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: There's no heart.
• 38:47
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: There's no heart.
• 38:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So I really love that.
• 38:50
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Again, I feel like you're bringing in this inevitable world of AI, which I am embracing because there is no going back.
• 38:56
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: It just is what it is.
• 38:57
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: How.
• 38:57
  David Bennahum: Do we build it right?
• 38:58
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: How do we do it the right way?
• 39:00
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So this is a great segue to tell people a little bit more about like, not only Onyx itself, but how do they get involved and kind of like why we're here?
• 39:08
  David Bennahum: Well, we've carefully been building this for the last, I'd say year, and we're privileged to have a collection about 30 world class invited experts on the platform, mostly in functional medicine like yourself.
• 39:21
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yeah.
• 39:21
  David Bennahum: And they all exist in an application called Onyx O N I X.
• 39:26
  David Bennahum: And that application is on the iPhone.
• 39:29
  David Bennahum: It'll be on Android too, but for now it's only on iPhone.
• 39:33
  David Bennahum: And you can go to the App Store.
• 39:34
  David Bennahum: You can type in Onix, Onyx Health, H E A L T H Onyx Health.
• 39:39
  David Bennahum: And you'll see it.
• 39:40
  David Bennahum: And we've been very quiet about it.
• 39:41
  David Bennahum: We are only now starting to talk about it because we wanted to make sure the attention to detail was really there.
• 39:48
  David Bennahum: So you are now on this platform as Dr. Jill.
• 39:51
  David Bennahum: It is going to be integrating with many of the things that you do outside of AI, the supplements, the knowledge, the learning, et cetera.
• 40:00
  David Bennahum: But really, at the end of the day, it's meant to be a source, a resource for people who otherwise couldn't come and be with you in a highly personalized and private way.
• 40:09
  David Bennahum: Where none of those chats are used to train anything.
• 40:14
  David Bennahum: You can't see the chats unless the person somehow decides to send them to you.
• 40:18
  David Bennahum: And we certainly can't see them as a company.
• 40:20
  David Bennahum: And that's our pledge to everyone.
• 40:21
  David Bennahum: We believe privacy is actually fundamental to trust.
• 40:24
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Yes.
• 40:25
  David Bennahum: And absent trust, people don't really share.
• 40:28
  David Bennahum: So we're seeing people getting really beautiful value out of this experience and we're just at the beginning of this journey together.
• 40:35
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Hey guys, thanks for joining me for this incredible episode with David live at Medium Film's studio in Boulder, Colorado.
• 40:43
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: If you want to know more about Onyx, it's O N I X.
• 40:45
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And you can go to Onyx Life or you can go to the Apple iPhone app and download the app there to check it out.
• 40:52
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I hope you'll give it a chance.
• 40:54
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: And as we talked about, I think one of the most important things I want to end with is this doesn't replace your doctor or even seeing me or my clinical staff in person because we want that community.
• 41:05
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: But this is an incredible adjuvant for those who either don't have access to that or want to know more about how to plan for their health and ask questions on my platform.
• 41:14
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: So check it out.
• 41:16
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: As always, we'd love if you'd leave a review wherever you're listening to this podcast, and please join the over 1 million subscribers on YouTube.
• 41:25
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: Hit that subscribe button, click the bell to be notified of future episodes, and as you know, we have a new episode out every single week.
• 41:33
  Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD: I'll see you next time for another episode of Resiliency Radio.